Available seats are now 30 (+10) and Music Production  is a new option!

  • In 2009 they planned a global tenth anniversary celebration of mankind’s presence in Mars.
  • In 2010 they created a concept for a digital sports game.
  • In 2011 they designed a campaign to fight overweight and obesity.
  • In 2012 they arranged a global 24 hour party before the disastrous asteroid hit Earth.
  • In 2013 they will be the first to report from the newly found Atlantis!

They are applicants of IMP, our international media programme.

This year there will be more free seats and more options, the Music Production education in Virrat will merge with Media Programme in Tampere.
There will be 30 seats available for new students instead of the 20 until now. After the merger and the new curriculum the areas of study of IMP will be: Event Production, Game Design, Motion Graphics, Music Production, Music Business, Sound Design, Visual Design, Web Design.

FIND the pretask here

Application Period Jamuary 7 to February 12
Here please find the time table and the resources to do the application:
  • TAMK application web pages are complete, see www.tamk.fi/jointapplication
  • November 30: The pre-task to be submitted with the application published
  • December: The national joint application web site will open at https://www.admissions.fi/
  • December: Our new curriculum featuring Music Production will be launched
  • January 7th application period kick off
  • February 12th application closed
  • Early March: invitations to Entrance Exam sent
  • April 9 and 10 Entrance Exam
  • The final results of the student selection will be sent to the applicants by post on May 28th at the earliest.

Read more about the Media Programme
Read about the activities of IMPs, the Media students
|||


Our big hand to Eevi Korhonen! Bachelor's thesis on usability in Facebook games.

Eevi Korhonen

The International Media Programme started in 2009 and the first students of this 4 year BA programme are supposed to graduate in June 2013. But Eevi is fast and efficient - she has now done her Final Thesis and after the final touch on one course she has got the required 240 credit points to graduate.
Wilhelm Österberg giving his feedback, Emma Kiiski making notes

Eevi did her internship at Wooga (World's third largest developer of games for Facebook platform) in Berlin, got then permanent employment and did her final thesis to the company. The thesis work deals with researching usability of games and will be online for you after some weeks. (Yes, you can find the link on this post later.)
Douglas Symon memorialised the event with his iPad
in Tampere

The review of the Final Thesis happened in two locations simultaniously: Eevi Korhonen, the reviewer Wilhelm Österberg (Wooga), IMP student Emma Kiiski (intern at Wooga) and head of IMP Cai Melakoski (in Berlin for Online Educa Berlin) sat at the Wooga office and Ari Närhi (the tutor of the thesis work) and IMP students and lecturers took part at our campus at Finlayson.

Nobody needed to enter the panic room on right hand

Eevis presentation of the work was as brilliant as her thesis, and Wilhelm Österberg's feedback was competent and insightful. A fantastic start to a series of bachelor's thesis review sessions it was!
|||
Read stories by and about Eevi Korhonen on the ArtMedia blog
|||



Everyday a movie in TTVO!
In this week we're going to show one movie
in every night. Showdowns are in second floor`s theatre 17.00 o'clock every day monday till friday. Monday`s theme was humor and that we'll get of Clerks. In tuesday there was a classic from Alfred Hitchcock; Psycho (1960).

Wednesday will be enjoyable experience with
Juho Aittanen and B-movie; The Super Inframan. Thursday is full of hope and you're going to see a finnish document KOVASIKAJUTTU which tells about punk/rock band.

Friday is your day! You can vote in our
Facebook (TTVO-FILKKA) about 7 options your favorite! Candidates are The Godfather, Spirited away, Memento, Delicatessen, C.R.A.Z.Y, Alien and Holy Grail.

Obs! We`re having english subtitles or sounds in every movie.

TEXT: Aino Mättö


Cooperation between EAL (Lillebelt Academy of Professional Higher Education) Multimedia Design in Odense (DK) has been quite intense between staff for many years but during the last year also the students have started working together and exchanging ideas on social media.

Here's some highlights of our cooperation:
Today lecturer Pernille Christiansen and students/Inno-Event staff members Louise Dohn and Melissa Vardy visited our campus. They are here to present their magnificent InnoEvent concept at the Internatiuonal Week of TAMK School of Business and Services.

