Libertaria: The VIrtual Opera Video on Demand, YouTube, Vimeo and more. What's a Filmmaker to Do? Recently I joined the throngs of indie filmmaker's with my first feature length film Libertaria: The Virtual Opera , a cutting edge animated sci-fi opera that delves into futuristic apocalypse, genetics, and complex family relationships and is complete with singing death scenes as all good operas are!  So now that I have my own indie film, what do I do?  There are a few options: Send out to film festivals, hope for distribution, scope out theaters for screenings, self distribute, sell the film on a street corner.  The results are endless. Fortunately for me, this is the 21st century. Instead of trekking rolls of film to Hollywood and trying to hock the film, indie filmmakers have a lot of options. Considering that Libertaria: The Virtual Opera was created using crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, a volunteer cast and crew, and self-funding, I don't need to worry about...

 Who : Classical Concerts at Calvary   Wha t: World Premiere Screening of LIBERTARIA: THE VIRTUAL OPERA, by Sabrina Peña Young   Where : Calvary United Methodist Church, 301 1st Ave. South, Lake Worth (Federal Hwy & 1st Ave. South, 1 blk. south of Lake Ave. in downtown Lake Worth)   When : 3:00 P.M., Saturday, October 5th   Cost : $10 Donation. FREE admission for students (w/ID).   Contact : Call the church office at 561-585-1786 or email shoreclare@aol.com Classical Concerts at Calvary is pleased to present the World Premiere Screening of the very first totally animated opera created exclusively in cyberspace – Sabrina Peña Young’s LIBERTARIA: THE VIRTUAL OPERA, at 3:00 P.M. on Saturday, October 5, 2013 at Calvary United Methodist Church in downtown Lake Worth. Prior to the screening (promptly at 3:00) Greg Stepanich, music critic, composer and founder of the Palm Beach ArtsPaper, will lead a discussion with Peña Young and select cast members...

Image via CrunchBase The Digital Age has literally exploded the amount of talent that is available to the emerging artist. With a little bit of electronic savvy, you can collaborate with musicians, filmmakers, composers, actors, and visual artists from all over the globe. But screening talent virtually can get complicated. For Libertaria: The Virtual Opera , an animated opera produced entirely online, I used Music Xray to find talented opera and pop singers.  What is Music Xray? Music Xray i s an online platform that is meant to connect artists to music companies and producers. Typically artists pay a small fee to get their work heard by a professional, although the music pro can waive the fee which leaves the artist only paying the Music Xray handling fee (about $4). The site itself has had some controversy for not properly vetting music producers and for taking advantage of musicians through music pros that aren't properly vetted. On the other hand many musicians ha...

For those who have been wondering about the hiatus here at the New Music Resource, wonder no more! The past six months I have been working on a sci-fi machinima musical Libertaria: The Virtual Opera . Created almost entirely in the machinima software platform Moviestorm and scored with a catchy combo of electronic music, film scores, and dramatic vocals, Libertaria has been an incredible collaborative project. Moviestorm has been an excellent and inexpensive way to create an entire epic sci-fi tale for a minimal amount of resources. Almost three years ago I started using Moviestorm for a variety of video projects, and then decided to make an entire feature length musical using only machinima. The project proved challenging, involved a couple of dozen singers, animators, and other artistic professionals volunteering their talent and resources to create an incredible feature. W atch a the lo-res version of  the song Pilar of the Underground from Libertaria: The Virtual Opera : ...

Independent filmmakers, visual artists, and composers are starting to use machinima more and more in serious artistic pursuits. Machinima, animation using video game engines, has matured considerably in the last few years to something for Fanboys of Quake and World of Warcraft to a viable way of making an affordable feature length animated film.There are several machinima software options available to the aspiring machinima filmmaker. As a musician that wanted to make an opera using machinima, I found that Moviestorm, a UK-based machinima platform, was easy to use and affordable. Below you can see a rough cut of Baby Machine from Libertaria: The Virtual Opera .   As you can see from the clip, I was able to create a quick sci-fi machinima scene without too much of a learning curve. Some Moviestorm animators have made great headway in making incredible original mods and new animations for the characters. One of the drawbacks of Moviestorm is that initially you are limited by th...