Business Theme Day filled the seats and stairs

The main campus of TAMK got the Grand Auditorium filled to the last seats (and floor too!) on Thursday. It’s not too surprising; the last people having their humorous presentation were Tuomas Milonoff and Riku Rantala from the popular TV show The Madventures. Sadly only in Finnish!

It was obvious that it had been thought carefully, who were presenting their ideas. Everyone had success in their business lives. A known ice-hockey coach Jukka Jalonen brought some different aspect to the afternoon. He talked about how to manage a team work functionally, which is important information while running a business.

It was also interesting to hear some of the presentation holders’ personal life. It gave the stories some spice. They talked about their businesses. There was also interesting information about Ensimetri. It’s a company that gives some advice to people (especially students!) that they can found their own companies.

The obvious highlight of the evening was of course these two guys, who created the popular TV show The Madventures. They really had a good attitude about their work. Making money wasn’t their main goal. They want to bring the cultural knowledge to people and do what they desire to do.

The afternoon’s theme was about the courage the students should have to found their own companies. The presentations were very encouraging. All the people telling about their work thought it is important not to give up. There are going to be problems ahead, but just don’t give up.

It’s not going to be easy to run an own company, but it sure will be great when you know the right attitude.

Story and photo: Emma Kiiski
The author is student of Degree Programme in Media
Read more stories from/about IMPs, the Media students
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10PICT (1st year fine art photo art exhibition)

10PICT (10KUVAT)
25.10.-15.11.2010

Washing Trommel (our lobby)
Finlaysoninkatu 7
Tampere

10PICT exhibits photographs from the course Perception Processes 1.

Students had a task to find out themselves as a subject and observe that during the hole course. The assignment was to create a serial photography fine art work.

These works students have made with digital technique. They have used mainly Canon 50D cameras and printed photos with Epson 9900 printer.

Antti Haapio
Senior Lecturer, Photography

Photo: Sirkku Niskanen - Self Portrait

Course report: Video Techniques & Expression

Upcoming next: Autumn holidays - but not for all of us. Some found the motivation to participate the intensive course 'Video Techniques & Expression' which took place from the 18th to the 22nd of October.

5 days + 1 script + 18 motivated students + funny ideas + loads of equipment = great time with the result of 3 awesome movies!

Monday morning, school is empty, people are tired, but we are attending the intensive Video Techniques and Expression course. To be honest, our lecturer, Mikko Uimonen, didn't have an easy task with us in the morning, cause it seemed as we all had some starting problems. We were barely interacting with him, but after some interesting facts he told us about the movie making and after he showed us some good scenes from different movies to explain the video techniques, we finally started to warm up. We got interested and emphasised about the upcoming task and the use of all the professional equipment. We carried, unpacked, put up, changed, inspected and analyzed the camera and lights.

Tuesday morning learning about screen writing with Carita Forsgren on the basis of the fairy tale 'Snow White' instead of boring paper stuff was on the schedule. Did you know that all the characters of Snow White follow a specific role and that every story has actually the same or similar gradient? Maybe some of us did know it, others might have assumed it and for some it was a total new insight. However, now none of us is looking the same way at movies anymore as we did before. After we got our basics in screen writing, we started working with all the equipment and functions again to get prepared for our main task.

Divided into three groups, we started our preparation, putting up the light, making loads of sequences of our scenes, trying out the optimal positioning of the actors, the camera, light, microphone and all the other stuff you need for making a movie. Once we had everything filmed, we went to cut our video to make sure the material is fine, or if we need to change light, if the sound is good enough, if the actors were action appropriate and the most important thing, if we can cut the separate pieces into a good movie.

After discussing within the team and some advices from out teacher, we started all over again and the serious work began. It was time to act professional and to actually think before acting!

Recording a scene for 20 times, needs a lot of patience, but it is not to avoid, if you want to make a scene with showing different camera angles and to highlight expressions and movements from the actors.

