Village Gamer

I felt that I should let those of you who follow this site know that I will be taking a break for the remainder of the summer while I work on a research project and decide on the future of Village Gamer. Stay tuned, and have a fantastic summer. 🙂

Downtown Vancouver’s tech scene is welcoming an industry giant to their neighbourhood with the official opening of Sony Pictures Imageworks‘ new global headquarters. Imageworks is the Academy Award-winning visual effects and animation unit of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, known for live-action visual effects and dynamic character animation. Read the rest of this entry »

Following a successful collaboration last year, Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC) and the Whistler Film Festival have officially launched the WIDC: Story & Leadership program, a new 4-month intensive for women screen directors focusing on fiction feature film and web series development that takes place in part at the festival December 2 to 6. A nationally representative jury of industry professionals will select eight Canadian mid-career women screen directors who are planning to direct their projects. Read the rest of this entry »

The next generation of villains arrive on Family Channel this summer with the premiere of Descendants, a fantastical music-filled adventure that explores family dynamics with a nod at traditional fairy tales. Premiering Friday, July 31 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, the star-studded television movie event follows Mal, Evie, Carlos and Jay – the teenage offspring of infamous villains Maleficent, the Evil Queen, Cruella de Vil and Jafar – as they face the challenge of living up to parental and peer expectations. Starring Dove Cameron, Cameron Boyce, Booboo Stewart and Sofia Carson alongside Tony Award-winning Kristin Chenoweth, Descendants debuts as part of an exciting evening of programming designed for the entire family, opening with a brand new episode of Liv and Maddie at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT. Read the rest of this entry »

DHX Television has revealed that it’s moving full steam ahead with its strategic content planning for Family Jr., announcing that Twirlywoos will appear on its soon-to-be rebranded preschool channel this fall. The new stop-motion series from Anne Wood at Ragdoll Productions, produced in association with DHX Media, takes young viewers and their families on a funny flight of discovery over the course of 50 11-minute episodes, exploring themes relevant to children aged 2-5 through comedic and imaginative interactions. This pickup follows the noteworthy news from earlier this month that Family Jr. will also be home to the eagerly-awaited return of Teletubbies in Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

Six producers from across Canada have been selected to participate in the Whistler Film Festival‘s annual Feature Project Lab, an intense two-phase business and creative content development experience for Canadian producers presented by the Whistler Film Festival in association with Telefilm Canada.
We look forward to welcoming these six producers and projects to Whistler for Phase I from June 22 to 25: Read the rest of this entry »

Telefilm Canada has announced the 15 finalists for 2015-2016, representing all regions of the country, in the Micro-Budget Production Program. At the same time, Telefilm announced that the Talent Fund will subsidize the Program, while Technicolor is offering free digital distribution encoding services to finalists who want it. The official announcements were made at a press conference at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox, in the attendance of finalists and representatives of partner institutions. This is the third annual round of projects in the Micro-Budget Production Program, which supports emerging filmmakers seeking to produce their first feature-length films, with emphasis on the use of digital platforms and developing their potential for distribution and audience engagement. Budgets for these projects must not exceed $250,000. Read the rest of this entry »

This year Mario reaches an impressive milestone in video gaming: 30 years as a leading man in Nintendo’s timeless dedicated website series. At E3, Nintendo celebrates Mario’s longevity with a new installment in the franchise called Super Mario Maker, one of many games at the show that transforms familiar characters and their games with unique new looks, styles and game-play features. Players will see new installments of beloved franchises like Star Fox, Yoshi, Animal Crossing, Mario & Luigi, Xenoblade and Metroid, and enjoy the reimagining of Bowser and Donkey Kong as Skylanders figures that also have amiibo functionality with compatible Nintendo games. Read the rest of this entry »

A team from the Vancouver Film School (VFS) has taken first place in the Entertainment Software Association of Canada’s (ESAC) first annual Student Video Game Competition. The VFS team, comprised of Melvin Kwan, Justin Ostensen, Charles Park and Brian Yich, has emerged as the victor in a strong pool of competitors representing schools from across Canada and all genres of video games. Their game, Zeta Busters, a strategy RPG, will be shown at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles from June 16-18, 2015. Read the rest of this entry »

The three founding partners of Usability Matters Inc. have been the only User Experience Studio in Canada to be recognized by the 17th Annual W100 ranking of Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneurs. Sarah English, Terry Costantino, and Shannah Segal, the co-founders of user experience design firm Usability Matters, have been recognized in the 17^th Annual W100 ranking of Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneurs. Usability Matters is the only user experience design firm recognized on the list.   Read the rest of this entry »