Louise Dohn, Pernille Christiansen, Melissa Vardy admiring the
project posters made by IMP-students

Read more:
TAMK School of Business and Services International Week
EAL InnoEvent
EAL
follow @InnoEvent on Twitter
One of the 12 Young Digital Planet teams: Rosanna Salminen (TAMK)
Kasper Arentsen (EAL) Miquel Balaguer Pi (Vic) and Sárosi Szabolcs
 (TAMK) at EYA Student Panel

Last Saturday at European Youth Award in Graz our Media students (the IMPs) and Odense Multimedia students made together with University of Vic (Barcelona) students a great presentation on the Young Digital Planet Student Panel of the festival. This brilliant show was prepared over two week in 12 international teams using Google Docs, Hangouts and Groups and Facebook groups.
The EAL student delegation featured McHorse, networked heavily with
our and VIC students

Please read more about:
The project by EAL, VIC and TAMK students
The European Youth Award and Festival
All the reports on the European Youth Award on our blog
Odense Multimedia Designer open campus

Principal Lecturer,  TAMK Development Manager of Regional Higher Education Maj-Lis Läykki and Media Programme Lecturer Kirsi Karimäki visited a couple of weeks ago  Lillebaelt Academy of Professional Higher Education in Odense. Their visit was related to the Quadruple Model of Welfare project. The objective of the project is to create new kinds of learning and innovation environments.  This week Maj-Lis and Kirsi from Tamk and Pernille Christiansen,  Louise Dohn and Melissa Vardy from Odense are all presenters in 1st international week of TAMK School of Business and services.

Read more:
Quadruple Model of Welfare project video
A story about one case study "More than just study: Kuntoklubi"

Presentation of EAL InnoEvent tomorrow at International Week
Presentation by Maj-Lis Läykki and Kirsi Karimäki tomorrow at the same event
Adam Montandon brought the rainbow to Tampere

EAL professor Adam Montandon visited our school and made a great presentation at the MindTrek Conference in October.
Pernille Christiansen and James Norwood introduced the Innoevent
concept to us first time one year ago in Graz Youth Award Festival

The cooperation between the IMPs and Odense Multimedia Design students actually started at the Youth Award Festival in Graz one year ago in the Innoevent workshops organised by EAL.

Several new forms of cooperation and exchanges are under construction!

Long term cooperation with University of Vic
The cooperation with the university of Vic will be described in detail in another story later. In short:

  • We have had student and staff exchange for years.
  • Our students have been to the dobleCLick event in Vic
  • In April the Vic students will come to Tampere for two week for the Erasmus Intensive Programme Workshop Media Culture 2020. Students from Liepaja University MP-lab, University of Lincoln and Utrecht School of Art and Design will join the workshop.

Media students Sabrina Seidl and Alexandra Ostasheva  at dobleCLICK 2012

Read more:
University of Vic
dobleCLICK Festival
dobleCLICK Festival reports by our students

First dobleCLICK poster
|||

European Youth Award Festival, Graz, November 22-25, part of Degree Programme in Media Networked Media Culture Course.

This is the report from the student panel, day three afternoon. Now I have lost control of the chronological order of blog reports from EYA, but this was absolutely fantastic.

We had students from TAMK Media, Lillebelt Academy Odense and University of Vic preparing feedback to all winner teams online over two weeks before the festival. They cooperated on Google Docs, Google Hangout and Facebook to give answers to four questions:

  • What are the three main qualities making this project stand out? 
  • Which improvements/enhancements do you recommend the team should focus on preparing the next edition of the project?
  • What did you learn studying this project (topic, design, technical aspect, etc)?
  • What is the role of this project in achieving the Millennium Development Goals?

The teams then finally met at EYA and presented their analyses and answers afternoon today.

The event was absolutely fabulous! The teams did brilliant work and the winners got an extra reward: deep and useful peer feedback. The atmosphere throughout the session was intense and joyful.

