Gateaux is talking about “machinima,” a compound term for machine cinema, a filmmaking subgenre that describes the computer-generated imagery shot inside a 3-D mechanism. Thus far, machinima’s biggest crossover success has been Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, a sitcom shot entirely inside the XBox multiplayer game Halo; the New York Times Magazine profiled its twentysomething creators last summer. Those same Red vs. Blue creators, Rooster Teeth Productions, have since produced a 17-part series using The Sims 2 called Strangerhood, which Gateaux uses to gauge how he can do better. “With machinima, your possibilities are endless,” he types, while standing on barren grass outside the soundstage. “If you ask me, you can do much better in SL cuz in SL you have the ability to make every animation or object that you want.” That includes props, sets, and characters who can change outfits, hairstyles, or gender with a few clicks.

Already, SL machinima creations are spilling out of Second Life. This past March, Silver Bells and Golden Spurs , a Western shot “on location in Second Life,” screened at the South by Southwest Festival. Plus, SL machinima shorts are posted online and added to YouTube almost daily. Right now, you can find “Better Life,” a music-video-styled meditation on an avatar-man and his loneliness, shot by resident Robbie Dingo; an evening-news-narrated segment on intermittent SL events created by avatar auteur Pierce Portocarrero; and “Video Camping,” a two-plus-minute Blair Witch Project homage that’s actually an advertisement for an SL video camera (that doesn’t actually record anything; it’s just an avatar accessory). Residents are even vlogging about their avatar lives: Tao Takashi narrates the avatar life of an Asian-sounding name with a distinctly German-sounding voice. Linden encourages such creativity, and recently announced that it will hold a second-annual SL trailer contest; the best entry will win L$100,000 — or about USD$300.

Other creative disciplines are toying with the technology. Science-fiction author and Boing Boing blogger Cory Doctorow has appeared in-world for two book releases, the most recent of which had him clicking on virtual copies of his book, thereby autographing them. “Live” audio performances also take place in Second Life. A resident can sit at home and sing into a headset or a microphone that transmits his or her real-world voice through a Shoutcast server; it looks like the audio is being projected by the avatar.

THE NEW HOLLYWOOD: Sliver Bells and Golden Spurs, a short filim shot entirely in Second Life

“I would love to be able to get involved with an artist having virtual concerts,” says Jeff Watson, senior director of new media at Warner Brothers Records, who helped orchestrate the in-world listening station for Regina Spektor. Spektor’s SL pad is a NYC-style loft with a reel-to-reel that streams six songs from the record, hardwood floors that glow colors corresponding to each track’s mood, and a clever furniture-piece tie-in: click on a glass coffee table underneath the tape player and a URL for a Stylehive.com page vending a $450 real-world model of the very same table comes up. “You could have a fan interview or an interview with a journalist or a roundtable — you could completely geek out in this thing,” Watson continues. “I would love to even have a band record a special Second Life song and sell it with Linden bucks.”

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“We think of this as like 3-D album art,” says Watson’s Warner Brothers collaborator Ethan Kaplan. “It’s about enhancing the experience, and the possibilities are endless. For a rap artist, you build a 50-feet-tall Hummer.” Then he adds, “For Slayer [who’s also on WBR], you could build, I dunno, an underworld?” It likely won’t be long before Second Life spawns its own version of Gorillaz.

SL is already creating its own marquee names. Take Aimee Weber (her avatar name), an SL fashion designer who left her real-world job to work in Second Life full-time. Thus far, her two highest-profile projects have been the Regina Spektor listening station and the American Apparel store. “I think Second Life will be like the Web eventually,” says Weber. “Almost everything cool will need to have a 3-D presence online. Just like now if you say that a company doesn’t have a Web page, you’re kind of like, ‘What happened? Why no page?’ I think that’ll happen with 3-D.”