Tokyo To Experience Seven Days of Fire in Live-action Nausicaa short

http://youtu.be/ae71q_3yqqs

The destruction wrought of Tokyo by this God Warrior from Miyazaki’s “Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind” is nothing compared to the shockwave emanating from the collision of talent going on in this live action short. Evangelion Director Hideaki Anno will be producing an 8 minute featurette based on Hayao Miyazaki’s Manga and Anime epic from the early 80’s. Sometimes I forget we have the technology to put something like Nausicaa on film. Apparently this scene is a mixture of CG and good old Godzilla-style “Suit-mation”. Imagine a 2-hour film like this!

Souce: Topless Robot

Onward and Upward

I won’t lie folks, it’s been a week. We’ve been taken from the dizzying pinnacle that is the San Diego Comic-con, to a new Chris Nolan Batman movie, to the tragedy in Colorado. I’ll spare you the details about the last part. Turn on the TV to any station and you’ll find plenty.

I only wish the “senseless” part of the whole ordeal was just a cliche. There’s no sense at all in this. We’re a pattern seeking species, and we want so bad to find one now. Unfortunately, we’re not going to find any easy answers. Not in violent video games or movies, and certainly not in gun control laws or conceal and carry permits. We might come up with some debate about mental health, but we’re so far off from anything concrete that we might as well forget that this was even carried out by a person.

So what are we left with? We are left with a choice. How is the tragedy going to affect us? What do we want to do now? Are we going to ban midnight premieres and cosplay at movie theaters? Are we going to set up TSA-like security checkpoints at every multiplex?

Or are we going to let this be a call to our better selves?

For first time, geeks of all stripes are being forced to choose between their hobbies and their safety. I say we reject such a choice. First of all, we see this movie. We see it with friends we care about, and come away with the memories you’re supposed to get from a 3-hour Batman movie made with the care and intelligence that it deserves. Next, we live up to the values we see in Batman or any other superhero. We use our limited time on Earth to make things better for people and we do it with our intelligence, creativity, and hard work. We get started on that programming or costuming project that we’ve been putting off.  We show the world that having a passion in your life makes it worth living. An even brighter future awaits beyond these dark times, but we must choose to see it for ourselves.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson Vows to Keep Vancouver Geeky

The Nerd Lobby of BC has scored its first victory today as Mayor Gregor Robertson filed a motion to promote the plight of Technology and New Media companies to the provincial government. The motion recognizes the nearly 20% difference in provincial tax credits between Ontario and BC (37% tax cut vs 17%). It’s unclear whether this will lead to any action on the part of the legislature, especially since the City and the Province are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Still, the road back to #1 has to start somewhere, and for now it starts at the Mayor’s office.

Source: Mayor of Vancouver

J-Fest Returns This Weekend

Anime Evolution is resurrecting J-fest, the Vancouver anime get-together from the Dark Days of VHS this Saturday at Douglas College. Admission is $10, and children 6 and under are free with a paying adult. There will be Cosplay an Artist’s Alley, and of course, lots of Anime! The weather couldn’t be better, so head down already!

Penny Arcade Returns to Crowdsourcing.

http://kck.st/MXPV1W

Once upon a time, Penny Arcade was not the sprawling media empire you see before you. It used to be just two unemployed guys who relied on the fan community to donate their money to keep them from working at a PetCo or some other God-forsaken place. While advertisers have taken the place of donations, Gabe and Tycho feel that the time is nigh for a return to form.

Penny Arcade has started a Kickstarter to go ad-free for a year. The 250k minimum will remove the leaderboard ad from the site. $1 million will remove the scourge of advertising from the site completely for one year. This move is highly experimental, and full versions of the comic in the RSS feed are probably the beginning. I still want to see a video of Gabe shouting donors’ names as he chases ducks, though.

Source:Penny Arcade

Rockstar Vancouver, The Development Team Behind Max Payne 3, Closes Down | RipTen Videogame Blog

Max payne 3Hot on the heels of Radical Entertainment’s closure, Rockstar Vancouver has now closed its doors and will be moving any and all operations to Toronto. The 35-person studio started life as Barking Dog Studios. They were responsible for such classics as Global Operations and Homeworld: Cataclysm (When are we seeing an HD version of that game? Honestly.) Their last game, Max Payne 3, sold over 3 million copies in its first week, but even that was not enough to keep the studio’s doors open. Vancouver needs to drop the AAA branch plant mentality pretty damn quick. We’re running out of studios to close and game designers to lay off.

Source: RipTen Videogame Blog

Valve Introduces Steam Greenlight

Greenligh SOON

So many video game projects are started through Crowdsourcing. Kickstarter and IndieGogo have been a godsend to many (increasingly numerous) unemployed game creators.  Unfortunately, not much oversight exists for these websites, and there is little to stop fund recipients from pocketing the donations and walking away.

So Valve says to itself, we’ve got money, the games will be released through OUR platform, why don’t we let our community choose which games get released? This August, Valve will be releasing Steam Greenlight, a platform where game developers can submit their concepts and have them voted on by the Steam community. The winning projects will be distributed on the Steam Store, at which time the burgeoning community that the developers have built will buy the game with real shiny money! It’s democratic, it’s meritocratic, and it’s free for gamers!

 

Source: Steam Community

Dean Devlin hints at a new Stargate Movie

Dean Devlin recently told the Hollywood Reported that he would be interested in making another Stargate movie, as well as a sequel to Independence Day. He has been working with his partner Roland Emmerich for the first time in 11 years,  and is psyched to re-ignite the franchise.

Stargate has always had this empty hole,” he confessed. “When we made the first one, we always intended on doing part two and three, and we were prevented for years. And our hope is that we can get another chance at Stargate and tell the entire story we wanted to tell.”

Does this mean he’ll completely reboot the story of Stargate? After all the lore that was produced through the SG-1 TV series and its sequels, will fans be willing to accept his return to the franchise?

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Once Upon A Time Season 2 to feature Mulan & Sleeping Beauty

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The Wicked Queen may have lost, Snow and Charming may be together, but that doesn’t mean tale of Storybrook is over.The producers of Once Upon a Time have confirmed that Mulan and Sleeping Beauty will be in the lineup of new fairy tales to be portrayed in the fantasy series, played Jamie Chung and Sarah Bolger respectively.

Source: The Mary Sue

Matt Toner to seek NDP Nomination after Radical Entertainment’s collapse

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The closure of Radical Entertainment was a shock to many, but for Matt Toner, it was the last straw. Matt will be seeking the New Democrat Party MLA nomination for Vancouver False Creek in the next provincial election to see if he can reverse the tide of companies fleeing Van City.

“Specifically, I would like the government of British Columbia to outline the actions they took—or didnʼt take—in the run-up to the de facto shutdown of Radical Entertainment,” Toner says. “The question is simple: have they been good stewards of the innovation industry here in Vancouver or not? If they didnʼt have so much as a cup of coffee with Activision executives in the past year, then that is a failure.”

Matt has has a lot of experience with tech and new media companies. His latest venture, Zeroes to Heroes Media, is involved in everything from comic books to location-based video games. The riding is currently held by Mary McNeil, a BC Liberal. If Toner gets the nomination, he could be BC’s first pure nerd candidate.

If you want to see the tech sector get better treatment from the BC government, head on over to http://can-we-do-it.com/ and sign up!

 

Source: Techvibes.com