Thank you student teams, thank you moderator professors, thank you winners, thank you session moderators, thank you ICNM team!
The moderators - Antti Salomaa and Kirsten Karsch
Team 1
Team two
Team three
Team six
Team seven
Team nine
Team four
Team five
Yeah
Team eleven
Team ten
Yeah yeah
Team eight
Yeah yeah yeah
Campus 02 team
Last instructions by the organisers Melanie Vollert and Lucie Jagu

Follow #EYAgraz on Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23eyagraz&src=hash
EYA: http://eu-youthaward.org/

|||
Read all EYA storieshttp://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com/search/label/EYA
|||


European Youth Award Festival, Graz, November 22-25, part of Degree Programme in Media Networked Media Culture Course.
This is the day two (Friday) first report based on student tweets. Photos by the students, find more shared by the IMP-students following the Twitter pic links.

  • Good morning to all #EYAgraz participants! Ready for day 2? ;) #TAMKmedia students sure are!
  • Half way there. #eyagraz great so far! Lots to learn and explore. #GrazCity tour was amazingly good!
  • @emvaselova from @TAMKmedia enjoying the walk through Graz. Direction @EYAgraz workshops! pic.twitter.com/1rWWPF5
  • Do you kill your baby to save the village? #EYAgraz
  • Feeling older than everyone else at #EYAgraz... #students #creativityworkshops
  • Bad day to wear a skirt @ #EYAgraz... Turning creativity on it's head. http://yfrog.com/obnd7dqtj
  • We built this castle with our own bare thumbs!! #EYAgraz http://yfrog.com/oc2psrej
  • Adam made us build castles and turn upside down #EYAgraz #TAMKmedia
  • First workshop with Adam Montandon: Boosting your creative thinking... Upside-down? #EYAgraz #TAMKmedia  pic.twitter.com/UKfpnBdB
  • Workshop 1, part 2: Building a castle of your childhood dreams! #EYAgraz# TAMKmedia pic.twitter.com/qkltxqz5
  • We build the great castle on the "creativity fir a Cause" at #EYAgraz pic.twitter.com/9sgLF4W
  • Creative ideas written upside down at Adam Montandon workshop.#EYAgraz pic.twitter.com/fcKRjmM




  • 2nd Workshop by Stephan Hamberger: Creating Marketplace Entries. Missing his buddy @mathias_haas :) #EYAgraz #TAMKmedia    pic.twitter.com/vIndrX0k
  • Students relaxing before an important workshop session pic.twitter.com/7XxqJ7qF
  • Austrian fashion      pic.twitter.com/pl8fJJfM
  • Creative come methods of brainstorming come from open, and extraordinary situations and atmosphere #TAMKmedia #EYAgraz
  • Was your @FindiaProject presentation a great success, @mathias_haas? I had my thumbs up! ;) #EYAgraz
  • Wild ideas come when you go wild      pic.twitter.com/mmZT03yn
  • How to lead an impacydul project? #EYAgraz #TAMKmedia
  • Step 1 #EYAgraz #TAMKmedia pic.twitter.com/mdszclfb
  • Starting the workshop pic.twitter.com/s5LXtPBp
  • Here they are pic.twitter.com/U1fEZ4eS
  • Know what you are doing and how to tell about your mission #TAMKmedia #EYAgraz pic.twitter.com/r7BOsYyX
  • Know your mission in your bussines at #EYAgraz workshop pic.twitter.com/FAI7uJy
  • Step2: there are generally at least two things . The harder to measure the more important it is. pic.twitter.com/hSakZRuP
  • Step 3: what happened because of you - what would have happened anyway= your impact #EYAgraz #TAMKmedia
  • Small talks about our project on which we work on. Very interesting talk with Peter from Denmark on #EYAgraz workshop.
  • Greetings from Impact and social business- what really works workshop at #EYAgraz pic.twitter.com/eQjxpzd


The session with the EYA winners to come soon!


