Alter ego: in-game sequences add drama to Second Skin movie.(Film)

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are just that, games. Yet, for the millions of people who play them, they are a means of escaping from everyday life, offering the ability, to become someone--or something--else.

MMORPG players invest a significant amount of time "living" inside their virtual world of choice, whether it's World of Warcraft (WoW), Second Life, EverQuest, or some other alternate-reality universe (see Editor's Note, pg. 2). At times, players' friendships inside these games are just as strong, or even stronger, than their real-life bonds. This despite the fact that they know almost nothing about their cyber buddies outside the boundaries of the virtual, make-believe worlds in which they live and play.

So, who are some of the real people who inhabit these worlds? Are they anything like their alter egos? And, what happens when reality starts intruding on fantasy, and vice versa? Those are some of the issues that are brought to light in the documentary Second Skin from Pure West Films. The movie, which introduces viewers to some real people who populate online virtual worlds, utilizes in-game sequences to punctuate the information and contrast the real and alternate lives of several gamers who are the subject of the live-action movie. "The documentary focuses on how being an avid gamer has transformed and affected their lives over the course of a few years," says Juan Carlos Pineiro, Escoriaza, editor of Second Skin.

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Welcome to My Life

The documentary is Escoriaza's first feature film. He, along with a small crew, began working on the project in early 2006 and completed it just in time for its debut at the SXSW film festival in the spring of 2008. Since then, Second Skin has been shown at other festivals and will hit select theaters this spring, followed by a DVD release shortly thereafter.

So what made Escoriaza choose such an unusual subject matter? As the filmmaker tells it, he was introduced to these alternate worlds by two avid players: his brother, Victor (one of the film's producers), and a mutual friend. "Just going into a virtual setting for the first time and seeing these other people interacting with each other in this alternate world was amazing," he says. "Our friend had all these responsibilities in the game and was getting married in real life. It took a strange turn because he was so invested in the game that he had difficultly managing his time between the two worlds--the real and the virtual--because both were important to him."