Psychic Disequilibrium

I’ve been playing around on Second Life, watching machinima, and viewing videos on YouTube. I don’t know how or why to incorporate these into a movie. I can’t decide on my final project (although I have one good idea) because I don’t think I can produce something decent using Second Life or video game or anime footage. I am not familiar with the plots and visuals of the many episodes and I could spend the rest of my life searching for preexisting visuals out there in cyberspace. (And if I did find them, I don’t know how to capture and edit them.) I need to know much more about the content and how to manipulate the various technologies before I can move forward. When I speak to faculty members and students at my school about the above topics (thinking maybe we could collaborate on something) they are not familiar with what I’m talking about I’m usually excited by a challenge and having to generate ideas, but now I don’t feel at all in control of my narrative, creativity, progress, etc. – (way) out of my element, immobilized. In Sara B. Kajder’s article “Personal Narrative and Digital Storytelling” she quotes Adrienne Rich in describing how her students might feel: “when someone with authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.” That’s a bit how I feel right now. Hopefully it’s the darkness before the storm (and/or the light?). Is anyone else having a similar experience, and how are you dealing with it?

On a practical note: Does anyone know where I can view interesting ways SL is being used out there (aside from just playing)? Also, other avatars are speaking to me in Spanish although I always click “I speak English.” Is there anything I can do about that? How can I make my own avatar talk?