When we had everything as planned, we went back again to the cutting, to make the video run smoothly, showing the actors from different angles, letting the camera tell a story, and of course, rising the viewers attention by using some sound.

Sharply at 3pm on Friday afternoon, all three groups were done with their task and ready to present the produced video to our fellow students and to watch the videos of the other groups.

It was interesting to see how different the results were, though we all were working with the same script. According to this short movies we could see, that the way you are recording and the way, you put all the tiny pieces together, makes a big difference in the film production. You are leading the thoughts of the viewer and you are the one deciding, how much the viewer should know at what stage.

At the end, we discussed about our experiences we gained during our filming and which problems we had to fight. Mikko gave us feedback on our movies and our approach of filming and cutting. His feedback was highly positive with constructive criticism and we all were happy that we finished our movies but probably not entirely satisfied with the results our short films, but who ever is?!

Here and example of the produced movies

Story and photo: Sabrina Seidl


Video Techniques & Expression was a course for first year IMPs (Media Programme students) and exchange students.

Great opportunity for great talents - The Swan Lake Award

The Swan Lake: Moving Image & Music Awards, short SL:MIMA, is an international short film competition which is exclusively organized by students on behalf of the University of Applied Science Mittweida (Germany).

No later than November 21st 2010 everyone can hand in their film in the categories "digital film", "animated film" and "interactive film". The choice of topics is free, but every film will be created on the basis of a modern piece of music, which will be chosen out of a pool of contemporary piano music.

The best entries will be adjudicate by a top class international panel. Oscar-winner Jan A. P. Kaczmarek is the patron of the competition, whose submissions award a prize to international stars of the creative branch. A public award will be granted in co-operation with the online platform “startnext.de”.

This prize includes the start-up financing of the following project of the winner and will help support future talents by developing their skills. The event will take place from January 10th to January 12th 2011. Besides the presentation of the awards there will be workshops, open space events and certainly an after-show party full of visual experiments.

For participation a registration for free at www.swan-lake-award.org/slmima.php and the assortment of a modern piece of piano music out of a pool of the partner portal www.newagepiano.net is necessary.

More information for the project you'll find at www.swan-lake-award.org.

Story: Stella Volmer
Stella, student at FH Mittweida, is doing her international exchange period at TAMK


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TAMK is a member of the SL:MIMA international network.
TAMK students have been successful in SL:MIMA. Read previous story
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Odense - the city of H.C. Andersen and multimedia design

 Last week I spent some days in Odense, Denmark, participating in a meeting of the DETVET-project.

One of the project partners is SDE-college, which also is a TAMK partner, but the cooperation has not been very intense. But things change, now Odense is one of the most promising partners for IMP, our Degree Programme in Media.

There are a couple of earlier blog posts describing our connections to Odense. Last year exchange student Ania Ciuba made her final thesis project in our school, and a couple of weeks ago lecturer in exchange Michael Koch gave a workshop called Flash for Mobile Devices.

The education in Odense is developing in the same direction as in Tampere. Focus has been moved from teaching to learning outcomes. Learning happens in open learning environments, in projects, in cooperation with the real world and lecturers are coaches.

Two SDE programmes, Multimedia Designer and BA in Web Development work in a previous textile factory building like we do, and the number of international students is impressive. They also hire international lecturers, I had a long cup of coffee with my old friend Adam Montandon (UK), who decided to leave company and create interactive media with the students in Odense instead. Adam is EUROPRIX winner 2004, so Odense really invests in world class education!


Twin cities Tampere and Odense

Keld Moseholm Jørgensen 'Kejserens nye Klæder' (The Emperor's New Clothes)

Odense and Tampere have been twin cities (sister cities) since 1966, and they are alike in many ways; both have some 200 000 inhabitants and lots of international students, both have streaming water and beautiful parks in the city centre. Tampere has Finlayson, Odense has Brandts Klædefabrik etc.

