11IMPs: safe and secure

Alicia Fernandez Franco while fighting her fears and the fire

Burning oil should never be extinguished by water. But has anyone ever seen why? The 1st year media students did.

On August 26th  along with other new students at Finlayson we attended 4 workshops/lectures/seminars about safety of the school, equipment and of course ourselves.

Lukas Kallenbach assembles lamp

We kicked off with first aid. Even though some felt nausea while watching parts of the Red Cross movie, bandaging classmate’s hand and putting him/her into a recovery position eased us out and pushed to learn something new.

In the electrical safety lecture we understood how electrical devices can be properly plugged in. If the electricity goes off in the room, know - the 11IMPs are not to blame. And we know how to assemble a lamp properly as well. And put the wires correctly.

Fire extinguisher is now a friend of Laura Räsänen

And finally we got to the most fun part of the day. Everyone has heard what to do in case of a fire. But imps got to practide it. We fought our fears and fought the fire.

So if you ever need a helping hand in an emergency situation or in everyday life - new media students are exactly what you need.

Pictures and text by Emilija Veselova
The author is student of Degree Programme in Media
Read more stories from/about IMPs, the Media students

1st Week as an Exchange Student of Art/Media

First days in Finlayson campus and many questions in mind. From the left
Marieke Claassens, Klemen Krulec, Benedikt Ruf and Jürgen Rudigier

Information on information on information.  It’s unpleasant necessity, but luckily there were some fun intermezzo activities to brake the boringness.

The orientation course began on Monday 22nd, but Art and Media students gathered at Finlayson campus on Wednesday. We sat around in a circle and introduced ourselves to one another. We got a lot of useful information from our international coordinator and even met some of the professors who gave us brief information about their courses.

The Finlayson student union had their presentation too and we did remember the most important thing of all: “They’re here to HELP us.” In general everyone was very kind and helpful. Later that day Mrs. Sohvi showed us around the campus.  We all were very impressed with it and think it’s the best. Where else can you find classrooms with names of the planets.

Mrs. Sohvi then kindly organized a visit to Tampere Art Museum on Friday, where we were able to enjoy the special 80th Anniversary Jubilee Exhibition “Is This for Real”. The exhibition was interesting and diverse. It’s definitely worth to visit it.

To summon up: the week shows promising start of our exchange in Finland and we are eager to start the courses already. 2nd week couldn’t come soon enough.
p.s.

Special thanks goes to Mrs. Sohvi who goes to all the trouble of helping us with various things without a second thought. We appreciate it.


Story: Maša Pelc
The author is one of our 28 exchange students this autumn

LaunchPad and Indie Games Awards entry deadline extention

From  MindTrek Awars ceremony 2010, Ubimedia award winners

Two MindTrek Competitions open for entries

LaunchPad and Indie Games Awards submission deadline has been extended until September 5. An extra chance to get your application in, and if you'd like, to update your already submitted entry!

The third contest, the global Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award is already closed and the nominees are expected to be releaved next week. LaunchPad and Indie Games are competitions for entries made in Finland.

MindTrek LaunchPad

Do you have the next breakthrough start-up? Bring your start-up to MindTrek and present it in front of industry journalists, venture capitalists, web and mobile savvies. New Finnish digital media products or demos and the people behind them will be awarded with 20 000 €.

MindTrek Indie Games Awards

Are you developing the next unbelievable game success story? You still have time to participate in MindTrek Indie Games Awards. You can win a trip for two to San Francisco to the Game Developers Conference in March 2012, but also get a prime opportunity for negotiations for Mediatonic Funding of 30 000 - 500 000 euros.
|||
MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR MINDTREK CONFERENCE 2011!
MindTrek Conference: September 29-30
Partner Day Sessions: September 28
Academic Program: September 28-30
|||
The MindTrek Awards and the MindTrek Conference are arranged by MindTrek Association. TAMK  School of Art and Media is one of the MindTrek founders. MindTrek is the annual academic year highlight of our media students.
MindTrek has beeb arranfed since 1997.
|||
MindTrek home
Read more about MindTrek on our blog
|||

TTVO Victorious at Blue Sea Film Festival

The producer of Change of State, Mikko Helmanen, after the winning ceremony
Photo: Jussi Sandhu

Blue Sea Film Festival was held at Rauma for the 18th time on 19.-21.8.2011. Six TTVO (School of Art&Media) films were competing in the student series of the Baltic Herring short film competition. "Change of State" (Muutos meitä johtaa), a TTVO thesis film which opened it's festival tour at Rauma, won the first place in the student series as well as the prize of the best short film in the entire festival, the Golden Baltic Herring.