Follow #EYAgraz on Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23eyagraz&src=hash
EYA: http://eu-youthaward.org/


|||
Read all EYA storieshttp://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com/search/label/EYA
|||



European Youth Award Festival, Graz, November 22-25, part of Degree Programme in Media Networked Media Culture Course.
This is the day one (Thursday) report based on student tweets. Second day is still going on, report will come soon though

Please find photos shared by the IMP-students following the Twitter pic links.

Good Morning
•Good Morning Austria!!! #EYAgraz #GrazIsNotForCeliacs
•Good morning foggy Graz <3 I'm excited about today! #EYAgraz#WhereAreMountains???


FH Joanneum (the local university of applied sciences)
•#FHJoanneum is suprising. Inspired by the works. #TAMKmedia #EYAgraz pic.twitter.com/jzvnVkLP
•Great time at #joanneum!Your works are amazing,thank you for inspiring books. #EYAgraz pic.twitter.com/hNTaQhJ
•Thumbs up for FHJoanneum, awesome student works! #EYAgraz #thumbing #tag

•Serious 3D stuff #EYAgraz #TAMKmedia #FHJoanneum pic.twitter.com/GPPKJP3V
•#fhjoanneum had #swag.
•Safely in Graz, inspired by #FHJoanneum, ready for #EYAgraz registration. Hello Austria!
•#FHJoanneum, 3D presentaions are the best presentations pic.twitter.com/0SktS8NN


Walking in Graz and registration for EYA Festival
•Always ready with @emveselova for new changeless! Good time in Grazzzz:D pic.twitter.com/6rjyq5v
•#TAMKmedia students meeting the awesome Danish students in Graz, waiting for the #EYAgraz registration to start! pic.twitter.com/GSGrbhSo
•#EYAGRAZ registered and ready to go pic.twitter.com/gv4FswwI
•Eya Kick off pic.twitter.com/kYhJEQJP
•Name tag for #EYAgraz! Let' network any get to know each other!!! pic.twitter.com/Ifv2H9p
•We are here. Were are the people who made us be here? #TAMKmedia#EYAgraz pic.twitter.com/i2d6dfYI
•#EYAgraz registration successful, with #TAMKmedia students and my tweet buddy @mathias_haas ;) pic.twitter.com/2EO1ocBT
•Absolutely love Graz. Wouldn't mind staying here longer.
•#EYAgraz City Tour starting! #TAMKmedia students ready for action ;) pic.twitter.com/6xYxpNPQ
is enjoying the #EYAgraz tweets from the #TAMKmedia students.@Instagram awaits you!
Thanks to the wonderful English lady for a great city tour tonight! Learned so much about Graz! :) #EYAgraz #TAMKmedia pic.twitter.com/GnZvpqip

Opening party
Teachers and our #Demola loving judge enjoying the #EYAgraz opening (just like #TAMKmedia students)! @Melacai @Pantoise pic.twitter.com/ns8xvYnc
Contemporary art piece at #EYAgraz mingling session... Never let a#TAMKmedia student near breakable things... #sorry pic.twitter.com/IIG4WpW5




Follow #EYAgraz on Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23eyagraz&src=hash
EYA: http://eu-youthaward.org/

|||
Read all EYA storieshttp://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com/search/label/EYA
|||


The European Youth Award (EYA) engages young people in what the EU Digital Agenda wants to achieve til 2020: making digital technologies relevant to all citizens.
November 22-24 European Youth Award Festival in Graz - UNESCO City of Design 

The IMPs have also prepared a Christmas Tree to
show at the famous Graz Christmas Market

Our 20 second year Media students (11IMPs) are busy preparing for the field trip to Graz next week. The event has actually begun last week online; together with students from EAL University, Odense, Denmark and from University of Vic, Spain they work in 12 teams on Google Docs and Groups and Facebook.
They prepare assessments of the 12 best projects of European Youth Award. The teams will present their conclusions at the festival.

The field trip is a part of the Media Programme course Networked Media Culture.

