Assassin’s Creed 2 marketing via short films

Not uninteresting to see the merger of games and film continue in the Assassin’s Creed universe. Not only did they start a short film contest ‘Live by the Creed’ (deadline Nov 17 – here is one contender) organized by IFC medialab but they also announced the release of a number of professionally produced live action short films before the game launch

Apparently 70 per cent of the ’sets’ of the short films – shot almost entirely on green screen – are taken directly from the game. Most of the actors involved in the motion capture and voice-acting are also being used for the shorts. (says IGN)

Game-machinima-cosplay film-bluescreen short-feature film -all become seriously blurred. It fits only too well that, then, that Mechner pitched his idea for a Prince of Persia movie with PS2 game footage.

BBC 4 programme about games

Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe

There’s a version online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n1j8q.

This version is not subtitled – but it will be broadcast in the UK over the next week (till October 5th) on BBC 4 – dates at the above link, and it’s broadcast with subtitles – at least the one I watched last night had them.

Film and Games at DiGRA 09

Grethe Mitchell, Erik Champion and Michael Nitsche have a panel at DiGRA this year on the topic of Film and Games (Monday afternoon at 11). More about the DiGRA 2009 conference: follow this link.

World as toy?

http://vimeo.com/5137183   Follow link to watch Keith Loutit’s work with tilt shift/time lapse er…stuff.

Lars von Trier videogame?

Rumor has it that a video game might be underway based on von Trier’s Antichrist. Morten Iversen from the Zeitguys studio in Copenhagen is supposedly involved. Even if nothing comes out of it, it seems still interesting to see the Dogme95 approach making a reappearance in video games. It has been mentioned in independent game development as well as machinima before and seems to keep attractive for developers.
And Dafoe should be ready for this. After all he already had to deal with some twisted video game experiences in eXistenZ.

Present Difference

Present Difference: The Cultural Production of Disability

Manchester Metropolitan University In conjunction with BBC Northwest and the Cultural Disability Studies Research Network

Wednesday 6th – Friday 8th January 2010

CFP, Extended Deadline: July 1st 2009

This conference seeks to address the contemporary cultural production of disability within and across local and global contexts. Its focus is upon representation both in the sense of the production and circulation of particular narratives, ideas and images of disability and non-disability, and in the sense of the participation of disabled cultural practitioners in the production of culture. We invite further proposals from all stakeholders in the mass mediated production of disability across a variety of themes and from a diversity of perspectives within this disparate field of enquiry. The conference includes academic panels, readings, performances, films and exhibited work

Keynote speakers:
•Lennard Davis (Illinois) author Enforcing Normalcy: Disability Deafness and the Body (1995) and Bending Over Backwards: Essays on Disability and the Body (2002)
•Jim Ferris (Toledo) author The Hospital Poems (2004) and Facts of Life (2005)
•Robert McRuer (George Washington) author CripTheory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (2006)
•David T. Mitchell (Temple) author Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse (2001) with Sharon L. Snyder
•Sharon L. Snyder (Illinois) author Cultural Locations of Disability (2006) with David T. Mitchell

Confirmed speakers and contributors include:
David Bolt (Lancaster), Diane Carr (IoE, London), Sally Chivers (Trent, Canada), Paul Darke (Outside Centre), Ju Gosling (artist-in-residence at the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA) at Holton Lee), George McKay (Salford) Simon McKeown (Teesside) Rebecca Mallett (Sheffield Hallam), Nicola Martin (Sheffield Hallam), Stuart Murray (Leeds), Tanya Raabe (visual artist), Susan Schweik (Berkeley), Peter Street (poet)

Selected papers will be published in a special edition of the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. The art pieces commissioned for the conference are intended for public display at the Holden Gallery Manchester University in late 2010 where they will be used as the basis for a short series of public talks on disability, culture and representation.

