Conferences
Artfutura 2007
Videojuegos + Entrega de Premios + 8Bit
Efectos Visuales + Games in Spain + Little Big Planet + Heavenly Sword + Entrega de Premios + 8Bit Documentary
11:00 Room Ovidi
Games in Spain
www.microjocs.com
José Vicente Pons (ES)
www.exelweiss.com
Emmanuel Márquez (ES)
www.grin.se
Enric Alvarez (ES)
ww.mercurysteam.com
Moderated by Dani Sánchez-Crespo, Novarama (SP)
Once again we present Games in Spain, the open debate in which the top personalities from the Spanish videogame industry discuss current tendencies, aims and problems.
In this, the sixth edition, the debate will focus on the new studios, those that have opened or installed themselves in our country over the past year. In twelve months, the Spanish industry has grown by fifty percent and a good number of new faces, which are surely going to lead successful projects, have appeared. ArtFutura 2007 will be the place where these new studios, from the smallest to the multinationals, will make themselves known and explain how they see the future of the industry.
13:00 Room Ovidi
Visual Effects
www.themill.com
Oriol Puig, Furia Digital (ES)
www.furia-digital.com
Francesc Bienzobas (ES)
www.cubica-cg.com
Moderated by Santi Fort, Fundación Barcelona Media (SP)
The application of visual effects, traditionally in publicity or cinema, is extending to many other areas and this is opening up new possibilities for creative staff, producers and, of course, for animators, compositors and, in general, specialists in effects.
17:00 Room Mac
Little Big Planet, Media Molecule
With Little Big Planet, one of the first games that are clearly “new generation”, a revolution in the way we play has arrived. Left behind are the predefined scenes created by the videogame developer: in Little Big Planet it is the user, and not the developer, who creates characters, scenes and ways of playing in order to share them firstly with other players and later, on a worldwide scale through Playstation Network. It is a question, therefore, of a game that inverts the roles of creator and consumer in a way that is totally organic and interconnected.
In ArtFutura 2007, we will have the design team from Media Molecule who will share their ideas on collaborative creation, the new generation of games and the possibilities of connectivity offered by the new consoles with the audience.
18:00 Room Mac
Heavenly Sword
Heavenly Sword is the latest super-production from Ninja Theory, the Cambridge studio responsible for the classic Kung Fu Chaos. It is a game that will probably establish the standards in terms of production values for the new generation of games: four years under development, sixty people on the team, a budget of more than 20m euros, special effects and motion capture carried out by the famous Weta Digital studios in New Zealand and a villain given body and actuation by Andy Serkis, Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.
ArtFutura offers, therefore, a look at the creation of high budget videogames accompanied by Pete Giles.
We will see the challenges, processes and new difficulties to be confronted by the studio in order to develop the most ambitious interactive productions in history.
19:00 Room Mac
Award Ceremony
ArtFutura Prize Award Ceremony
PlayStation ArtFutura Videogame Creation Prize
3D in Spain Movistar ArtFutura Prize
Visuals3D Prizes
and Grants for innovation NextFun
In the prize award ceremony, the winners of the festival’s various competitions will be announced: The ArtFutura Show, the international selection of the best pieces of 3D digital animation; the 3D in Spain prize, the award that recognizes the most outstanding work produced nationally; and the consolidated Videogame Creation prize, the most veteran and established competition that supports the independent production of videogames in this country. The winners will receive their prizes and be given the opportunity of presenting their projects to the festival’s public.
In this session, the grants for innovation NextFun will be announced. These grants are intended to encourage innovation in the field of entertainment. Promoted by Barcelona Media – Centro de Innovación and with the support of CIDEM of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the grants are to be used to create, from innovative ideas, prototypes that could later become commercial products. For more information: www.nextfun.org.
20:00 Room Mac
8Bit
A presentation in the hands of Isabelle Arvers from 8 BIT, a hybrid documentary that looks into the influence of videogames on contemporary culture. A mixture of documentary, “art exposé” and critical investigation.
8 BIT outlines the union between a diversity of cultural elements such as the “demos” scene of the 80s, “chiptune” music and contemporary artists who use “machinima” and modified games. Produced in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Tokyo, the documentary offers a global perspective of the new artistic direction of a generation that grew up playing with Atari and Commodore 64.