You can find more information about the festival here: http://eu-youthaward.org/
On Twitter: #EYAgraz
EYA is part of the World Summit Youth Awards: http://www.youthaward.org/
|||
More information about the Media Programme
More stories by and about IMPs, the Media Students
|||
Application period for our programme starts in January. 30 seats available! Read more...:

|||
Read all EYA storieshttp://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com/search/label/EYA
|||


This week Professor in 3D-animations Zilvinas Lilas, Media Art Academy Cologne, and Executive Director Kristiina Urb, VISARstudio, animationstudio in Tallin have visited us twice! Actually the thanks goes to TAMK Business Information Systems Senior Lecturer Toni Pippola who hosts the guest and thought it is a good idea to bring them here. Zilvinas Lilas is also an old friend of ours.

Our Senior Lecturer in Animation Tuomo Joronen, Zil Lilas and Kristiina
Urb at our rooftop garden

The guests got a tour of our campus and also other Finlayson attractions like the ProAcademy and Demola and had discussions with our lecturers.
|||
VISARstudio
Media Art Academy Cologne
Demola
|||
All our guests are inspired by our innovation platform Demola.
Kristiina and Zil at Demola with partnerships manager Bernard Garveay, campaigns
manager Antti Salomaa and Head of Demola Networks Ville Kairamo

By Tuomo Joronen
One of the Mindtrek related project this autumn featured using the Nokia 808 pureview phones. Majority of the official photos of the event were shot with the device. The photographers were: Josef Pacal, Douglas Symon, Joel Forsman. Also a video of the event was shot with 808 by Tamk students Petra Kotamäki and Sanni Hujala. Click here to see the flickr photo stream : http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindtrek/sets/72157631683845612/

The project feedback session was held on Monday in Hervanta at Nokia premises. The students gave their feedback on the phone, user experience and the project itself. Nokia was kind enough to provide school with some brand new 808’s!

Cai Melakoski, Tuomo Joronen, Seija Suoniemi (Nokia), Josef
Pacal, Joel Forsman, Jarmo Rintamäki (Nokia)

An ongoing three minutes pitch.
On Wednesday there was the mid point for the demola projects of autumn 2012. The 25 project teams had the opportunity to introduce their project in three minute pitches.

The themes of projects include; virtual studios, bio waste, organizational communication, future robotics, just to mention a few. Add to this inspirational pitches, energetic teams, fast paced schedule and you got yourself an interesting evening!


16. November is the official Medal Day! During this special day you’re able to thank and show respect to every day heroes or fellow citizens who make your days a little bit easier: a friendly buss driver, smiley cashier or market halls vendor who always greets every one.

The Medal Day was organized by volunteers. All the materials were
also donaitons

The artist behind The Medal Day is Meiju Niskala and the first Medal Day was organized one year ago and this year The Medal Day is national.
In Tampere the Medal Spot was held in Keskustori.

Medal givers were asked to write the stories about the person who they gave the medals in facebook: www.facebook.com/Mitalipaiva/
Many people spent a while to pick up the best medal for the
everyday hero

Mirka Kinnula responded Tampere Medal Spot. She has graduated from Fine art department in Tampere University of Applied Sciences 2012. At the moment she’s working as an assistant to the artist Meiju Niskala.
Anna Autio, Hinni Huttunen, Jemina Lindholm and Elina Ylhäisi were the current students from the third grade who were there also to volunteer.

Text and photos: Hinni Huttunen and Elina Ylhäisi


The European Youth Award (EYA) engages young people in what the EU Digital Agenda wants to achieve til 2020: making digital technologies relevant to all citizens.
November 22-24 European Youth Award Festival in Graz - UNESCO City of Design 

The IMPs have also prepared a Christmas Tree to
show at the famous Graz Christmas Market

Our 20 second year Media students (11IMPs) are busy preparing for the field trip to Graz next week. The event has actually begun last week online; together with students from EAL University, Odense, Denmark and from University of Vic, Spain they work in 12 teams on Google Docs and Groups and Facebook.
They prepare assessments of the 12 best projects of European Youth Award. The teams will present their conclusions at the festival.

The field trip is a part of the Media Programme course Networked Media Culture.

