Village Gamer

Vancouver Film School to Host Weekend with Game Industry Luminaries - Ubisoft’s Clint Hocking Announced as Keynote

November 18, 2008 – Vancouver, BC – Building upon the sold-out 2008 event, the third-annual Game Design Expo, hosted by Vancouver Film School (VFS), Canada’s premier post-secondary entertainment arts institution, is shaping up to be even bigger and better. Set for February 7 and 8, 2009 at the Vancity Theater at the Vancouver International Film Centre, the weekend will be headlined by Clint Hocking, Creative Director at Ubisoft Montreal (Splinter Cell, Far Cry 2), a popular speaker at industry events, and will feature an exciting lineup of talks and panels with the leading minds in game design.

The event begins with Industry Speaker Day on Saturday, February 7, aimed at game industry professionals and enthusiasts alike. Hocking’s keynote will pave the way for presentations by designers and producers from top companies like Epic, Insomniac, Radical, and Relic. An industry panel with panelists from EA, Obsidian, Propaganda, and more will round out the day.

Tickets to Industry Speaker Day are CDN $75 for the full day and are expected to sell out quickly when they go on sale today, November 18, 2008. For ticket purchases and the latest information and schedule, visit gamedesignexpo.com.

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– Video Game, Animation, Visual Effects Industry & Media Invited to Judge –

VANCOUVER November 18, 2008 – Press Release - The ELANS officially put out their call to the entire world for Judges today to the media and industry professionals in video games, animation and visual effects. Anyone from within these industries who wish to preside over the selection of the final nominees and winners of the 3rd Annual ELANS – the awards show that’s become something of a phenom over the past two years with Hosts such as William Shatner and Seth MacFarlane – is invited to apply.

“We went through all of the big award shows’ judicial procedures, even those outside of these industries such as the Oscars, to come up with this year’s process for the ELANS,” says Holly Carinci, Founder & Producer of the ELAN Awards. “We then took what we determined to work the best from each of them to our Board of Advisors and had the luxury of working with some of the top people in these industry sectors to come up with a very good, very fair judicial system that will reflect the decisions of the entire world, not just North America … That was important to us.” The Board of Advisors for the 3rd Annual ELAN Awards is made up of industry luminaries Kelly Zmak of Radical Entertainment, Tarrnie Williams of Relic, Kay Gruenwoldt of N-Gage, Doug Campbell of SPIN West VFX and the prolific Producer/Director from all three sectors, Ian Verchere.

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Choose from a wide selection of original paintings, photographs, prints, ceramics, sculpture, wearable works and more. This is your opportunity to purchase creations from Emily Carr’s up-and-coming artists and designers.

This year’s sale is produced by studioshop, Emily Carr University’s online store. Visit the site before or after the sale for online shopping from home!

Friday, November 21 from 1pm to 8pm
Saturday, November 22 from 10am to 6pm

Concourse Gallery, North Building
Emily Carr University
1399 Johnston Street
Granville Island

Admission is free.

Annex|Pro, a well-known value-added technology solutions reseller based in Vancouver, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a series of educational seminars. Congratulations to Kerry, Byron and the whole team at Annex|Pro!

November 24 - Eyeon Generation World Tour: Eyeon Generation is a breakthrough family of products that satisfy the demand for an end-to-end VFX environment and delivers timeline editing with up to 4K disk based playback, backed by 20 years of Fusion compositing development. The Generation workflow seamlessly integrates and collaborates with all eyeon products as well as removing the interoperability bottleneck with other products.

November 25 - Matrox MXO2 – Streamline Your Apple Final Cut Studio Workflow: Discover the Matrox Hardware Advantage with MXO2, a portable, affordable, and complete I/O device for the Mac. Be among the first to see this award-winning device in action.

November 26 - Render Farms 101: From Rendering to Reality in no Time: Want to learn more about render farm management? PipelineFX expert Troy Brooks has extensive experience in film and game development workflows, and will show you why using the right tools will improve productivity and increase content quality while optimizing hardware resources.
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Karemaker Sculpture

Vancouver - Earlier this week the artists and developers of Action Pants, Inc. took over Ginger 62 on Granville street to showcase their varied artistic talents. The purpose of this showing, organized by Action Pants’ Marketing Manager Wendy Boylan, who emphasized that “the artistic talents possessed not only by our staff, but by many others who also work in the videogame industry. These artists, programmers and support staff are an integral part of the Vancouver arts and culture community, which is why Action Pants holds external studio space in the Eastside where our staff are encouraged to work on their art whenever they get a chance.”

