Village Gamer

The Toronto Animation Arts Festival International  (TAAFI) is pleased to announce the 2015 TAAFI Animation Job Fair to be held on May 2 at George Brown College – Waterfront Campus. This free to attend, animation recruitment event is targeted at connecting top studios with animation, visual effects and gaming job seekers from across the GTA and across Ontario, in a turn-key, highly promoted event designed to make jobs happen! Read the rest of this entry »

With the cancellation of Arctic Air, it is very apparent that the CBC does not listen to its viewers – the ones who pay the tax dollars that help keep the lights on. Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been keeping an eye on Arctic Air’s Facebook page. The number of Likes for the show went from 20 300 on March 17th to 21 063 as of a few minutes ago (that could change while I’m writing). Yes, that is only a total increase of 763, and most of those have come in the last few days, but almost every single comment on that Facebook page speaks the same theme: Please don’t cancel Arctic Air. CBC’s Facebook staff have not replied to a single comment. Ignoring your audience is not viewer engagement, something the executives continually tout about. Read the rest of this entry »

It is with great sadness that we announce news that we found out this past Friday morning. CBC has cancelled Arctic Air, a dramatic series starring Adam Beach and Pascale Hutton. The series, which featured a family-run bush pilot charter plane service based in Yellowknife, is coming to an end after three eventful seasons. While there was some location shooting done in the Northwest Territories, the majority of the shooting was actually done around the Lower Mainland, with the show’s main sound stage located in Aldergrove, where the show also made use of the local Best Western Hotel, the Aldergrove branch of the Royal Canadian Legion and other properties. Arctic Air had become a fixture here, as well as at the Langley, Boundary Bay and Pitt Meadows Municipal Airports. As the official mover of “Adam’s plane” the company Scott and I work for to pay the bills, one of that company’s trucks is now moving the Beaver for the final time, returning it to its owner. Read the rest of this entry »

Article Written by Penka Kouneva – When I first arrived in Hollywood in 1999, I had a PhD in Music composition, a keyboard and one connection. While that might not seem like much, it was more than I had when I moved to the United States from my home in Bulgaria nine years earlier. I was extremely passionate about scoring films and games – this is what I wanted to do for life. In retrospect, while my naiveté and idealism were laughable, they were also vital in getting me as far as I am today, because if you had told me upon my arrival 15 years ago that the first time a woman (Shirley Walker) was a Lead Orchestrator on a studio feature film was 1992, I’d have been shocked. If you told me that, in the history of Hollywood, only 8 female composers would score a studio feature, I might have turned around and gone right back into academia. Read the rest of this entry »

Rogers Communications has released the results of a new poll that shows the broadcasting industry needs to evolve to meet changing customer demand – something we consumers already know and are waiting for.  Results reveal that a majority of Canadians value their TV subscriptions, including the channels and packages available to them, but want the opportunity to further customize those packages. I know that in our house, we are forced to have a plethora of channels we simply do not watch to get one or two channels that we do want, or simply don’t get them because we don’t want any of the other channels in the package. I still don’t understand why the “documentary” style channels – Bio, Book, Investigation Discovery, Investigation Science, National Geographic, etc. can’t be bundled together in a “Knowledge Bundle” instead of with channels like Much or Spike. Anyhow – back to the story…. Read the rest of this entry »

We survived the drive up here – no thanks to more than a few inconsiderate and downright poor drivers on the road. The stopover Friday night at the Maverick Motor Inn in Kamloops was nice, and gave us a refreshing start to the second leg of our drive up here to Banff. I am amazed that some of the sections of the Trans Canada we traversed have not been named as the Worst Road Sections in Canada, because some of those potholes could be deadly, especially through Rogers Pass. Read the rest of this entry »

I have never printed a letter to the editor on this site – probably because I haven’t really had any, other than press releases. So, new year, new feature. Here is our first official Letter To the Editor:

Dear Editor

On January 31st, Community, Sport, and Cultural Development Minister, Bill Bennett announced the $6.25 million in funding for young people involved in artistic ventures. He also said during this announcement – “Can we immediately match the tax film credits available in Ontario? The cost to the taxpayer in B.C. would be $100 million to do that, and so, as I’ve said in the many, many meetings that I’m having, and will continue to have with the industry, we can’t do that.” Read the rest of this entry »

Held at the Hilton Hotel, the Montreal International Games Summit took place over Tuesday and Wednesday (November 13-14) with jam-packed days of informative sessions spanning Business, Art and Visual Effects, Audio, Design, Production, and Technology.  Originally created to service the Quebec video game industry, speakers and participants hailed from far and wide outside the provincial borders. Here is part two of the event recap.

Read the rest of this entry »

Held at the Hilton Hotel, the Montreal International Games Summit took place over Tuesday and Wednesday (November 13-14) with jam-packed days of informative sessions spanning Business, Art and Visual Effects, Audio, Design, Production, and Technology.  Originally created to service the Quebec video game industry, speakers and participants hailed from far and wide outside the provincial borders. Read the rest of this entry »

As those of you who follow us on Twitter will be well aware, DigiBC hosted a town hall meeting Tuesday night for the BC game development community. It was encouraging to see such an excellent turnout for the event, and kudos to Whitney and Carly for putting the event together. The evening featured a panel of local creative devs with Lance Davis taking on the role of moderator. Opening remarks for the evening were presented by Rick Griffiths, Audit and Assurance Group partner with PwC. I will touch on only a few of the highlights from the evening, simply because the conversation moved quite quickly and because we did tape the event. The video is now available and embedded below; I have also pulled many of the tweets into a board on Storify. Read the rest of this entry »