You can find more information about the festival here: http://eu-youthaward.org/
On Twitter: #EYAgraz
EYA is part of the World Summit Youth Awards: http://www.youthaward.org/
|||
More information about the Media Programme
More stories by and about IMPs, the Media Students
|||
Application period for our programme starts in January. 30 seats available! Read more...:
|||
Read all EYA storieshttp://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com/search/label/EYA
|||

30 new media student seats available at Tampere UAS

Where is Tampere? At the edge of the tundra? Why should one bother to move to Tampere to study or to do business?

Top experts from all over the world come to share their insight and
wisdom with our students. Pictured Adam Montandon at MindTrek
in October this year

Tampere is actually the central spot of Northern Europe. If you draw a circle with a radius of 1000 km including the Baltic sea, Scandinavia, Finland, and northern Russia, your circle will hit the Russian capital Moscow, the Polish capital Warsaw, Rostock in Germany and Hammerfest in northern Norway. And there it is, the centre of this circle, Tampere in Finland.

This 1000 km circle includes more capitals like Copenhagen (distance from Tampere 913 km), Oslo (726 km), Stockholm (394 km), Helsinki (160 km), Tallin (235 km), Riga (505 km), Vilnius (762 km) and Minsk (873 km). St. Petersburg (396 km) is really close.

Tampere is indeed accessible: Direct international flights from and to Alicante, Bremen, Budapest, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Frankfurth, Kaunas, London, Malaga, Milan, Riga, Rome, Stockholm and Trapani, train from St. Petersburg and Helsinki, ferry + train from Tallin, Stockholm, Gdynia, Travemünde and Rostock.

Tampere is an attractive and international centre for students - there are 200 000 inhabitants and 40 000 students of higher education in three universities. The cultural life is rich, and the city is surrounded by beautiful lakes and forests.

More information:
VisitTampere.fi
Tampere All Bright on Facebook
Tampere All Bright on Twitter

Study Media and Music Production at Tampere University of Applied Sciences!
TAMK International Media Programme at Finlayson and will next year include also Music Production studies. The new Music Production students will start their studies in the Media Programme run in English at TAMK Finlayson Campus in Tampere. (Previous Music Production studies are run in Finnish at TAMK Virrat Campus.)

There will be 30 seats available for new students instead of the 20 until now. After the merger and the new curriculum the areas of study of IMP will be: Event Production, Game Design, Motion Graphics, Music Production, Music Business, Sound Design, Visual Design, Web Design.

Application Period Jamuary 7 to February 12
Here please find the time table and the resources to do the application:
  • TAMK application web pages are complete, see www.tamk.fi/jointapplication
  • The national joint application web site will open at https://www.admissions.fi/
  • December: Our new curriculum featuring Music Production will be launched
  • December 1st: The pre-task to be submitted with the application will be published
  • January 7th application period kick off
  • February 12th application closed
  • Early March: invitations to Entrance Exam sent
  • April 9 and 10 Entrance Exam
  • The final results of the student selection will be sent to the applicants by post on May 28th at the earliest.
Read more about the Media Programme
Read about the activities of IMPs, the Media students
|||


Jenni Kuoppala
The Humminbird breeder
November 13-30 2012
Mon-Fri 12-16
Ikuinen Galleria, Finlaysoninkuja 3


I invite you to check out my painting exhibition at the Ikuinen Gallery. The name of the show describes my effort to make a perfect portrait that represents this unusual profession. Hummingbird breeder, the happiest man in the world, is the opposite of over-activity and ADHD.

I want to understand and absorb his teachings in order to help me in my need of clarity and calmness. I do not know yet if I am able to bring the hummingbird breeder to the Ikuinen Gallery, but at least I promise to present something girly and naive.

Warmly welcome to my exhibition!

Jenni Kuoppala
|||
Previous exhibitions in Ikuinen Gallery
Ikuinen Gallery 
|||
Ikuinen gallery is a contemporary art project space located in the old factory complex Finlayson in central Tampere. The gallery is run by a board of fine art students in Tampere UAS School of Art and Media as part of their study program.
Ikuinen gallery’s main focus is in presenting interesting and high quality student work, whereas work from other art school students and teachers as well as visiting artists are regularly also at show.
|||

by Anna Tikkanen


Attending DigiExpo – Finland’s largest exhibition of consumer home electronics – had been on my bucket list for a long time now, and thanks to TAMK, I was finally able to attend it this year. Not only does DigiExpo give a sneak peek to the latest hardware on the market and soon-to-be-released video games, but it also hosts several interesting discussion panels regarding the game industry.