Tampere is proud of her many famous writers, in Odense you can find Hans Christian Andersen inspired sculptures everywhere.

I'm sure during the next years you will read many posts on this blog about our projects with Odense and about the adventures of IMP students in Odense.
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Postcard from Beginning Festival, St. Petersburg

The International Student Film Festival Beginning was held in St. Petersburg, Russia from 1st to 6th October 2010. There were four works selected for the competition program with two films from TAMK School of Art and Media: our 5-minute film Aarnipuu (The Chainsaw Poet) and Huomisen muisto (Memory of Tomorrow) by Pekka Saari who also was a guest at the festival. The two other Finnish films were Ghosts, a documentary by Jan Ijäs, and R for Realdoll by Katja Niemi.
This year the overall quality of the films was great and it was easy to forget that they were student works while watching them. Even some of the first-year works were well thought out and scripted. One surprising aspect in the screenings was the overdubbing. Every non-Russian was spoken over the original soundtrack by one translator in the theater.

For us the most important thing was perhaps meeting the other movie makers from all around the world. We had long discussions about our schools, movies and the problems with Russian visa applications. Although none of the Finnish films won any prize, the experience was one of those ”once in a lifetime” occasions.

Story: Marja Pihlaja and Lauri-Matti Parppei
Photo (Dom Kino): Marja Pihlaja
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Beginning Festival Home
Previous story about the Beginning Festival
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School’s most recent camera purchase was tested in the shortfilm “Siivooja”

Photo by Eero Alava

One of the latest purchases in our school is the Canon EOS 7D digital camera. It is capable of recording Full HD-video at 25 frames per second using H264-compression. The camera had been eagerly awaited by cinematography student Hannu Koivuranta, who picked the camera as his choice of weaponary for shooting “Siivooja”. The script had been under development since spring of 2010.

The camera went through basic lighting tests, shutter speed tests, motion tests and sharpness tests in order to expose potential problems before the principal photography. Tests with color correction showed that the 7D (as well as all the other DSLRs) suffer from horrendous noise generated by underexposure. Low contrast camera filters were necessary in order to lessen the ridiculous difference between highlights and shadows. The test materials are available to students of TTVO in Tapper.

The camera in our school is at the moment lacking Arri’s PL-mount in order to use motion picture lenses, but it’s under consideration for purchase. Because of this, “Siivooja” was shot using three ordinary still photography prime lenses. The lenses were Canon EF 20mm (f/2.8), Canon EF 50mm (f/1.8) and Olympus M.Zuiko 135mm (f/3.5). The latter one was fitted using an OM-adapter between the camera body and the lens. The focus rings that were supplied with the camera’s accessory set are made of plastic and it’s very doubtful that they survive winter. The same problem exists with the follow focus, the mattebox (plastic bolts) and the filter holders. The overall feeling was very plastic and class B.

The camera was purchased with a optical viewfinder, Z-Finder Pro, by Zacuto. It attaches to the LCD-screen with a handy base-plate screwed to the camera’s bottom mount. Although the viewfinder is optically very pleasing and doesn’t strain the eye we didn’t use it during the shoot. In addition to the viewfinder our school also purchased a shoulder mount rig but unfortunately the camera cannot be placed as far left as the viewfinder needs to get in order to comfortably operate the camera: one would suffer permanent neck damage. This problem was solved by adding a small SWIT-monitor to camera left and running a video signal straight to it.

One potential problem lies with the camera’s outputs: you can only monitor one signal at a time. You can choose between video out, mini-HDMI out or the LCD screen. This is only a problem when the camera operator chooses to use the LCD screen and when the signal also has to be made available elsewhere. By using the aforementioned SWIT-monitor we were able to continue the signal through with BNC-cables which made it possible to view the image from several monitors. The school also bought a HD-SWIT-monitor which accepts HDMI.

The camera case includes two memorycards: 16 gigabytes and 32 gigabytes. One 16 gigabyte card records approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes of Full HD video. The clips are restricted to 30 minutes in length because the file system allows only a maximum size of 4 gigabytes per clip.

