Machinima, a portmanteau of machine cinema, is filmmaking within a real-time, three-dimensional virtual environment which often uses 3D video game technologies. The first machinima film, entitled, Diary of a Camper, was originally created in 1996 by the Rangers (United Ranger Films) using Quake and was inspired by 1993′s Doom, which allowed players the ability to record gameplay. However, the term machinima was not coined until 1998 in response to an increasing use of other game engines to create movies.

It is now 2007. Less than ten years later, machinima is reaching new heights. As posted by Xeni on Boing Boing today, HBO has decided to purchase the rights to a Second Life machinima series entitled, My Second Life: The Video Diaries of Molotov Alva. Originally appearing on YouTube on March 2nd of this year, the Second Life avatar of Douglas Gayeton has created quite the media buzz with over 450,000 hits since then. The ‘documentary’ features a mysterious resident who leaves his real life behind to search for existential answers in the virtual world of Second Life.

HBO will soon be screening the film in a Los Angeles theater in order to meet the requirements for nomination of an Oscar in the Animated Short Subject category. So far, this deal is the highest profile example of an SL-to-RL rights deal to date. This also leverages Linden Lab’s policy in which residents may retain the underlying intellectual property rights for content that they create in the virtual world.