This past weekend, several Made In Canada projects picked up awards.
At the Spike TV Video Game Awards, Burnaby’s EA Sports development team won the Best Team Sports Game category with NHL 09. FIFA 09 was also nominated in this category. Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland won the Big Name In The Game – Male award for his voice over work as Sgt. Roebuck in Call of Duty: World At War. Ubisoft Montreal won the Best Individual Sports Game category with Shaun White’s Snowboarding, beating out EA Montreal andEA Blackbox’s co-developed Skate It. Far Cry 2, also from Ubisoft Montreal was nominated for the Best Shooter category, but was beat out by a tie between Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead.
Vancouver – For the second year in a row, tickets to Industry Speaker Day (February 7, 2009) at Game Design Expo 2009 have sold out!
Missed out on tickets? For aspiring game designers and anyone interested in game design and development, Game Design Expo also features a free Open House on Sunday, February 8, 2009 at Vancouver Film School’s acclaimed Game Design programme.
Attendees will hear about the world-renowned one-year Game Design program, meet faculty, students, and alumni, play student games, and experience sample classes covering subjects like Level Design and Storytelling.
The day also features a special schedule of industry presentations – featuring speakers from LucasArts, Big Fish Games, and Vicarious Visions (Activision) – and an exclusive Women in Games panel, where you can be the first to hear the details of a $30,000 Women in Games Scholarship.
Vancouver – The Tale of Despereaux starred in an special advance premiere yesterday afternoon at the VanCity Theatre. Hosted by our ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver chapter with support from Universal Studios, Framestore and the Vancouver International Film Centre, the premiere was also a fundraiser for the Metro Vancouver Food Banks – and only the second public showing of Despereaux in the world.
The Tale of Despereaux is the story of a seafaring rat and a non-conformist young mouse. While Roscuro the rat (Dustin Hoffman) learns lessons about cause, effect, actions and consequences, our young hero, Despereaux (Matthew Broderick) lives his life in a Quixotic way, basing his actions on chivalry, courage, and honour is a constant source of concern among the other mice. He doesn’t even let his banishment into the dark dungeons below Mouseworld divert him from quest to save the Princess Pea (Emma Watson), who is living in a prison of her own. This tiny mouse with the heart of a knight sets out to right wrongs and save the Kingdom of Dor from an eternity of gloom, reuniting family and changing lives forever. Read the rest of this entry »
Toronto – IDC Canada has released a new study that profiles ten of these emerging companies. 10 Canadian New Media Companies to Watch (IDC #CA3TIW8), provides insight into the solutions, go-to-market strategies, partners, and customers of the profiled vendors. Their lessons learned may provide a model for other emerging companies in the Canadian technology marketplace, and help larger vendors and investors identify partnership and investment opportunities.
“New media is radically changing who is in control of information and conversations on the Web,” says Krista Napier, analyst, Canadian ICT Innovation and Export at IDC Canada. “The growing use of blogs, micro-blogging sites, broadband TV, podcasts, and social networks, to name a few, are driving a new approach to communications that is real time, and two-way, with a variety of mediums to fit the message. Canadian entrepreneurs are leveraging this phenomena to develop a number of solutions and services that are making new media more intuitive, digestible, and manageable for individuals, while providing organizations with cost-effective solutions to initiate, manage, track, listen to, and engage in conversations on a number of platforms, all while measuring their impact.”
The analysis in this study provides valuable input to ICT vendors, large and small, to identify success factors employed by emerging Canadian vendors with solutions that address New Media. Some of the key findings from this study include the following:
Toronto – Copyright Promotions Licensing Group (CPLG), one of Europe’s oldest and most powerful independent licensing agencies, is expanding to North America. Kelly Elwood, will head up the Toronto office and report to Katarina Dietrich, CPLG CEO. CPLG Canada is the Canadian affiliate of the CPLG group of companies, recently acquired by Cookie Jar Entertainment.
CPLG Canada mirrors divisions held by Europe’s leading licensing agency including entertainment and sports. CPLG Canada will manage the consumer products on all Cookie Jar properties including Caillou, The Doodlebops, Richard Scarry’s Busytown Mysteries, Inspector Gadget, Johnny Test, Magi-Nation, Metajets, Mommy & Me and CAKE.
“With more than 25 years of experience in the kids’ consumer products and marketing industries including executive positions with Cookie Jar Entertainment, Mattel Canada, Robin Hood MultiFoods Inc. and Unilever, Kelly Elwood is the ideal person to oversee our Toronto office,” said Dietrich. “Having found great success in Europe, we are excited to expand to Canada and we look forward to adding top children’s properties such as Caillou, The Doodlebops and Richard Scarry to our growing list of licensees.”
Voice over personality extraordinaire, Marc Graue of Marc Graue Voice Over Recording Studios in Burbank, never disappoints when he lectures on the industry renowned Voice Over Experts Podcast presented by Voices.com. As the owner of the oldest voice over studios in Burbank, CA, Graue knows more than a thing or two about the business of voice acting and how to prepare for success, giving his clients the “best of both worlds”.
In Marc Graue’s most recent podcast episode, “How To Get a Callback From an Audition“, listeners learn how to nail an audition by thinking fast on their feet. Graue encourages voice over talent to visualize their characters and to come as close as possible to the description of what’s being asked of them in an audition situation, even if the description provided doesn’t make much sense.