Exporting the clips from the memory cards was a bit weird and problematic a process since we didn’t have time to install a Final Cut-plugin. Mac-computers couldn’t identify the camera as a memory card when plugged it in so we used iPhoto and Adobe Bridge to get the clips out. After the export it is recommended to use Streamclip or Compressor to change the H264-codec to Apple ProRes 422 in order to allow real-time editing. H264 can be edited, but after a while - with the expense of render time - one understands why the change is important. AVID also has its own work flows through AMA.

The principal photography went without major problems. Although the camera is small it doesn’t make it any faster to use.

 “Siivooja” was shot primarily with ISO 200 which makes the noise bearable. A few shots were taken with ISO 320. The camera’s Sharpness-slider was also set to zero since it was inaccurate in color when overexposing a few pixel sized objects. Sometimes it also created unwanted moiré.

The lighting tests done with a Sekonic light meter didn’t prove to be correct. When metering the mid-gray from a highlight of skin, the image was heavily overexposed in the camera. Same thing went for shadows. There appeared to be a constant 2-3 f-stop difference in the values.

An  extremely important factor when shooting for DSLR is the creative use of sufficient dynamics. You cannot light this format as you would light other digital formats or film. The sensor, at its worst, reminded of a 2:1-contrast mini-DV camera sensor from time to time. The lighting should be very subtle in order to avoid overexposure and underexposure which leads to horrendous noise.

One should also take into account the so called “gray exposure”. Gray exposure is a level of illumination where the object is clearly visible but due to a slight underexposure all the color information is gray. Which means there is NO color information. This area of gray exposure can very easily remain unnoticed which later on is a disaster in the color grading stage. Also, gray exposure isn’t clearly noisy which makes it harder to notice.

The sensors of DSLRs have suffered from a phenomena called “jelly” which makes the image bend in a weird way when panned very fast. The motion is jellyish and really disturbing. While doing the jelly-tests it occurred that the bigger the shutter speed, the bigger the jelly. Shutter speeds over 250 contained very rude jelly problems, which I wouldn’t recommend. With calm but determined panning this flaw (too) can be held under control.

“Siivooja” is now in post-production. The film was directed by Toni Anttila and produced by Outi Hartikainen. Editing is done by Marie Syrjälä and sound design by Philippe La Grassa. The original screenplay was written by Iiro Peltonen. The film stars actors Aleksi Holkko, Jorma Markkula and Sari Lilliestierna. The film is to be released at the end of 2010.

Story: Hannu Koivuranta

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Want to study media in Tampere? Applicant's Guide 2011 now online

Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) Applicant's Guide for degree programmes run in English is now available.


The application time is January 3 to February 15 2011.

To apply for the Degree Programme in Media a pre-task has to be sent in addition to the application.

The pre-task is available for downloading on December 1st.

• All details about application +  Applicant's Guide dowload
• Degree Programme in Media home
• Read stories by & about the IMPs, the Degree Programme in Media students

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Bad Internet – threats and webs of desire

The event was co-produced by Rupriikki Media Museum. Photo from
their new exhibition “Weaving a net – the history of the Internet”.
The Photo is published on the Rupriikki web site

Part of manSEDANse festival was an interesting lecture about the bad features of our dear friend: The Internet. Despite being held on a Wednesday evening the lecture attracted an audience of some 20 people. Unfortunately the lecture was held in Finnish.

Here are the main points Susanna Paasonen, a media researcher from the University of Jyväskylä, had.

Paasonen began with the popularization of Internet in the 90s and raised questions about Internet’s metaphoric nature: What is really Internet? Servers, protocols, user culture? In the 90s sci-fi lingo was favored when talking about Internet, since it was –and still is- considered a cyber space of some sort. Fashionable words like Information society Information technology set interesting frames to defining the usage of Internet.

