Douglas Gayeton lived in second life for nine months to find out the where abouts of Molotov Alva, a man who disappeared from his californian home. Gayeton found material of Alva in Second Life.. you can watch the seven episodes machinima documentary here http://www.molotovalva.com.
If you want to find out backstory to Molotov Alva check this: http://www.thecircuitbooks.com/pages/molotov.html
To make his documentary Gayeton lived in complete isolation for nine months and did not want to step out of second life (where the film was shot). The documentary “my second life” was premiered yesterday in Amsterdam, Toronto and Second Life simultaneously at the 23rd Fantastic Film Festival.. still running till 25 april in City Theatre in Amsterdam.
I met some people of this festival at Mediamatic a little while ago as we were working at a machinima workshop they where hosting. Very much fun to do! Machinima is an effective way of trying complicated shots, low budget, but also you do need a different way of working. Life in the game world continues, rules of the game still apply. Although you learn how to hack your way around that, it is not working as a set of actors that do as they are told when you want them too. Which makes it all the more interesting to do. It works much more like reporting in real life.