Archive for January, 2009
Pi
by Pedro Silva on January 23rd, 2009
Ficha Técnica
Título Original: Pi
Gênero: Ficção Científica
Tempo de Duração: 85 minutos
Ano de Lançamento (EUA): 1998
Site Oficial: www.pithemovie.com
Trailler.
Kyle Cooper • Prologue Films
by Pedro Silva on January 23rd, 2009
Kyle Cooper é o nome de um dos mais importantes e inspiradores designers de intros e title sequences do cinema.
Um dos primeiros trabalhos com grande projecção foi o motion de 1995 para o filme se7en e, desde então, não tem parado.
Vale a pena ver alguns dos seus interessantes trabalhos listados no portfolio do site da sua empresa: Prologue.
Mostra de Cinema e Video de Peter Brook
by Pedro Silva on January 14th, 2009
Godard provocou uma revolução no cinema quando demonstrou quão relativa pode ser a realidade de uma cena captada. Gerações de realizadores desenvolveram leis para a continuidade e regras para a consistência, com o objectivo de salvaguardar a realidade de uma acção contínua, mas Godard mostrou que essa realidade era apenas uma convenção falsa e retórica.
Ao captar uma cena para imediatamente destruír a sua verdade aparente, ele abriu uma brecha na ilusão morta para permitir uma corrente de impressões contraditórias.
in ”O Espaço Vazio”, 1968
Peter Brook
______________________________________
De 27 a 31 de Janeiro de 2008 no Espaço Land
Tha Beggar´s Opera, 1953
Dia 27 Janeiro, 21:00h, duração: 1:30h
Lord Of the Flies, 1963
Dia 28 Janeiro, 21:00h, duração: 1:27h
The Marat/Sade, 1966
Dia 29 Janeiro, 21:00h, duração: 2:00h
King Lear, 1970
Dia 30 Janeiro, 21:00h, duração: 2:12h
The Mahabharata, 1989
Dia 31 Janeiro, 18:00h, duração: 5:12h
info: www.landterritorio.com
Uncharted 2 Uncovered
by Pedro Silva on January 14th, 2009
It’s one of the great contradictions of the brutally progressive world of videogames that playing it safe is never really playing it safe.
Now, more than ever, a game without an obvious gimmick is a hard sell, and while Naughty Dog’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune had an embarrassment of virtues, with vivid animation, a pleasantly hammy matinee story and a charming protagonist who hadn’t been over-designed to the point of shrill caricature, some found it too easy to dismiss the game as a cocktail of influences with little to truly call its own.
Despite the daredevil onscreen action, the game’s design was often carefully unadventurous, as treasure hunter Nathan Drake boldly leapt chasms, fought off zombie Nazis and scaled cliffs, the development team picked their way more cautiously through the thirdperson action game landscape, raiding only the most tried and tested of ideas along the way: the cover system from Gears Of War, and Tomb Raider’s graceful moveset.
The result was a game that sometimes struggled to find its own rhythm – it handled both platforming and shooting with confidence, but struggled to blend them, preferring instead to break its core mechanics into discrete chunks. Uncharted, therefore, leaves Naughty Dog with a particularly tricky challenge.
Some sequels have the obvious job of fixing the gaping flaws of the original. Instead, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has to take some largely successful elements and turn them into something coherent and truly individual; it has to transcend mere excellence of execution and create a convincing identity to call its own. So far, things are looking extremely promising.
“Our last story was about Francis Drake,” says creative director Amy Hennig, sitting in the meeting room of Naughty Dog’s Santa Monica offices, while Trumpet, co-president Christophe Balestra’s dog, wanders around under the conference table, chewing at wires and brushing up against journalists’ ankles. “Our ‘what if’ was: what if Francis Drake hadn’t died when everyone thought he had? This time we’re going with Marco Polo. Our catalyst is this man who catalogued all of his journeys – all the details of everything that happened in his life – but despite that he left one gaping hole.”
…
Read all in: www.edge-online.com
Gamerz 04
by Pedro Silva on January 8th, 2009
The excellent Game Art series of events Gamerz 04 continues! The fourth edition will take place in Aix-en-Provence, France between Jan 8 - Feb 6 2009. The event will feature 30 international artists, workshops, seminars and “immersive media dancing” (!). A must see. Here’s a teaser…
And here’s the official ’spiel’ from the organizers:
“What is going on when video games turn to be a medium that allows artists to create? When artists invest fi elds such as virtual universes, or network? When contemporary art meets entertaining and freaking universes? Back from Istanbul and for the fourth time, the international event GAMERZ spreads over the city of Aix-en-Provence, taking over three locations of contemporary art.
From early 2009, a real cultural tour emulates the city during a month, inviting the public to discover the new creation through a serie of exhibitions, meetings, and performances. Away of a simple festival, GAMERZ deploys a deep work over artistic creations and new interventions around creative processes. Realized in cooperation with Germany, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey, Austria, England, and in collabo- ration with Second Nature association, M2F Créations is undertaking a real inter-cultural exchange and proposes an intense rendez-vous with contemporary art in the region of P.A.C.A.”. (M2F Creations)\
Download PDF.