Braintracks Audio owner, voice over coach and business advisor, Nancy Wolfson, dispenses some choice tips promoting self-esteem for voice actors and creative professionals in need of affirmation and hearing the simple reality spoken aloud that they are indeed, enough. An excerpt from one of Nancy Wolfson and Anna Vocino’s teleseminars in their Break Into VoiceOver series, Wolfson’s “You Are Enough” focuses on how training and self-discovery will help people to realize that through proper training, their gifts, style and unique voice will see them through. Wolfson empowers and helps to verbally banish the “fear voice” that often holds people back, encouraging her listeners to get some game on, be true to their sound and remain authentic to achieve success.
Waterloo – Research in Motion has announced an agreement to acquire Chalk Media Corp. (TSXV:CKM) for $23.1 million in cash. RIM also said Thursday it is lending the Vancouver-based mobile-media software maker $2.2 million to provide working capital until the deal is completed. Chalk Media developed Mobile Chalkboard, which creates and deploys media-rich content delivery to RIM’s BlackBerry smartphones. The technology has been “embraced by large corporate and government organizations that have deployed the BlackBerry platform and will provide a powerful addition to RIM’s portfolio of products and services for enterprise customers,” Research In Motion stated.
RIM is offering 14.2 cents per share for Chalk Media, which last traded at 4.5 cents on the TSX Venture Exchange, with a 52-week range between 24.5 cents and two cents. RIM, whose latest quarterly balance sheet included a cash hoard of US$1.1 billion, said the takeover offer has been accepted by Chalk Media insiders owning 20.9 per cent of the company. Read the rest of this entry »
Halifax – Leading kids and family entertainment specialist DECODE Entertainment, a production subsidiary of DHX Media, is bringing two new series with its Singapore partner, Scrawl
Studios, to the Asia Television Forum. Launching to buyers at the ATF is Clang Invasion. The (26×22’ or 52×11’) animated series is a fast-paced sci-fi comedy about the adventures of a dysfunctional crew of alien robots who crash-land in the backyard of siblings Daisy and Robin.
The series has been developed by Scrawl Studios and in co-production with DECODE Entertainment, YTV, Hong Kong’s Agogo Entertainment Ltd. and the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA). Making its debut at the ATF is a new animated series in development, RPG High (working title), the second Canadian-Singapore collaboration between the two companies. Aimed at 8-12 year olds, RPG High (52×11’) is a new action comedy series with a visual style inspired by video gaming. The show is about high school life for video game characters and centres on the growing pains of four friends as they try to be the greatest game characters ever.
Beth Stevenson, Executive Producer at DECODE Entertainment said, “We are excited to be working with these renowned companies for a second series. We think RPG High’s mix of action and comedy partnered with the universal appeal of video game characters will resonate with all audiences.” Read the rest of this entry »
Vancouver – Movisphere, a virtual world games arcade developed by students of the Masters of Digital Media (MDM) Program in collaboration with Telefonica, won top honours in the “Best New Business Opportunity” Category at Telefonica’s Second Annual Research Fair, held in November. More than 60 entries were received from Telefonica’s Research and Development Centres around the world.
Movisphere earned the award for its multiplatform virtual world arcade. Based on a microtransactional model, the platform will enable third party developers to upload multi-player games to an environment where users can play them on either PC or mobile device.
Based in Spain, Telefonica is a leading telecommunications provider with more than 245 million customers in 25 countries. Telefonica actively encourages and supports innovation through initiatives such as the Research Fair where the best new ideas in Internet, mobile technology, videoconferencing, P2P, TV, 3D Visualization, e-Health and other technologies are presented and judged. More than 800 of its top executives, directors and senior managers participated in this year’s event. Read the rest of this entry »
Toronto – Are you an Innovator? Profile your innovative technology-based product or service with key companies, investors and other market participants at CIX – The Canadian Innovation Exchange.
CIX 2009 returns March 3 & 4, 2009 in Toronto. Entrepreneurs, innovators, investors from Canada and the US, strategists and key market participants will come together to help innovation and entrepreneurship thrive, and to propel the economy into its next growth cycle.
20 carefully selected finalists will deliver a presentation live at CIX and receive feedback and guidance from recognized experts.The winning company will be awarded the prestigious CIX Award for “Canadian Innovation Leader”. Registration for CIX opens in January 2009. Deadline for submission applications is February 4th 2009.
Schedule:
TUESDAY, MARCH 3rd 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Pre-Event Cocktail Reception & Networking – Join us as we set the backdrop for the opening of CIX 2009. Investors, entrepreneurs and strategics come together for an evening of drinks, and discussion on the forces that will shape the industry in the turbulent year to come. Read the rest of this entry »
At the Spike TV Video Game Awards, Burnaby’s EA Sports development team won the Best Team Sports Game category with NHL 09. FIFA 09 was also nominated in this category. Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland won the Big Name In The Game – Male award for his voice over work as Sgt. Roebuck in Call of Duty: World At War. Ubisoft Montreal won the Best Individual Sports Game category with Shaun White’s Snowboarding, beating out EA Montreal andEA Blackbox’s co-developed Skate It. Far Cry 2, also from Ubisoft Montreal was nominated for the Best Shooter category, but was beat out by a tie between Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead.
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