On Friday I was able to sign up for a professional seminar about game design, where several industry specialists held their presentations about new and innovative design ideas. Although the seminar was aimed for people already in the field, it was open to anyone interested in games (or even animated movies) and the different ways of developing them.

What really caught my attention during this seminar was Mikko Pitkänen, the visual designer of the movie called Niko 2 – Lentäjäveljekset. He took us through a series of slides presenting how they went from a simple idea to the finished, 3D character. What was interesting in these processes was the fact that they did a lot of extra work that wasn’t necessarily needed in order to ensure that the characters became just how they had imagined them to be. For example, the moment Mikko read about the character “black wolf”, he instantly knew what the character would look like: wily, unproportionate and evil. After this he created the character on several different media: paper, clay and 3D to make sure no detail was left out. It was definitely interesting to get an insight to the stages of creation processes within companies that make video games and animation movies.

After a good dose of industry talk (as if it wasn’t enough), I headed out for the panel discussion about how to land a job in the gaming industry. Interestingly enough, all of the industry professionals sort of landed their jobs accidentally, and all of them seemed to agree that any job within the gaming industry is simply awesome. Not sure if saying that is just a conspiracy, but I’m sure that many wannabes happily choose to believe it.

This panel discussion gave me a lot of new information on how to proceed with what I’d like to do in the future as a profession. We’ll hopefully see if any of the tips given will actually work for me.

On Saturday I concentrated solely on the hardware and video games DigiExpo had to offer. Not only was I able to play the demos of two very anticipated games (Assassin’s Creed 3 and Dead Space 3), I also got to try out Nintendo Wii U, which, in my opinion, wasn’t that intriguing. The controller was HUGE and the constant eyeing between the screen and the controller got quite annoying. Obviously, eyeing the controller won’t pause the game, making any horror game even scarier as you can’t always be looking behind your shoulder, but other than that, I didn’t really experience the anticipated wow-effect. However, Wii U does now support high definition, meaning that Wii’s selection of games will most likely include a lot more games for older people (e.g. ZombieU and Assassin’s Creed 3).

While strolling around the area, I noticed a clear boom within video games: Majority of the games presented at DigiExpo used either Playstation Move, Xbox Kinect or some other “special controller”, such as wheel. I didn’t really see many games with regular controllers, other than few racing games and, of course, NHL and FIFA 13. I did try boxing and bowling on Kinect, as well as racing on Playstation Move. I was supposed to try out dancing as well, but after the Kinect workout I was so sore that I had to take a break from physical games.
Sunday was unfortunately the last day of this nerd heaven, and I chose to spend it checking out the latest Windows devices. Personally, I’m eagerly waiting for the new Nokia Lumia 920 phone (I even have it pre-ordered), so obviously I was very worried about whether I’ll like it or not. After testing it out for a good 5-10 minutes, I was convinced that this is definitely my kind of phone. The Nokia Navigation was very well implemented, and it looked really nice with its 3D models. City Lens also seemed pretty useful, I just really hope it works as well as I'm expecting. On top of that, Nokia Mix Radio found a lot of lesser-known artists, which I'm happy about. One of the most interesting features about this phone is the wireless charging, and according to the presenter, the power output is 80% out of the regular charging, which is not bad at all.

What comes to Samsung’s ATIV S, it’s pretty much the same as Lumia 920, except it has a larger screen (4,8”), brighter display and it’s slimmer as well as lighter. The problem with ATIV S is that it does not come with the laudable Nokia apps the Lumia 920 has, nor does it have such an amazing camera. Therefore I’m leaning towards Nokia.
I really enjoyed my time at DigiExpo and definitely hope to be able to attend next year as well.
|||

The author is a student of our International Media Programme
Read more stories by and about IMPs, the Media students
|||