Link: Gamerz04
Link: Gamerz03
Link: Gamerz02
Link: Gamerz01
Rez. L’estetica del codice
by Pedro Silva on January 8th, 2009
Fin dalla sua apparizione sul mercato nel 2001, seguita ad una lunghissima fase di sviluppo sotto il nome di K-Project, lo shooter musicale in terza persona per PS2 e Dreamcast edito da Sega e realizzato dalla nipponica United Game Artists, ha suscitato un generale imbarazzo nel mondo della critica videoludica. Il nuovo titolo ideato e progettato dal game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi (responsabile di capolavori senza tempo quali Sega Rally 1 e 2 e Space Channel 5) e dal suo team di sviluppatori (composto tra gli altri da figure di rilievo come Jun Kobayashi e Ryutaro Sugiyama) si è dimostrato immediatamente e inesorabilmente impossibile da incasellare in una delle tradizionali categorie di classificazione generalmente condivise dalla maggior parte delle riviste del settore e dei portali web dedicati. Per descrivere Rez sono state usate espressioni quali “sparatutto lisergico”, “synesthetic game”, “retroshooter - sequencer”. Rez è un videogame, certamente, ma di sicuro non assomiglia a niente di già visto, pur basandosi sull’ipertradizionale impostazione degli retroshooter a scorrimento in avanti, su un determinato (e addirittura esiguo) numero di livelli da ripulire dai nemici di turno, con tanto di boss di fine livello da eliminare per passare allo schema successivo. Cristiano Poian analizza il videogame nell’ottica della costituzione definitiva di una prospettiva “nuova” (ludologia vs. semiotica del videogame), pensando a Rez non soltanto come insieme dei tre sistemi che, secondo Aarseth, compongono un fenomeno ergodico (creatore del sistema-fruitore-sistema ergodico), ma considerando secondo una nuova prospettiva anche la macchina che permette l’interazione tra le tre componenti in cui avviene il processamento in tempo reale dei dati (semiosi informatica) e la loro trasformazione da codice in struttura audiovisiva e interattiva. Poian propone di spostare la prospettiva da un approccio puramente antropocentrico riflettendo con maggiore attenzione anche sulle procedure di trasformazione e traduzione interne al computer.
Title: Rez. Code aesthetics, videogame art
Authors: Cristiano Poian
Info text: Rez. L’estetica del codice
Autore/i:Cristiano Poian
ISBN:9788840012230
Chip Kidd’s Batman Fandom Gets Arty in Bat-Manga
by Pedro Silva on January 8th, 2009
As associate art director at publishing house Alfred A. Knopf, Kidd designs book covers for authors both big and indie; as a writer, he worked with Dave Gibbons and Mike Essl to create the amazing Watching the Watchmen art book that documents the creation of the groundbreaking Watchmen comics.
For his own recently released brain-candy compilation, Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan, the 44-year-old comic-book historian delved into the Dark Knight’s long-lost Asian adventures of the ’60s at the hands of manga artist Jiro Kuwata. A loving exploration of a little-known cul-de-sac on the edge of the Batman universe, Bat-Manga became one of the coolest comics-related books of 2008.
If that’s not enough rock-star comic cred, Kidd’s even got his own band, Artbreak, with an in-the-works debut recording called Wonderground that’s aptly described by Kidd and his bandmate Mars Trillion as “Bowie crashing The Cars into Joy Division going 300 mph at 4 a.m. on Abbey Road.”
Wired.com caught up with Kidd for a quick e-mail chat about Bat-Manga, The Dark Knight, Watchmen and why Kuwata’s Japanese-style Dynamic Duo is just too good to be true.
Read all in: http://blog.wired.com
Arcade Mania!
by Pedro Silva on January 8th, 2009
Japan has a unique and powerful presence in the world of video games, and is a country where the game arcade scene is still flourishing. Arcade Mania! takes you on a turbo-charged tour through a typical Japanese arcade, from the crazy crane games, sticker picture machines, and rhythm games that beckon from the entrance, then on to the fighting games, shooting games, retro games, games of chance, and card-based games you’ll find inside.
Covering classic games from Space Invaders to Street Fighter, as well as the unique, quirky games found only in Japan, Arcade Mania! is crammed full of interviews with game makers and star players, and packed with facts about the history, background, and characteristics of each game, all lavishly illustrated with photographs and game graphics, making this book a must-have for gamers everywhere.
New PlayStation Eye game announced: Eyepet
by Pedro Silva on January 8th, 2009
Do you love puppies and kittens? How about virtual puppies and kitties? If you do you, you might enjoy the new Eyepet game that’s just been announced. Check it out in this video.
It’s a virtual pet game that allows gamers to interact with their pet by utilizing the PlayStation Eye peripheral. If you put an object in front of the PS Eye, the pet will interact with it on screen. If you wave your fingers in front of the PS Eye, you can tickle your “loveable, simian-like pet.” Eyepet is developed by SCEE and will be available in “late 2009″ for PAL regions.
Source: www.ps3fanboy.com