- This recognition feels especially awesome when looking back at all the setbacks that were involved in the making of this film. For a long time we weren't sure it would get made at all, one of the directors, Ville Hakonen, says.

Another thesis film, "A Song From Silent Waters" (Laulu sieltä missä tyyntä on) directed by Outi Tienhaara, won the third prize in the student series. The only film rewarded in the open competition, Place to Stay, also had the names of many current TTVO students in it's ending credits.

All in all 49 films entered the competition from eight Baltic coastal states. The jury praised the nominees especially for including a marine theme, significant for the festival, in many of the stories. In “Change of State” a journey is made through the Gulf of Finland to Estonia, whereas “A Song from Silent Waters” places it’s folk tale of solitude near water.

- Certain members of our school’s staff didn’t think this film would even get nominated at any festivals. This was our first award and I feel good on the behalf of the whole crew, Tienhaara comments.

A Song from Silent Waters is based on folk tales of Näkki,
an enchanting creature living underwater.
Image: Tommi Musturi

The winners will continue their journeys soon. All three shorts can be viewed, along with many other TTVO films, at the Reikäreuna film festival this September.

Story: Jussi Sandhu
English translation: Salla Lehtikangas
|||
Change of State (On Facebook)
A Song From Silent Waters (On Facebook)
|||

Lucky IMP students experience GDC Europe and GamesCom

This years Game Developer Conference Europe and GamesCom guest lists included three students from our very own Degree programme in Media.  By winning the, Nokia sponsored, Demola organised mobile concept competition (read story ) we were able to choose any conference in Europe to visit!  Our choice was GDC Europe 2011 and the affiliated GamesCom trade event that were held during the same week in Cologne, Germany.  It was easy to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and take part in both kinds of event on the same trip. With us travelled Bernard Garvey from Demola who seemed to enjoy our company.  For GamesCom Nokia were unable to finance our visit because of it officially being a separate event so TAMK very generously sponsored the extra nights needed to visit the trade fair.

There were the most people in the booth area during the pauses in GDC

GDC Europe is known and respected world wide as a large event in the gaming industry.  This year it included many lectures, parties and of course networking.  There were lectures from Monday to Wednesday on subjects ranging from business and marketing to game design, programming, visual arts and production.  We were of course able to choose which lectures we went to and most of the time plumped for those that seemed the most interesting.  Parties took place every night too.  From which you had to choose the best as well.  Networking was easier at parties because the feeling was relaxed and you were able to talk about more than just work.  At the end of the day my handbag was always full of business cards!

The humoristic lecturer told us about game design

It was fun to see that despite being at such a large event we were also able to meet other students.  We came in contact with, among others, German and Swedish students.  It was also brilliant to get to know people from outside Finland that are actually studying in the same area.  By sharing experiences and ideas you no doubt learn best.  On the other hand we also got to know some Finns from the games industry, which is handy when we come to think about internships.  GamesCom also had representatives from various Universities and that increased the possibilities for exchange studies.

Nintendo was pretty popular because their new 3DS console

We also succeeded in mingling with one of the biggest forces in the industry: ArenaNet!  The firm was presenting a demo of their new game, Guild Wars 2.  We were even able to test the game on Wednesday before the event even began as trade visitors and press had their own preview of GamesCom.  At the end of the week the gigantic halls we full to the brim with enthusiastic gamers.  Having been invited to the NCSoft party we got the opportunity to meet the actual producers from ArenaNet.  We got to know, among others, famous concept artists Kekai Kotaki and Daniel Dociu - a real once in a life time opportunity.  One of our group member's dreams came true when these legends came up with a surprising and unusual idea.  The next day at gamescom, on stage, Kekai was to draw a Guild Wars 2 tattoo onto none other than Anna's shoulder.  Of course you didn't need to ask Anna twice and she snapped up the opportunity what with being such a huge fan of the game.

