User:Phaylen Fairchild

ABOUT

Charter Member Phaylen Fairchild began her Second life on New Years Eve 2002, making her one of the oldest virtual residents on the Second Life Grid today. Her passion began primarily in MMORPG's, which she later integrated into her real life work, starting as Assistant Site Manager for The Warcry networks Everquest 2 community site and soon taking on the task of Site Manager for Warcry's Matrix Online Portal. During her time at Warcry, Phaylen worked eventually worked actively across all the networks community sites, including the Central Hub where she managed and provided content, recruited volunteers, developed incentive programs and worked with game developers to strategize the release of information regarding high profile titles to ensure maximum demographic exposure. While at Warcry, she was the first to interview ex-VP of Marketing and Community Development for Linden Lab.

In the early days of Second Life, it was not uncommon for Linden Lab to phone residents to inquire about their thoughts and suggestions on the development of the new world and Miss Harper and Phaylen spoke often regarding it's direction and future.

After leaving Warcry, Phaylen moved on to IGN to join their budding World Of Warcraft community portal team. Similar to her position at Warcry, she wrote content for the website, hired volunteer staff and moderated the community forums. She developed a strong working relationship with the Developers at Blizzard and participated in the very early stages of their Alpha Phase.

Phaylen eventually left behind her virtual duties to resume her longtime aspiration of writing Screenplays and Novels which she has set aside prematurely years before when she achieved success as an award winning writer at the age of twenty. While still dabbling in Second Life in her spare time, she discovered it's potential for storytelling and eventually began filming short sequences within the platform. Soon, she had taught herself to use advanced editing software and special effects programs and the hobby of virtual film making became a irreplaceable creative outlet which she utilizes to this day.

LINDEN LAB EVENTS

Phaylen was the creator of the first interactive gridwide event in March 2003 with her well-devised Alice in Wonderland themed scavenger hunt. Many residents attended, and found themselves greeted by Alice herself (Portrayed by Fairchild) who commissioned their help to retrieve a destructive Oracle that had fallen into the possession of the vicious Queen Of Hearts (Portrayed by ex-Linden Lab Employee Jennifer Linden.) Because betraying ears lurked in unseen places, She set them out on a gridwide adventure spanning all 12 sims where riddles would lead them to encounters with iconic characters from the story itself including the White Rabbit, The Wise Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat, all who lead them to their place of final conflict with the Queen Of Hearts where players literally engaged in a combat scenario with her, attempting to knock her from the catwalks of the Rizal Sports Arena to retrieve the Oracle and return it to Alice.

During her early days in Second Life, Phaylen also performed in the role of Official Instructor, teaching residents to build. She was also active in the Mentorship program where she acclimated new residents to the virtual environment. Many early residents recall her as their first teacher.

As the grid evolved, so did Phaylen, who was actually the the first Prim Dress designer. In 2005 she devised a program that would honor the efforts and achievements of residents in Second Life in a sort of Virtual Oscars Ceremony. For a month, Residents submitted nominees in a plethora of categories such as "Achievement in Design" and "Notable Group Achievment." In the second month, nominees submissions were counted and narrowed down to five finalists per category, and residents then were asked to vote between them. The event culminated in a huge ceremony, complete with red carpet in a custom built auditorium where award were handed out. Phaylen had commissioned real life artist T. King, the lead designer for the Sony MMORPG Vanguard: Saga Of Heroes to create the award statuette that would be distributed.

In 2006, Phaylen was asked by the creators of the real world television show Big Brother to participate as a contestant in their virtual version of the popular series. She remained in the house with 11 other residents including Kit Maitland (who would later become her co-star in the long running virtual Sitcom DiVAS.) After her eviction in week six, Phaylen joined the Endemol Virtual Team, who intended to transition more of their intellectual properties to the virtual platform, as a consultant and producer of their content. She assisted with the development of their follow-up to Big Brother, Tila Tequila's Paradise, a region dedicated to the reality television star and internet phenom Tila Tequila, who was to film her music video virtually. Phaylen also created Tila's line of clothing from real to virtual on Endemol's behalf as well as supervising development of the region.

Once that role was completed, Phaylen was approached by Italian producers from Magnolia Television who had seen her in Big Brother and knew of her work with Endemol. Their goal was to transition their own intellectual property from real to virtual. Magnolia producers are the originators of the worldwide franchise Survivor. Phaylen came on board as a consultant and co-organizor of the event, blogging for the English speaking audience of Italian broadcaster Rai.Due TV. The show was aired on television once weekly in Germany, Japan and Italy, and the live stream was accessible throughout the duration of the event via Rai.Due's official website. The show was an enormous commercial success.

Coming off of Survivor: Second Life, Phaylen was approached by a friend to organize the first Day of Remembrance which celebrated the lives Virtual residents who had passed away. As a community advocate, Phaylen agreed. In the process of organization, Linden Lab decided to make the Event Official by sponsoring it and assigning a liaison to work with the team. With the support of Dusty Linden, Phaylen lead a phenomenal team through the organization of an event that spanned 24 hours of live music and events. The event fetched incredibly community support and the success of it reached real world media outlets.

After Day Of Remembrance, Phaylen began production on DiVAS, a sitcom filmed within the virtual world. Originally conceived as a vehicle for actor Damon Wayans and actress Molly Shannon while Phaylen worked in Hollywood, she altered the lead characters and the setting but kept the colorful sense of humor. The first episode of DiVAS premiered on December 1st, 2007. The series garnered a lot of praise from both the community and the outside world from educators and spectators who had been watching the development of various types of content coming from Second Life. One Professor is quoted saying "As for Machinima in Second Life it seems my experience is just the tip of the iceberg. A media company has produced a virtual comedy series using Second Life... 5 episodes so far called "Divas" sort of a cross between 'Desperate Housewives' and the Film 'Death Becomes Her'."

Past Projects

2005

• The 2005 Metaverse Awards Program - Primary Organizer

2006

• Endemol Entertainment Presents Virtual Big Brother [1]
• Endemol Entertainment Present Tila Tequila's Virtual Paradise - Consultant & Designer

2008

• Burning Life 08 - Communications Lead BL08
• SL5B - Lead Resident Organizer - Link to SL5B
• Day of Remembrance 08 - Primary Resident Organizer - Link to DOR
• SLCC 2008 - Second Life Community Convention in-world events - Primary Resident Organizer
• Isola Dei' Famosi: Second Life Second Life Celebrity Survivor - Produced by Magnolia TV - Virtual Consultant & Marketing

2009

• SL6B - Second Life's 6th Birthday Celebration - Lead Resident Organizer - June 09
• SLCC 2009 - Second Life Community Convention in-world events - Main Organizer
• Phaylen Live! A One Hour Live Comedy Special took place on December 13th, 2009

2010

• Virtual Media And Entertainment Conference - Host and Main Organizer

Machinima Projects

A selection of some of her recent Projects:

• DiVAS: A Virtual Sitcom
• Burning Life 08 Cinematic Trailer
• I Wanna Be A Celebrity reality series on Metaverse Television
• University of Idaho: Interview apparel by Bull & Bear fashion
• Angels vs. Demons Official Game cinematic trailer
• Burning Life 09 Cinematic Trailer

Phaylen On The Web

• Official Site
• On Twitter
• Official DiVAS Website
• On Youtube
• On Plurk
• On Koinup
• On Facebook
• On Myspace
• On Flickr