Internet has its’ positive sides in serving the Information world: it makes dealing with bureaucracy easier. On the other hand it has a lot of “useless” usage too. What do people really use Internet for, what is and has been the role of Internet at homes? One particularly interesting question is: Since everything from bank affairs to book reservations and study calendars is done online, can you not use the Internet?

The uncontrollable nature of Internet brings along threats that Paasonen unveiled. Here are the biggest threats according to her studies:

• Addiction. How often do you read your email, use Facebook etc.? On the other hand, if your computer is on and you have Facebook open, does that constitute as Facebook usage? And if you use your email to handle business, can active checking be something else than a sign of addiction? In my opinion one aspect that matters is also the fact that how important the usage is to you: whether you can or cannot cope without the Internet.
• Viruses. Along with spreading information, the Internet spreads all kinds of filth that contaminates our systems and controls our computers.
• Paedophilia, childporn. Though most of sexual abuse cases of children are conducted by family members or other close people, Internet has become the main target on this issue. Tabloids exploit Internet’s reputation in this matter. Subjects such as pedobear and different memes are popular and easy to spread over the Internet. It is also important to think about what children themselves find on-line.
• Porn, especially home porn. The conventional porn industry is doing not so well since amateurs have easy access to content. Subcultures and fetishes have become more visible and porn is fragmenting over the Internet. Sites can be dedicated to almost anything, though censorship and moderation tries to clean out the most violate ones.
• 3rd person effect is a popular phenomenon concerning Internet. Everyone is always worried about someone other than themselves – usually children. Many companies take advantage of this by offering childproof programs such as Safe Eyes, Safe Vision and MyKids Browser. Of course these filters don’t solve all of the problems concerning unwanted material.

Internet users be aware: you never know what you might find after the next click!

Story: Tia Tuovinen
The author is Degree Programme in Media student
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Photography of Karoliina Paappa in exhibitions in South Korea and Germany

From "Girl Is A Harsh Mouth" by Karoliina Paappa

To become an artist requires more than just taking art lessons in school. It is crucial to take part in art exhibitions already as a student and while getting works shown, one gets to know how the art world works. The best way to make this happen is to have unique style and a strong will to work with it. It is possible to work with ones own work on school courses as well as along the courses. This way, during the school years, the student ends up having art works he or she can offer to exhibitions.  

Karoliina Paappa is a last year student of fine arts. However, this year the degree work exhibition is not the only occasion where her works can be seen. Karoliina Paappa´s photography works are included in two international exhibitions and her animation was presented at the Reikäreuna film festival.

At the moment, Karoliina Paappa has a photography opus included in the Inter-cool 3.0 exhibition in Dortmund, Germany. Next, her photos will be shown in the Daegu Photo Biennale – 2010 International Young Photographers Exhibition in Daegu, South Korea. Last may during the school´s internationality week Walter Bergmoser, the curator of Daegu Photo Biennale, received a pile of DVD-portfolios that presented the works of the students at TTVO. After the pre-selection the organization contacted Paappa and asked, if she was willing to submit her works to the exhibition in case she was chosen. The exhibition, opening in October, will be showing three photography series by her.

In the spring there will be an exhibition in the Alkovi –gallery in Helsinki by artist group Route Couture, which Paappa is also a member of.  In addition, Paappa is currently working on a series of photographs that will be her degree work. It looks like a busy year. Taking part in the exhibitions is nevertheless a result of a long-span work. The fact that during her last year of studies she has had works included in various grand exhibitions, only shows that the hard work done during previous years really has started to pay off now.

Story: Mari Ljokkoi
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MindTrek picture diary

MindTrek Conference is one of the highlights of the year of digital media students and staff at TAMK. MindTrek is the most important annual digital media and business event in northern Europe since 1997. TAMK is one of the key actors and founding member of MindTrek Association. MindTrek Conference was arranged October 7-8 this year.

