Village Gamer

The first interactive story experience to generate a physical object, Body/Mind/Change, a TIFF and Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab (CFC Media Lab) co-production starring David Cronenberg, is now open for adventurers who want to explore the plausible science fiction found in Cronenberg’s films as fact.  Follow the master’s lead on the Body/Mind/Change site to create a next generation bio-tech recommendation engine, called Personal-On-Demand (POD). Body/Mind/Change provides an opportunity for participants to explore the dark landscape where David Cronenberg’s stories live and experience first-hand the emotional steps involved in merging with technology to transform and evolve oneself. Read the rest of this entry »

The 4^th annual Merging Media Conference is placing special emphasis on global perspectives through the introduction of a unique pilot initiative called “Projects Seeking Partners.” The program invites producers from other parts of the world to come and pitch their cross-media projects to potential Canadian co-producers. By the way, you can win a pass to the conference in our contest, which runs until noon on October 30th. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine you’ve just found out your six-year-old child needs surgery in a couple of weeks. Where do you begin? My First Surgery is now available on iTunes to help parents and patients better prepare for their first time in the operating room. Dr. Robert Baird, a practicing surgeon at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, saw a need for a communications tool that could help ease parents’ anxiety about the process. The interactive app breaks down each step by explaining what will happen before, during and after the surgery. Undergoing surgery is never easy for a child—or a parent– but this app will help make the entire process a little less scary. Read the rest of this entry »

Story-telling is an ancient art form. Great story-tellers have the ability to connect us to real experiences and have a profound effect on our hearts and minds.  This is especially important in today’s busy world, where consumers connect to stories, not product information. Join Canadian Women In Communication on Tuesday, November 19th for an engaging presentation from the masters of digital story telling featuring Gloo Studios‘ Cecilia Lu, VP Business Development.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Canadian International Television Festival (CITF) will expand to three days and now run from Friday, November 15th through Sunday, November 17th at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox. It was also announced today that the national #EyeOnCanada (#VueSurleCanada) initiative from the Canada Media Fund (CMF), Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA), and Telefilm Canada will be the focus of the first day of the CITF. Read the rest of this entry »

We are going to be at Merging Media 2103, which is being held at the Granville Island Art’s Club in Vancouver this November 6th and 7th, and we would like to see you there. The organizers over at Merging Media would like you to answer a somewhat easy, although possibly tricky, trivia question about the conference’s speakers correctly in order to be entered in a random draw to win one of three conference passes. The contest begins today and runs until noon PDT on October 30th 2013. The winner will be announced November 1st. Send your entry, along with your contact information, to contest-at-villagegamer-dot-net. Please use “MM13 Contest” in the subject line. One entry person, winners will be notified via email. To enter, answer this question:

There’s a great lineup of over 50 speakers featured at The Merging Media 2013 Conference – Global Edition. How many countries do they represent?

Join the Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH chapter as Spark CG proudly presents an evening session on “Elysium” by the Image Engine team. The presentation, which takes place on Wednesday, October 23rd at the Vancouver International Film Centre, will be followed by a technical preview by Side Effects Software. Beginning at 7:00pm, the presentation will focus on a key droid sequence and highlight how multiple departments came together to create one of the film’s most dynamic scenes. Read the rest of this entry »

DigiBC is proud to present The Animation Show of Shows, a travelling selection of the year’s best animated short films, curated and presented by Ron Diamond, founder of California-based Acme Filmworks. The show’s mission is to bring exciting, groundbreaking animated short films to big screens around the world. Celebrating its 15th year, the tour will stop in Vancouver, with the event being hosted by Capilano University’s Bosa Centre for Film and Animation. Read the rest of this entry »

Advanced Education Minister Amrik Virk got a hands-on demonstration today of a haul-truck simulator during a visit to the College of the Rockies. The college bought four stationary haul-truck simulators and one mobile simulator through funding totalling more than $2.8 million. Funding sources included $580,000 from the Province, $560,000 from the Columbia Basin Trust, and more than $1.7 million through Western Economic Diversification. Read the rest of this entry »

Working in partnership with California’s X Prize Foundation and Galactic Unite (the not-for-profit initiative of Virgin Galactic, its Future Astronaut customers and Virgin Unite), PlayLab has announced a series of rocket-building workshops for children grade 4-7, designed to inspire the next generation of space enthusiasts and innovators. Focusing on a collaborative effort to design, build and test rockets of varying designs, the workshop program helps build innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity skills and exposes children to science, engineering and aerospace technology. The workshop series will start on October 27th 2013, and run for four consecutive Sundays at Northstar Montessori Private School in Mississauga. Read the rest of this entry »