Confirmed Events:

Wednesday 6th January: Round Table session on the future of cultural disability studies with David Mitchell, Sharon Snyder (editors of Corporealities: Discourses of Disability, University of Michigan Press), Stuart Murray (editor of Representations: Health, Disability, Culture, Liverpool University Press), Julie Anderson (editor of Disability History, Manchester University Press), and David Bolt, (editor of the Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, Liverpool University Press)

Thursday 7th January: Justin Edgar director of Special People gives a director’s talk followed by a screening of the film at Cornerhouse Manchester

Friday 8th January: Talk, Q&A and networking event at BBC Northwest, Manchester.

The CFP deadline has been extended to encourage additional submissions for panel sessions, particularly around the construction of disability in comedy, animation, theatre, popular fiction contemporary film and postcolonial contexts. Proposals (max 250 words) for individual and/or group papers, panels or alternative formats to be sent to Dr Lucy Burke, Manchester Metropolitan University, l.burke@mmu.ac.uk If you are interested in attending the conference, please contact l.burke@mmu.ac.uk with your contact details and email address.

DiGRA 2009

DiGRA 2009 – full papers due this month. More information is here. 

May was Zombie Awareness Month. Apologies for the late notice to those caught unawares. More information on Zombie related preparedness can be found here at the Zombie Research Society

Play-Machinima-Law Conference (USA)

EVENT : Play-Machinima-Law Conference at Stanford University, April 24-25 2009

To quote from the conference blurb: “Play-Machinima-Law, is a two-day conference to be held at Stanford University on Friday and Saturday, April 24th-25th, 2009. Organized by the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and the Preserving Virtual Worlds project of the Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources, Play-Machinima-Law will explore a series of key issues relating to what is often called “player-generated” or “user-created” content based on digital games or created in game and virtual worlds. Topics will include machinima, game art, game hacking, open source ideas and “modding”, technology studies, player/consumer-driven innovation, cultural studies, fan culture, legal and business issues, transgressive play, game preservation, and notions of collaborative co-creation drawn from virtual worlds and online games.” 

More information is at http://www.stanford.edu/group/htgg/cgi-bin/drupal/?q=node/917

Film space talk

21 January 2009, 5 – 8 pm, Queen Mary University of London. 
‘Cinematic experience, film space, and the child’s world’
Professor Annette Kuhn, Queen Mary, University of London

This lecture will explore some ideas from psychoanalysis concerning the psychical, physical and to a degree the social aspects of the child’s world as these may inform an understanding of the cinematic experience – the particular sorts of engagements that cinema can offer its consumers – and the interplay between inner, psychical reality and outer, material reality in the world of the film and the experience of the viewer. Professor Kuhn will address the materiality of film as a cultural medium whose distinctiveness lies in the ways it can create and organize spatiality and motion, and suggest how cinema may recreate and evoke the feeling of entering or re-entering a child’s world. These questions will be discussed with reference to a number of films, including Scottish writer/director Lynne Ramsay’s 1999 debut feature, Ratcatcher.

Information : http://www.qmul.ac.uk/events/public_show.php?id=1107

New Book: Video Game Spaces

Apologies for the self-promotion but it might be excusable as the book has a rather large potion dedicated to the use of cinematic techniques in virtual worlds. MIT Press just published my Video Game Spaces. Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds. The beginning of the official blurb over at MIT press reads:

The move to 3D graphics represents a dramatic artistic and technical development in the history of video games that suggests an overall transformation of games as media. The experience of space has become a key element of how we understand games and how we play them. In Video Game Spaces, Michael Nitsche investigates what this shift means for video game design and analysis.

As the title suggests: the main focus overall is on 3D game spaces – how we design, visualize, perceive, and use them. But it also covers a lot of “games and film” related issues as it argues that the camera always interprets these 3D worlds. You can read the first chapter online to get a much longer and more elaborate introduction.

Bio-Sensory data and game play

For those of us interested in the effects of game imagery and game action: there is a new article over at Gamasutra: Shoot to Thrill: Bio-Sensory Reactions to 3D Shooting Games. Among other things it discusses the value of cutscenes on emotional involvement.