 

MindTrek is the meeting point of digital media producers, researchers and students. Here we have Mark Sorsa-Leslie, Hammerkit Managing Director discussing with Antti Kareinen, second year IMP-student. Antti did a project using Hammerkit in the summer.

Also professional organisations ar a vital part of the MindTrek community. Here Jonna Asikainen, Union for Professionals in Communications, Marketing Research and New Media, MaMa ry, invites first year IMP student Aino Yrjänä to join.

Korash Sanjideh, Chew TV (UK) taught our Media Students on Wednesday and gave a presentation at MindTrek. He was fan number 1500 of TAMK fan page on Facebook, so he was awarded with This is Finland Comic book and TAMK bag during a conference break.

Taina Rajanti, Aalto University, Christian Fonnesbech, The Quantum Room (DK) and Korash Sanjideh planning their session "Social Moving Pictures" at the MindTrek VIP reception  hosted by the City of Tampere at Old Town Hall.

 First year IMP students Emma Kiiski, Heidi Mäenpää and Anna Narinen exploring the exhibition during a conference break. Useful information and tasty lollipops!

 Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award is the global MindTrek competition. TAMK is one of the contest organisers. Read about the three winning projects.

 The MindTrek Conference has plenaries and sessions in several tracks running in parallel. This is the "Social Moving Pictures" session produced by TAMK Degree Programme in Media.

 Also a group of our exchange students took part in MindTrek. Here at MindTrek Party Thursday evening (from left) Lucas Raßbach, Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Eeva-Kaisa Ahlamo, second year IMP student and Georg Frömelt, Bauhaus Universität Weimar.

The WSA Finland competition chose the Finnish nominees for World Summit Award and World Summit Award Mobile. The certificates were handed out by WSA Excecutive Board member Jak Boumans (right). Here Timo Koskinen, Newelo Ltd. is awarded.
WSA Finland is organised by TAMK in cooperation with MindTrek Association.
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MindTrek
WSA Finland
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Read more stories about IMPs
Degree Prohramme in Media
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Designing card games

Everyone plays them, right? Or are they too old-fashioned? The Card Game Workshop in TTVO held by the Swedish game designer Erik Svedäng challenged enthusiastic students to create their own games.

Mr. Svedäng gave us the idea that no one isn’t interested into card games anymore, so they have to be developed and brought back. The workshoppers divided in 4 groups and got a movie to create a simple card game about.

The very first group got the most laughs by randomly picking Twilight to be their card game theme.  Eventually their game was about collecting for example glitter (which is really Twilight-styled.) Other games were about the movies Around the World in 80 Days, Terminator and Robin Hood. You can only imagine what superior games there were created in the Workshop compared to the old traditional ones!

All of the games turned out to be slightly different from each other which was yet surprising but also entertaining. They were tested by the professional and he seemed to be pretty amused. He also got lucky and won 3 of 4 rounds! Beginner’s luck…

Erik Svedäng and the properties of a playing card

Creating a card game in such a small amount of time was really challenging. We had to think about the logic and functionality of the game and test it every once in a while to see how it worked the best. But the main thing: It was lots of fun!

Story: Emma Kiiski
Emma is Degree Programme in Media student, one of the IMPs

Reaching for the stars

Neil by the largest telescope in Finland: 1,03m reflector

The Interactive Media Programme students have many projects. Some of the them big, some of them small. During their second year, many students will work in a project that will give them 30 study credits, that is equivalent to 800 hours of work.

Two IMP students, Eeva-Kaisa Ahlamo (that’s me) and Neil Hopkins, have started their project slightly in advance. We are going to produce an annual amateur astronomy event called “Tähtipäivät” in Turku next March.

I have been an amateur astronomer all my life, nowadays it’s more like a lifestyle than a hobby. (After all, few years ago I moved to New Zealand for some time just to see the Southern night sky!) Neil has always been extremely keen on reading and learning about stars and space and loves to read scifi while dreaming of worlds yet to be discovered. We are taking part in the project as part of our studies, but there are more people involved in Turku, as well.

