FilmArc was launched in 2008 to strengthen the smaller production companies in Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Northern Norway and Northern Finland by giving them access to training, seminars and on-going consultancy support.

The audio-visual industry in the Nordic Barents region counts around 300 SMEs and 400 freelancers and enjoys a 13% annual growth rate. “There is a clear and distinct demand to further develop SME businesses and to support the international endeavours of these companies, of which many have taken significant steps for growth in Asia and North America for instance. In the upcoming Cannes Film Festival there are five times as many companies from North Finland alone as there were in the previous years,” says Anne Laurila, (pictured) project manager and head of POEM in Oulu, Finland where FilmArc 2.0 is based.

WHAT IS THIS?

FilmArc project is running towards its end and it is time to get together one more time and share the experiences and results of the project as well as present and discuss what the future may hold. Apply now!

FOR WHO?

For those that have a companies in the Film Arc region in the audiovisual industry, making film, computer games, crossmedia, music videos or comercials.

WHEN?

May 29-31st 2011.

WHERE?

Oulu, Finland.

TRAVEL

Travel will be available from each region.

CONTENT:

- How to build sustainable career as film professional? David Browstein from Hollywood Coaching, L.A.

DAVID BROWNSTEIN

- Presentations of each regions work with the Film Arc project.

- Case studies from companies that been taking part of the Film Arc project.

- Presentation of Film Arc 2.0 and Film Arc Association

- Dinner & mingle.

Contact your local Film Arc representative if you have questions or want to apply to the Film Arc summit:

Welcome!

Finland:

Anne Laurila – POEM

+358 44 7037523

anne.laurila@poem.fi

Västerbotten & Norrbotten:

Johan Lundkvist – Film i Västerbotten

+46 70-211 90 92

johan@filmivasterbotten.com

Norge:

Helene Foshaug – FilmCamp

+47 481 439 28

helene@filmcamp.no

Johan Lundkvist of FilmArc never could have dreamt of a better start to the industry-centered games conference at Folkets Hus, last friday. Despite the short notice, the GameDev Conference in Umeå gathered an attendance of about 70 people. The attendees were treated with a day packed with interesting talks, good food and great networking opportunities.

Fredrik Wester, CEO and principal shareholder of Paradox Interactive, started off the conference with a talk about the future of online distribution. The industry veteran Wester shared thoughts and findings with a surprising frankness in a business oriented, hour-long talk. One of his most interesting points was how temporary price-cuts affected sales of digitally distributed games. By lowering the price on old titles by as much as 75%, Wester has (by carefully monitoring consumer behaviour) found out how to prolong the sales curve – and increase the overall revenue. The pricing, as Wester puts it, becomes the marketing.

Under the management of Fredrik Wester, Paradox Interactive and digital distribution platform GamersGate has been pushing the notion on how to distribute games and game content. By closely observing industry giants such as Blizzard and Valve, Wester has created an alternative to Steam, the number one platform for digital distribution of today. Tightening the value-chain, make games with high replay value, incorporate the gamers in the creation process and have many small releases are some of the ways that have taken GamersGate and Paradox to where they are today.

Next up, after an hour and a half of lunch mingle at restaurant Äpplet, was an online Q&A with Per Strömbäck. Per is the spokesperson for the trade organisation Dataspelsbranschen and one of the more known faces of the Swedish games industry. Despite some technical difficulties, Per got to address some of the concerns of the attendance.

- The competition from Quebec is terrible!

One of the questions that was brought up was about future tax reliefs for gaming companies, taking the Canadian efforts as an example. Strömbäck assured the audience that working for a Swedish equivalent is one of Dataspelsbranschen’s top priorities.

Following the Skype call, Emanuel Dohi kicked off a series of business presentations from some of the game companies represented at the conference. Emanuel presented the past, present and future works of Dohi Sweden, topped off with a secretive sneak peek of the upcoming iOS application Table Drum. Game industry pride of Umeå, Coldwood Interactive, was one of the other companies who got to present their work for the audience. Nordic Game organizer Sten Selander finished the day off by talking about how to becoming successful at game conferences.

After dinner the day was rounded off by a very appreciated mingle party at Coldwood Interactive.

The GameDev Conference offered a day-long opportunity for knowledge-sharing between companies. But most of all it showed the need for a regular assembly-point for a young but fast expanding digital industry.

Photo: Joel Nordin, Michael Gill, Johan Lundkvist

Text: Michael Gill

The GameDev Conference will feature seminars, lectures and networking opportunities for established game companies as well as aspiring startups. Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester, born in Västerbotten, will talk about the future of online distribution of games. Since launching digital distribution platform GamersGate (originally Gamer’s Gate) in late 2006, Paradox and Wester have established themselves as a viable option to Steam. Sten Selander, of event and conference organizers Nordic Game, will talk about how to prepare for game exhibitions and conferences, and why developers should bother doing it. Listening to his speech will be a good way to get ready for this years Nordic Game Conference in Malmö 10^th through 12^th of May.