Movie Game

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/y/yitm/

‘You’re In the Movies’ on Xbox – to quote from the blurb: “You’re in the Movies brings the cool factor to kitsch as you live out your dreams of becoming a scream queen, zombie [ ! ]  or kung fu fighter [ ... ] Using the Xbox LIVE Vision camera, players’ actions are captured and placed into short, riotous films that highlight the unique and often dubious acting talents of friends and family”

Then again…

Zombie LARP – where, perhaps, you can negotiate the degree of mobility enjoyed by the undead…
http://terror4fun.com/zombie_LARP_zombiefest.html
http://zombie-blog.livejournal.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2397657296

The controversy continues

Here is zombie purist Earnest Cavalli lamenting the ‘Hyperactive Undead’: Quote: 

“Left 4 Dead [...] disappointed my inner zombiephile: Despite the positive reviews, it feels like a Half-Life mod, not the virtual undead rebellion I was hoping for. Key to the game’s offenses are the zombies themselves. I applaud Valve’s effort to offer players a chance to play as The Other, but dammit, zombies do not run.” 

More zombies

Left 4 Dead – a zombie game with “a cinematic vibe”, it says here.

Doctoral Fellowships

13 Ph.D. Fellowships at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Humanities
The Faculty of Humanities’ Graduate School at the University of Copenhagen is inviting applications for 13 PhD fellowships starting September 1, 2009 for a period of up to three years. 

One subject area is ‘IT and Communication’: The research group concerning Digital Communication and Aesthetics focuses on new forms of communication and aesthetic expression in the digital media, for example: 
- The remediation of ‘old’ media, e.g., the interrelations between television programs and the websites associated with them, digital production and distribution of film, and marketing via the internet;
- The distinctive features of ‘new’ media, e.g., computer games and social network sites;
- The potential of ‘emerging’ media, e.g., mobile services, ubiquitous computing, and intelligent environments. 
For more information, please contact Head of Department Jan Riis
Website: http://english.mef.ku.dk/
Application deadline is February 9, 2009.
More details: http://www.humanities.ku.dk/research/phd/announcements/

Conference c.f.p

Computer Games / Players / Game Cultures: State and Perspectives of Digital Game Studies 

Magdeburg, 18 March 2009 – 21 March 2009. See details on PDF here.

The University of Magdeburg, Institute for Educational Science, and the Commission “Media Education” of the “German Association for Educational Science (Kommission Medienpädagogik der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft) invite abstracts and papers for the international conference “Computer Games / Players / Game Cultures. The conference will be held in Magdeburg (Germany) from March 18 to 21, 2009.

CGSA Conference

Canadian Game Studies Association, 3rd Annual Conference

Carleton University, Ottawa Canada

May 23-24, 2009

“Oh, the places you’ll go: The Politics of Place in Globalized Gaming Landscapes”

In conjunction with this year’s Congress 2009 theme “Nation,Terroir, Territoire,” we invite applications that are concerned in broad terms with notions of community, identity and social/cultural politics in relation to digital games. Topics include, but are by no means limited to:

   – work and play in virtual worlds

   – gaming communities, both local and global

   – contexts of play

   – gender, race, nationality, sexuality in relation to games and gameplayers

Abstracts no longer than 500 words for full paper presentations are invited. Panel presentation proposals will also be considered and should include an overview of the panel, and short abstracts of 100-250 words for each panel presentation. Proposals should be sent to Dr. Jennifer Jenson at jjenson@edu.yorku.ca no later than January 31, 2009. 

Zombie lore

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/04/television-simon-pegg-dead-set

Link to article in which Simon Pegg defends the classic zombie shuffle. The “fast zombie is bereft of poetic subtlety. As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.”

Horror games conference

The research group Ludiciné from the University of Montreal, in collaboration with the Research Group on the Creation and Formation of Cinematographic and Theatrical Institutions (GRAFICS) from the University of Montreal and the NT2 Laboratory on Hypermedia Art and Literature from the University of Quebec in Montreal, solicits your proposals for the bilingual (French/English) international conference titled «Thinking after Dark: Welcome to the World of Horror Video Games». This conference will be held in Montréal from April 23 to 25, 2009.

