Village Gamer

Vancouver Film School presents its Digital Design Winter Graduation Show, Delicious Bites of Digital Design, on Wednesday, December 15th at the VFS Main Theatre.

Not your typical grad show, this event is open only to those from the design industry, and each graduate will be presenting the one project of which he or she is most proud in back-to-back three minute presentations. The presentations will be followed by a festive mingler with interactive portfolio kiosks and plenty of food and drink in the lobby.

Come and meet these promising designers before they are snatched by others in the industry who are looking for talented team members and be among the first to sample the tastiest student work in areas such as branding, music videos, interactive design, experimental motion design and iPad applications.

Special guest Adam Neilson from the Nation Film Board will be kicking off the evening’s festivities as he walks guests through the NFB’s most immersive, interactive projects, such as Test Tube and Waterlife, that have swept the design awards this year, including SXSW Interactive.

Wine, beer, eggnog and hot chocolate at 5:00pm with the presentations starting promptly at 5:30pm. Please see this event’s Facebook page for information on how to register – deadline for registration is December 13th.

The BC chapter of CanWIT (formerly CATA WIT) will be holding its  Holiday Networking Event from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday December 15th at the Yaletown Milestones restaurant on Hamilton Street. This event is free, but pre-registration is required.

You are invited to come network with other professional women in the tech community and learn about our exciting programs for the new year. During the event, CanWIT representatives would like to hear from you about your interests and suggestions for future CanWIT workshops. Be sure to bring your business card for door prizes. We look forward to seeing you for holiday cheer!

Pixel To Product and 49 Pixels would like to invite you to a casual 2 hour working session, where attendees will gather to hear from digital media professionals about the kind of work they do and what they’re interested in learning more about where it concerns the habits of those who work in the Canadian digital media space.

This event is part of the 49 Pixels study currently underway across the country which is gathering information to aid Canadian in their drive to understand the digital media space we work in, one of the goals of our research study is to get a sense for the size of the digital media workforce; how many professionals are employed in our industry, their geographical location, salary, benefits and other qualitative, quantitative and behavioural data.

Agenda

5:30: Pre-event networking
6:00pm: Gather in the event space to set the context for the conversation
8:00pm: Wrap-up and break for the evening

Many thanks to Jet Cooper for donating their space at Jet Cooper # 307 – 20 Maud Street, Toronto, and helping to convene this working session, which is being styled as a roll up your sleeves, break-out-your-moleskin working session with clear goals and deliverables. Expect a casual working session with smart and creative industry personalities like yourself working together towards a larger outcome.

The next industry survey will be looking at the qualitative, quantitative and behavioural aspects of Canada’s digital media professionals; namely, where they’re located, what they do, and their working habits. The outcomes of this working session will be a draft list of questions for this survey, a strategy to distribute and promote the survey as well as put together a team of advocates to help further spread the word.

Register online by selecting the ticket type that best describes you in the list.
Add your contact information, and tell us what gifts you’re bringing to the table. Remember to check your inbox afterwards, as you will receive an email confirmation of your registration.

Please note, space is limited for this working session, so please do not register unless you’re absolutely certain you can attend. If your plans change, please let us know as soon as possible so that we may offer your ticket to the next person on the wait list.

Also, a reminder that the Call for Papers for the Canadian Games Conference 2011 is now open. Everyone loves a good story….and there are many out there. If you have a riveting tale to tell about challenges faced or success achieved in the Game industry – we want to hear about it!

The Conference will take place at the Vancouver Convention Centre next May 19th and 20th. All entries must be received by midnight of January 25th, 2011. Invited speakers will be notified by March 10th, 2011.

2011 Conference Topics:

New Business Models
Rapid Game Development
Box vs. Bits – Alternative Distribution Models
Game Design Stories
Social Games
Games on the Go
Content Creation
Programming
Student Stories

Session formats this year will include 25 and 60 minute lectures, panels and roundtables. The advisory board will be selecting submissions based on depth of content, relevance and interest, speaker credentials, and takeaway value. The intellectual property rights of those submitting papers for review will be respected throughout the process.

Submissions will only be accepted online, please provide the following information with your submission:

Name of speaker
Title
Organization
Phone number
E-mail Address
Expertise Level: (Executive, Management, Developer, Publisher)
General Theme (see below)
Topic (25 words or less)
Abstract (250 words or less)
Bio (200 words or less)