Yesterday, we made a field trip to Turku to go through all the event places we are going to use during this event. I’ve been active member in the local astronomy club in Turku for more than 15 years and I wanted to show Neil what the place is about. The reason why we wanted to get the event in Turku next year is that it’s going to be 120 years since the birth of the founder of Turun Ursa and the most famous astronomer in Finland, Prof. Yrjö Väisälä. We want to commemorate his amazing achievements by creating an event where astronomy is presented in intriguing and entertaining way.

That’s why we went to visit Tuorla, one of the most famous professional observatories in Finland. Tuorla is also involved in the project and we were planning the things we want to do. Our contact there showed us around and explained about the history and practice of the place. We were blown away by everything we saw and had great time for the hours we stayed there.

We continued further to see two other observatories, Kevola and Iso-Heikkilä, which are both used by Turun Ursa. We also went to see the venue place itself, we have decided to held the event in Turku University main campus.

Tuorla is not only an observatory, it also produces telescope mirrors.
Our contact Rami explaining, how they were the only mirror provider in the
world who were able to make the mirror to the space telescope Herschel.

We kept ourselves quite busy, but had some great new ideas that we want to try and explore further. We want to show people that astronomy is not only physics and mathematics, but also aesthetic and mind-blowing experience (without forgetting the interactivity). I’m sure we are capable of creating an event worth membering.

Eeva-Kaisa Ahlamo

ManSEDANse Play, Tuesday October 5th, 2pm – 6pm in TR1

Eevi Korhonen and Erik  Svedäng

Lectures about indie games! Interesting, huh? It had Score (TTVO’s own pride, the awesome game club) included, so it couldn’t have been bad. ;-)

At first Score was introduced by Eevi Korhonen. There had been added some spice into it since I heard it last time. She told about Score’s Co-operative and interesting projects the Score members have been working on, for example 5D2.

Some of the TTVO students had created a game called Over Tower for Xbox 360 which sounded pretty incredible. I tried the game as well (there were a few games to try out!) and it was quite amusing, I must admit. The upcoming programming course for IMP students started to sound much more interesting after it was told that the students had created the game for the course.

Erik Svedäng, the creator of the imaginative and unique game called Blueberry Garden gave some interesting perspective in the field of indie game development. (The game won a price for Best Independent Game at the 2009 Independent Game Festival.) He had a pretty decent opinion that games can be good even though you can’t win in the game. He has had emphasis on for example his game’s own ecosystem and its functionality, which sounded fun and fresh.

Svedäng also has created a game for iPad. The idea he had been developing for 10 years until it came out the right way! He had an interesting way to give wisdom sentences during the presentation that he had learned himself by experience. Very useful for game developers!

The last speaker was Petri Purho, the creator of a game called Crayon Physics Deluxe (that won the grand price at the 2008 Independent Game Festival.)  He had quite a funny style to do his presentation: he had coded it and it worked after the audience’s will. He threw a toy at the audience and asked the one who got it to decide, if he should tell about a game that he had made by himself or made by someone else. (Someone lucky made a perfect headshot on me with the toy since it had to be thrown to another one in the audience to pick the next game. :-D) It was a lot of fun!

After this was a discussion panel about indie games.

It was really inspiring to see what some normal guys had created and how they had success in their way. We also got links to several interesting indie game related sites. I really hope something like this will be arranged in the future as well!

Story and photo: Emma Kiiski
Emma is Degree Programme in Media student, one of the IMPs

manSEDANse
Read more stories about IMPs
Degree Prohramme in Media
Indie Games on Wikipedia
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TTVO: TAMK degree programmes in the Seeland building, Finlayson Campus
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Michael Koch started our October Special week

Michael Koch (sitting) demonstrating how it goes

We have many international partners and guests at the school this week, because our friends love to come to the most awesome annual digital media and business event in the northern hemisphere, the MindTrek Conference.

