Last year my friend asked me to help out with language audio tweaking. Afterwards, I attended a few of her classes and saw previous works to help enhance the language training, and decided that help was needed in film as well.
Another friend showed me a site where help could be attained through funding. The First People's Cultural Council was able to give me a grant to complete the film work. And so my story begins....
I had originally wanted to do the work through Second Life© (SL), a 3D engine program that allows people to have an avatar, and to create and play online. Circumstances changed, and now I am using Kitely, which is another 3D engine but opensource.
I chose 3D because of its immersive qualities, and with 50% of the local First Nations ranging in age 25 and under, I thought this was the perfect venue for learning more of our own Halkomelem language.
I spent 3 years in SL learning how to build, create, and make new connections worldwide. I didn't have a Premium account which gives you the option of owning land, but I did have access to 'Free Builder' groups which gave me an area to call my own and build upon (as long as I taught others how to do things as well). The lessons I learned in SL are easily transferred to other 3D sites, and going into Kitely, for me, was very easy.