Machinima. Virtual worlds. Next generation human computer interfaces.

Bruce Branit’s nine minute World Builder short film is poignant, brilliant and beautiful. A work of art that fires on all cylinders — concept, storytelling, music.

If you’re a sci-fi fan or computer geek, it’s definitely worth a look. Super cool.

The story of how World Builder became a viral internet video is also pretty interesting. According to this excellent story on NewTeeVee by Wagner James Au, Bruce sent out his video last year to various film festival circuits, but it drew little attention.

Dejected, he put it up on the internet as a portfolio, and a high quality video was put on both Vimeo and YouTube about a month ago. Within days it became a viral hit and spread via word-of-mouth and blogs (like this one here!). It is still drawing traction, as the Viral Video Charts can attest.