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Behind The Scenes With 'The Office' In Second Life

Steve Nelson, an executive VP at Internet marketing company Clear Ink, took me behind the scenes last week for the TV show The Office in Second Life. The company created an elaborate Second Life sequence -- most of which ended on the cutting room floor. I'm hopeful we'll see the rest of The Office's Second Life adventures later this season.

On the show, we learn that Dwight Schrute -- the Frank Burns of The Office -- has been active in Second Life for the past year. He got involved in Second Life, he explains, because he loved his first life so much that he wanted more. Now that his first life has gone sour, he has retreated into the virtual world, going so far as to build his own "Second Second Life" inside Second Life, because retreating into Second Life isn't far enough.

We see a couple of minutes of Dwight's avatar flying around Second Life, as well as a close-up of another avatar that Jim, the show's hero and Dwight's nemesis, has built for himself.

YouTube has a clip where Dwight introduces Second Life to Jim and to us, the audience:

I talked with Clear Ink's Nelson on the phone and in-world Thursday afternoon, a few hours before the show's premiere.

The production started with a phone call from Kent Zbornak, co-executive producer of The Office, just a month ago, Nelson said. Clear Ink received a copy of the script, and set to work creating the Second Life sequences.

The work Clear Ink did for The Office is an example of machinima , video animation created in a game or virtual world. One of the weird and wonderful things about machinima in Second Life is that it's very much like filming in the real world. Clear Ink did the things that a real-world production company does when creating a video:

• They scouted locations. Where they couldn't find suitable locations, they built sets.

• They bought wardrobe and props.

• They lined up extras. Like real-world extras, the avatars used in the sequence proved tricky to manage, prone to hamming it up and trying to steal scenes.

• And then they got it all together and filmed and edited the results.

"We shot about eight different scenes," Nelson said. "Five of them were in locations that we found in the real Second Life, and three were sets that we created." Clear Ink also created avatars for Dwight and Jim, which closely resembled the characters on TV.

Clear Ink shot about 21 minutes of video, and only about two minutes made it to viewers. However, the scenes were so open-ended that I'm optimistic that we're just seeing the setup for future stories to play out over the course of the season.

Nelson gave me a tour of Clear Ink's production sets. They included a simplified version of the offices shown in The Office, with Pam's reception desk featured prominently.

The Second Life area also includes a neighborhood bar, a city street, a paintball field, and, on the second floor of one of the buildings on the street, Dwight's apartment.

(Yes, I know that in the show Dwight doesn't live in an apartment; he lives on a beet farm. But, Nelson explained, for the purpose of this episode, Dwight lives in a Scranton apartment. Nelson didn't resolve the discrepancy, and it didn't come up on the Thursday episode.)

A barroom. That's my avatar, Ziggy Figaro, on the left, standing next to Nelson's avatar, Kiwini Oe, in the Schrute Farms Beets sweatshirt.

The Dunder Mifflin offices. That's Troi Timtam, avatar designer and builder, between me and Nelson.

Dwight's Scranton apartment.

Exterior of the Dunder Mifflin offices.

Clear Ink's previous experience with Second Life includes building an in-world version of Capitol Hill, later used by Newt Gingrich for a political conference in Second Life. "Of the real-life public figures I've seen in Second Life, he was probably the one who most knew what he was doing. He drove his own avatar, he wanted to get in and do the trial runs and do it all himself. He came to Capitol Hill and talked to Democrats, Republicans, protesters, furries, humans, robots -- he handled himself well," Nelsons said.

Clear Ink has been around for 12 years as a digital marketing company. Its first real client in Second Life was Autodesk, developing both the Autodesk Island in Second Life and helping look at issues of importing and exporting data. The company brought the TED Conference to Second Life last year. And the company represents Sun in Second Life as well.

Clear Ink also works on rich media experiences, such as a game for Autodesk that explains its products to potential customers. The company has about 45 employees, about five of whom concentrate on Second Life.

I asked Nelson whether any of the actors and producers of The Office are active in Second Life. He said he believes they are, although he doesn't know for sure. He said the screenplay for the episode was sophisticated about Second Life, and showed familiarity with it, leading him to conjecture that the author might be active in SL. The script was written by BJ Novak, who also produces the show and, onscreen, plays Ryan, the egotistical temp promoted to upper management.

Realizing that the show would be scrutinized for authenticity by Second Life residents, Clear Ink shot some scenes at well-known Second Life locations, including the Blarney Stone pub, Boardman, and virtual Amsterdam and Mesopotamia.

The Office's Second Life involvement has taken on a life of its own in Second Life. Residents send instant messages to "Dwight Shelford," the avatar that Clear Ink created for Dwight Schrute. "It's a second-order approximation of reality. People are IMing the avatar of a fictional character," Nelson said.

Clear Ink created a group for "Shelford" to be a member of -- Dunder Mifflin Paper Company -- and the group has turned into a Second Life The Office fan club, as residents discovered it. I've been getting a bunch of instant messages over the group's channel since I joined, even one (with a landmark) from Jim himself.

A LiveJournal user named "semby" did a detailed report on LiveJournal of Second Life's The Office location and community.

And Aleister Kronos analyzes The Office's approach to Second Life as compared with the much bigger-budget and splashier effort made by CSI: NY. He describes The Office's approach as "viral." I don't care for the word "viral" -- I don't think it means anything -- but he makes a good point nonetheless: CSI: NY spent a lot of money and marketing resources, while The Office is going low-key. The Office's fan base in Second Life is building largely by word-of-mouth and blogs, whereas CSI: NY relies more in conventional TV, print, and Internet advertising

I don't know if The Office ever intended to build a fan base inside Second Life. I think they may have just intended to shoot machinima in-world, and the community just sort of sprung up accidently.

The Office's Second Life sets were very well done, and we only got to see a glimpse of them on the show last week. The care taken with the sets hints at a good story. I really hope The Office returns to Second Life, so we can see more.

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