Anna was very happy with her new tattoo

The journey was no doubt one that none of the group will forget! We are more than pleased with what we have learnt and found the whole experience really inspiring.  In the future we will no doubt be looking for even more promising opportunities, like this, to explore.

Story: Emma Kiiski
Translation Douglas Symon
|||
The three awarded students, Emma Kiiski, Douglas Symon and Anna Narinen are students of Degree Programme in Media
Read more stories from/about IMPs, the Media students
|||

Suvi Hokkanen is the 2011 IMP Mölkky Champion

Suvi Hokkanen - the 2011 IMP Mölkky Open Champ

The traditional IMP Mölkky Open Championship rounded up the first week programme of the new TAMK Media students followed by an evening party with other new Art&Media students from the Film&TV and Fine Arts programmes.

Trent Pancy and Emilija Veselova keeping track of scores

The Mölkky competition was very hard; 28 participants showed up and the winner was found in the 10th round proofing the excellent skills of IMP students.

Lukas Kallenbach, Andreas Heinrich and Szabolcs Sarosi discussing Mölkky tactics

The first week the students of our international interactive media programme (IMP) got familiar with the Finlayson Campus, the network services of TAMK and started their classes in Visual Design. Also a picnic with other Finlayson first year students was done.

Magdalena Vasilescu hitting the pins

Next week more courses will start and the orientation will continue at TAMK Main Campus.

Traditional group photo after tha game

|||
Mölkky @Wikipedia
|||
Read more about the IMP students
|||

This is the third edition of our international media programme

Our new students started today, our building is filled with excitement, questions and joy.

The beginning students of our international media programme illustrated the group generating a tag cloud with Wordle. Everybody told their main area of study, their dearest hobby and their title ten years after graduating from TAMK. Wordle did the rest, highlighting the words that were mentioned most often. (Click on the image to enlarge)

The media students starting this year come from China, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, South-Korea, Spain and USA.

You will hear more about our new students later this week!

|||
Read more about the IMP students
|||

TAMK at Assembly, Summer 2011

TAMK participated in the biggest game party in the country with few enthusiastic students from both Teiskontie and Finlayson. We got our stuff in the Hartwall arena and had a stand for everyone to come to ask about TAMK and what we are studying and look what we have been doing (game projects etc). For me personally this was the first time in Assembly so everything was new and exciting! Assembly is a great way to connect with students from other schools and some interesting people from the industry. It’s also an event to share knowledge, experiences, ideas, new technology and most importantly; having fun with all this!

Leaving from TAMK

The sea of computer screens in the arena looked wonderful in the evening when the lights were turned off and many of the gamers continued playing the whole night. Fortunately there was also a possibility to take a few hours sleep on the hallway to gather some energy. There was a band playing in the main stage before midnight and before that some very interesting game developing compo videos were shown in the big screen. Everyone in the event could vote for their favorite games in the compo. Some school projects had been shown as well as hobbyist game demos. It was really interesting to see that a university of applied sciences in Kajaani (KAJAK) was really actively presenting their projects and they had something to be proud about. It’s a shame there were no games in the compo from TAMK but let’s see if next year brings any new good games to be showed in Assembly!

TAMK's awesome stand

There were many interesting seminars about new online game development. For example Mozilla was presented in browser-based developing. It’s already quite amazing what you can create with only the browser’s 2D (Canvas) and 3D (WebGL) tools.
There was a presentation from Supercell (a game company) where they presented new and light game technology with a quite old tool Flash. The game looked pretty good and was light to run with the browser. In amount the seminars were really interesting and inspiring. It wasn’t all about game development; some of the topics covered for example game music. There was a lot to choose from for everyone.

The event has offered graphic contests and game tournaments which are a fun way to spend time in between of playing in the middle of the sea of computers.

Angry Birds - live version

At some point a former students from TAMK’s international business programme came to talk to us. He works now in Rovio with Angry Birds and was really positive about TAMK students to get to work over there too. That would be a really good chance for internship. It was nice to notice that TAMK is a good school to jump from into the industry.

I left in the Saturday evening so I wasn’t able to join the fun on Sunday. But next year I will for sure participate in the event and promote TAMK and our awesome game projects! It was a really great trip and taught me a lot; I hope the others enjoyed too!

Story: Emma Kiiski
The author is student of Degree Programme in Media
Read more stories from/about IMPs, the Media students
|||
Assembly Summer 2011
|||