Call for papers

As fear is the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind (Lovecraft), human beings have always taken a malicious pleasure in frightening themselves. If literature and cinema were and still represent good means
for the expression of horror, nowadays, the experience of fear is as intense in video games.

While academia has been studying horrific literature and films for a few decades, such an interest for the videoludic side of horror has not, until now, showed up. Yet, since the cinematic staging of fear in Alone
in the Dark in 1992, the Survival Horror has become a prolific genre offering a wide selection of significant games such as the Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Fatal Frame series. Because it is at the crossroads of diverse cultural heritages and the latest technological developments, and because it exhibits the ins and outs of the matrix that governs all but a few games (spatial navigation and survival), horror video games require a deeper study.

This international conference wishes to study horror video games (not necessarily labeled survival horror) from an eclectic range of critical and theoretical perspectives. It aims to fill a gap in game studies
between general theory and analysis of particular genres and games.

Possible Topics
Here are some examples of relevant themes we wish to explore in this conference:

Historical approach
- Origins and history of horror video games
- Impact of the technological evolution on horror video games

Theoretical approach
- Simulation of horror, fear, terror
- Narratives and themes of horror video games

Transmedial approach
- Transmedial study of horror video games (Games/Films/Literature)
- Remediation in films, literature and video games

Socio-cultural approach
- Transnational analysis of horror video games (United States/Japan)
- Social and cultural meanings of horror video games
- Horror video games and censorship

Analytical approach
- Aesthetics of horror video games (lighting, sound, editing, 1st/3rd person perspective)
- Study of specific games or series (Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil, Fatal Frame, etc.)

The organizing committee remains open to proposals that respect the general spirit of this call for papers.

Please submit your proposals no later than January 15, 2009 at the following e-mail address: <thinking.after.dark@ca.inter.net>. Acceptance and rejection notifications will be sent by the beginning of February.

Your proposal must include:

1. The title of your paper and an abstract (no more that 500 words).
2. Your academic status, your institutional affiliation, your department and your contact information (mailing address, telephone number, fax number and e-mail address)
3. A short biography underlining your work related to the themes of the
conference (no more than 250 words).

A selection of papers will be published in a special issue of Loading…,the journal of the Canadian Game Study Association.

For further information, please visit our website:
<http://conference2009.ludicine.ca>.

Meaningful Play 2008

Details for conference Meaningful Play 2008 are online at here at http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/

Machinima at SIGGRAPH ‘09

ACM Sandbox 2008 is barely over, but the 2009 edition is already appearing on the horizon. There are at least two notable changes from the current format:

The first deals with the way Sandbox is now integrated “properly” into SIGGRAPH (as the blurb on its website tells us:)

Since SIGGRAPH 2006, the ACM Sandbox Symposium has explored the expressive nature of video games; the relationships among game design practices, technologies, and player experiences; and the intellectual challenges that face game designers, developers, researchers, and players. Starting in 2009, the Sandbox Symposium is no longer a separate event but is integrated into the main SIGGRAPH conference, living on through The Sandbox, Game Papers, and more.

The second change is: there will be a “real-time section” in the animation track. In other words: although the word “machinima” was not mentioned, the result will be that machinima will enter the realms of SIGGRAPH. This framing in a more technological-experimental area might lead to some interesting new contributions and can be only good for machinima. Very interesting indeed.

Digital Interactive Symposium – Edinburgh 08

Invitation to this year’s Digital Interactive Symposium: Edinburgh 08. The focus of this year’s Digital Interactive Symposium: Edinburgh (DIS:E) – August 12th 2008 is education for the computer games industry.
http://www.virtualpolicy.net/dise08.html

Augmented realities

2nd International Workshop on Mobile Geospatial Augmented Reality.
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
August 28-29, 2008
More information is here http://regard.crg.ulaval.ca

And this might be of interest too – City Hunters – mobile phone game (see their paper as well)

…convergence

Gnarls Barkley/Star Wars converge here: Link