Paul Tanner Artwork

Upon entering the showing, visitors were greeted by a pair of large Tiki masks, which I thought had been carved in wood. On closer inspection I found that the artist, Paul Tanner had carved them from styrofoam and then painted them to resemble aged wood. These large masks are easily of a high enough quality to be used in any type of display, from a museum scene to a movie scene. Paul’s other work which was on display included a sharp-shooting skeletal being and a Hulk-sized drummer, shown in the photo on the right. The sculpture to the left was created by environment artist Sean Karemaker. With such amazing attention to detail, one can look at this creature and almost expect him to continue his advance across the terrain.

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Ubisoft will be visiting Richmond Centre Mall in Richmond, BC on November 14 and 15 then heading over to the West Edmonton Mall for November 22 and 23rd. Gamers are invited to come out and experience Shaun White and Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party on the Wii as well as Far Cry 2 on the Xbox 360.

Vancouver - New Media BC, in partnership with the Revenue Services Group will be presenting a seminar about the SR&ED (Scientific Research and Experimental Development) tax credit and refund incentive program designed to encourage product development and innovation among Canadian businesses.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
12:00-2:00pm
577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver BC
$10 for Members / $20 for Non-Members

At this seminar, you will learn:
- If business activities that make up your day-to-day operations qualify for an SR&ED refund or tax credit
- The amount of money you can expect to receive
- How to access this funding
- When banks will accept anticipated SR&ED funding as present security
- The inside story on the CRA’s internal SR&ED refund approval process

Who should attend?
If you are interested in accessing SR&ED funding or SR&ED - secured bank financing, this seminar is relevant to you.

-Networking catered lunch is included
-Space is limited

Register Here

Last night we attended Video Games Live at The Orpheum, and while we knew from other KillaNet Community members that the show would be awesome, the only way to truly appreciate the show is to experience it first hand. We took part in the pre-show as volunteers, running the Guitar Hero 3 challenge as well as the Costume Contest. The evening was full of surprises and debuts, as music from the upcoming Need For Speed: Undercover was performed for the first time in public, including a track by Vancouver’s own indie band Splitting Adam.

Of course being in Vancouver, what would Video Games Live be without a guest appearance by Victor Lucas, who is partners with Tommy Tallarico on Electric Playground and Reviews On The Run. Victor unveiled a certificate from The Guinness Book of World Records recognizing Electric

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The Coming, a feature film written and directed by Vancouver Film School graduate and instructor Chad Costen will be shown in a special sneak preview at the VanCity Theatre this November 11th. A film which tells a story about the end of the world brought about by humanity’s fear of itself was produced by Nicky Forsman, a graduate of VFS’ Entertainment Business Management programme and also features the talents of several other VFS Film programme grads.

Costen began production of his film with a rather unique grass-roots fundraising campaign which rippled out from his site I Am Canalien. Fundraising involved T-shirt sales and “gathering specimens” which was essentially film supporters gathering lists of “human specimens” who each donated $11.00 towards the cost of producing the film.

At the beginning of this project, Chad had this to say on the VFS Blog: “It’ll feel good to finally just get out there and shoot something. We have the best cast and crew in the world, so no matter what happens we know that we’ll end up making a movie worth being proud of. You don’t need a fortune to make good films, you just need to be fortunate enough to know good people that will make films with you.”

The Coming’s pre-show activities begin at 1:15pm, with the film’s presentation at 2:15pm. Please see The Coming’s official site for teasers, trailers and more information.

This past Wednesday evening ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver members and supporters were presented with an informative and entertaining panel discussion on the Nuts and Bolts of Iron Man. The panel featured Vancouver VFX studio The Embassy, whose designers were responsible for the Iron Man Mark I suit, along with California’s The Orphanage, who designed the Mark III suit. The sold-out audience was treated to a frame-by-frame discussion on how the CG work was accomplished, along with the software used.

The SIGGRAPH board, volunteers and sponsors are to be congratulated for their efforts in continuing to provide educational platforms such as these panels. The opportunity to meet these incredibly talented developers, designers and artists who are more than willing to share their experiences and knowledge is well worth the annual membership dues and ticket prices. The Nuts and Bolts of Iron Man was sponsored by: 1337 Recruiters, VANarts, Sophia Books, Davis LLP, Stash Media, Big Fish Games and Annex|Pro.