Kre8tif 2010 Part 1

This is a summary of the first day of Kre8tif 2010

Jason Manley (Keynote)

Jason talked about his experiences starting the most successful online art course (conceptart.org), how he took a job that was good financially but wasn't really helping his career and he wasn't happy about it, how to put down on paper a 'Partnership agreement' to clarify things in a new startup company,  learn to be open-minded and start talking and networking with new people you meet even from unrelated fields because you never know someday you might do business with them.

David Freeman (The Secret Behind Pixar's Magic)

David defines specific techniques used in Pixar movies that enables audience to consciously and subconsciously relate to the characters in Pixar movies. Here's a couple of the techniques:

• Sophisticated psychological insight, don't look down on the audience.
• Let it get ugly, don't feel that the audience can't handle some harsh reality.
• Echo the central issue in more than one character or plot-line.
• Poignant and funny can go side by side. Slide into poignant, you can spring into funny or action.
• A group working together can win.
• A person can be uniquely himself or herself and part of a close-knit family too.
• Toss in something wonderfully unexpected, for the unexpected gives birth to delight.

His website: Beyond Structure.

Pitching Clinic

Moderator: 

Leah Hoyer (Former Director of Development, Walt Disney Co.)

Panel:

• Tracy Wong (Director of Creative Services and Marketing, Animax)
• Silas Hickey (Creative Director, Asia Pacific Animation Development, Turner Entertainment Networks Asia, INC)
• Lynette Ng (Manager of Acquisitions for Disney Channels Southeast Asia)
• Evon Koh (Channel Manager, Astor Ceria)
• Juhaidah Joemin (Representative Office Manager, Al-Jazeera Children's Channel Malaysia)

The panel main discuss about what different channels are looking for in pitches, stressing about target demography (age, gender) and how each channel work differently from different regions.

More to come.

Everywhere Zombies!

I thought I put my knowledge about zombies into good use in this blog. In games, zombies are mindless enemies with simple and straightforward set of instructions which is what game programmers call AI. Even in the most complicated AAA games, zombie AIs are encountered, those enemies that run straight at you and straight to their deaths (a.k.a. kamikaze AIs), zombies are everywhere!

I may not be a zombie expert, but I do know my zombies. Here's a quick list of zombie movies I grew up watching.

• 28 Days Later
• 28 Weeks Later
• Brain Dead
• City of Rott
• The Crazies
• Dance of the Dead
• Grindhouse: Planet Terror
• Land of the Dead
• Zombieland
• Severed: Forest of the Dead
• Flight of the living dead: Outbreak on a plane
• Diary of the Dead
• The Signal
• I am legend
• Insanitarium
• REC
• Slither
• Resident Evil Series
• Shaun of the dead
• Splinter

Not much of a classico though, I kinda hate old films. And there are tons of other crappy zombie movies not worth watching or mentioning (including some on the list).

Here's a few rules to create if you wanna make a game/movie about zombies:

1. The way it spread, by biting, virus, airborne, some relic/item/curse, etc.
2. How fast the victim become infected, in seconds, minutes after they die, or some special condition like turning into a cocoon before zombifying, etc.
3. Zombie's agility, slow/fast, walk, crawl, jump/hop, run, etc.
4. Their brains, adaptiveness, stupidity, consciousness, capabilities and abilities, can they talk? (lol) or just mindless hungry bots, etc.
5. Their senses, sight, smell, noise, heat, etc.
6. How they die, headshot, normal but more body shots, fire, poison gas, they just don't somehow, etc.
7. Is there a zombie boss, the first strongest infected, the cursed/chosen one, non-zombie like the scientist or the mastermind, etc.
8. The cure, vaccination, some immunity perhaps, purify by fire, lemon juice, etc.
9. The survivors, from the start, how much character vector changes, weapon of choice, always leave some chicks alive, etc.
10. The ending, always leave questions in the end, never solve everything, open ended for viewers/players own interpretation, or a nice epic ending for satisfaction, etc.

Have fun but beware of zombies. If the world ends with a zombie apocalypse, you can always refer back to this blog for some survival tips and tricks. I'll write more when the time comes. lmao.