Michael Koch from our Danish partner SDE College in Odense combined his MindTrek visit with teacher exchange, and gave a Flash for mobile devices (Android) workshop today to a class packed with enthusiastic students. The feedback was excellent, indeed.

MindTrek and manSEDANse festival guests give our students very good extra learning opportunities. In addition to the 60+ students participating in the MindTrek Conference itself, the side events of MindTrek and manSEDANse events have been collected to a special 'October Special' tray for the students.

Tomorrow there will again be many opportunities to learn from the international media design professionals.

SDE College
October Special
MindTrek
manSEDANse

Media lecturers from the Netherlands visit TAMK this week

Dutch guests with hosts at the main entrance to Finlayson Campus

A delegation of sixteen media lecturers and professionals from the Netherlands are our guests this week. Yesterday Tampere College Study Programme in Audiovisual Communication at Pyynikki, the ProAcademy, Voimala and the degree programmes in Fine Art, Film&Television and Media was in their programme, they also met Head of TAMK international services Kirsi Tolvanen.

Today they visit Nokia Innovation Centre, the Tampere College Layout Design and Printing Technology Programmes in Hervanta, Demola, Creative Tampere and HUB Tampere. Wednesday to Friday they participate in MindTrek.

This is the fourth Dutch media professional delegation arranged to Tampere by Media Update in cooperation with the Degree Programme in Media of TAMK. Several active partnerships have started during these visits.

Follow reports of the trip on Jak Bouman's blog
Media Update 
MindTrek

4th manSEDANse starts today

manSEDANse 2009. Photo Sakari Karipuro

The manSEDANse is a festival of electronic music, art and culture. It is arranged by MARry, a non-profit organisation based in Tampere. The mission of MARry is to promote electronic music and culture in Finland.

manSEDANse is arranged in cooperation with Tampere Film Festival, Media Museum Rupriikki and Tampere University of Applied Sciences TAMK, the Degree Programmes in Fine Art, Film&Television and Media.

In addition to the music and club events taking place from Thursday to Sunday at Telakka and Klubi, manSEDANse presents exhibitions, seminars and workshops. Some of them are in English:

MD workshop 2009. Photo Wilhelmiina Saikkonen

• Mansedanse Play, game workshop, Tue 5.10 14-18, Exhibition Hall TR1, Finlayson, presenters Score, Eric Svedäng, Petri Purho, Olli Sotamaa.
• Puredyne and livecoding Fri 8.10. 17-18, Exhibition Hall TR1, Finlayson, Dave Griffiths
• The Halldorophone and instrument building as art Sat 9.10. 15-16, Werstas auditorium, Finlayson, Halldór Úlfarsson

There is also an exhibition of ArtWorks and Game Lounge at Exhibition hall TR1, Finlayson. The exhibition features also works by TAMK fine art students Mirka Kinnula, Matti Sampela, Marko Vierimaa and Tiina Lehikoinen, the Game Lounge games by Score, TAMK students' game develop,emt club.


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TAMK at Saint Petersburg Student Film Festival Beginning

From Speakeasy! Heidi Lindén, Hiski Grönstrand, Jane
Kääriäinen, Panu Mikkola. (Photo: Jatta Oksanen)

The ninth Open Saint Petersburg Student Film Festival "Beginning" October 1-6 will show four TAMK film&tv student films. This is a nice achievement: By deadline 668 films from 100 film schools from 50 countries were sent to the festival, and the 60 best will be seen at the festival.

The competition programme for fiction films includes Memory of Tomorrow directed by Pekka Saari. The Chainsaw Poet by Lauri-Matti Parppei competes in the 5-minute fiction films category.

Cine Parallel non competition programme features Speakeasy! musical directed by Juha Kuoppala and Whistle While You Work by Jussi Sandhu and Ville Hakonen.
Last year the Miina Alajärvi film "The Electrician" won three awards at the festival. On Wednesday we will know how successful we will be this year!


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