Aside from offering insightful keynotes from some of the Swedish game industry’s most famous faces, the GameDev Conference will also offer an opportunity to get to know the local videogame companies. There will be a CEO lunch, a series of business presentations and a mingle party at a local game studio office to top it off.

For more information, please contact Johan Lundkvist at johan@filmivasterbotten.com. The deadline for registration is the 21:st of March.

We put our newly acquired skills into practice working in groups every afternoon. Actual projects were used as case studies, and were presented in plenum on the final day.

Lots of good results! It was interesting to be a part of the process of “internetifying” the way of thinking about the featured topics.

DO IT WITH OTHERS and don’t be afraid to SHARE !! (Words that are still ringing in my ears.) Not to forget the idea of making money while you sleep…

The participants gained fundamental skills and know-how, and are better equipped to advance their business with the use of social media in the future.

The workshop was arranged at FilmCamp in collaboration with Nordnorsk Filmsenter. The participants were mainly from the north Norwegian region, but also coming from Rogaland, Oulo and Sao Paulo in Brasil.

Thomas Mai is sharing parts of his lecture on his web-site; thomasmai.net

Photos: Svein Andersen
Text: Helene Foshaug

- I have always been interested in film, Emma says, and continues;
- I went to a media education (high school) with focus on photo and film. I continued with photo for a while after I graduated.

Then Emma left Sweden for a Film school in Barcelona; “Film photography and camera operator”, a 2 year course.

- During the education there was a lot of work in sharp productions. The teachers encouraged us to participate in the productions even if we missed class, Emma says.

Emma met Susana, a photografer who runs the company BCNIdeas.

- Through her I got a lot of jobs, both as electrician and b-photo. I did music videos, commercials and shorts. I also worked on one feature film in Spain; “Hombre Cero”. And I’ve also worked on some documentaries. It’s just a pity that my track record in Spain does not count much now that I am back in Sweden, and the same for my Swedish track record in Spain.

Right now Emma is also taking a course in Piteå, Sweden, in Documentary making. She also says that she really love working on shorts, but as we all now, there is not much money in shorts.

- Of course I also like to work with features, where you get involved for a long time in the project and actually have the time to get to know the people in the team.

Last summer Emma worked on a short in Norway called “Kiki”.

- I fell in love with Norway. I would very much like to work all over Scandinavia. I love travelling and working in different areas. Right now I really want to develop my work in photo, says Emma.

Text and Photo: Sarah Arildsson

“Until now, we’ve had to outsource the branding and the advanced parts of the graphics pipeline, but as we kept growing within the field of computer entertainment and advanced content it was vital to have a fullservice operation. With more and more projects demanding high definition work, and as the projects grew in size we knew it was time to have these services in-house.” explains Emanuel Dohi, CEO at Dohi Sweden.

From left: Joakim Burvall, Agneta Åkerlund and Lars Lundberg.

Lars Lundberg, Designer

A developer with a superior eye for type design and interface awareness, Lars grants the team the ability to bring creative depth to the identity of the brands they develop. As a multi-skilled interaction designer and animator he also rules tools such as Adobe Flash and Illustrator.

Joakim Burvall, 2D/3D Artist

With several years of prior working experience as a realtime 3D graphics artist at Resolution Interactive, Joakim brings high level modelling and texturing to the family. He will keep the world of Moto Racing titles alive through new exiting content. Stay tuned!

Agneta Åkerlund, 2D/3D Artist, VFX

With broad range of interest and experience in the fields of Art and CG, Agneta will contribute with the aspects of realistic 3D rendering, compositing and special effects, as well as that of traditional conceptual work through illustration, painting and sculpturing.

This years event promises to be the best yet and if you haven’t already made a note of the dates; June 15th and 16th in Skellefteå, Sweden and April 1st for registration day. There will also be a dinner party for everyone that attends and we have more speakers to tell you about soon, so to stay up to date, follow Creatie Summit on Twitter and visit their site

- We’ve been focusing on digital download for the Nintendo platforms, and the interest has been fantastic so far. Our strategy to step-by-step grow our portfolio of games and services is paying off, says Matti.

At the trade show new opportunities opened up as a result of all the previous success and ongoing projects, for instance making boxed games for the ultra hot Nintendo 3DS platform. Since Zordix is one of few experienced game studios producing for the Nintendo DS, game publishers lined up nicely. So nicely that a deal for a litterary hot game could be negotiated during the week and a contract signed as a result of the GDC meetings.

The photo depicts Matti Larsson in the Nintendo 3DS booth area at GDC, ready to try out a couple of launch titles for the handheld console that already sold 380 000 units during its first two days of sales in Japan.

During a couple of coffee breaks Matti was interviewed by journalists about their upcoming title, the style-proof game Valet Parking 1989 that will soon be available for download in the Nintendo DSiWare channel.

If you’d like to know more we recommend you to read what an ironic generation of the 80s journalist has to say about it, and make sure to check out the teaser preview film:

If you’re a Club Nintendo member, or like to keep up to date with new releases in the Nintendo Channel on your Wii at home, you will not be able to miss it. But for anyone else there is also hope.

After attending the Film Arc Masterclasses, theory has been put to practice. Zordix has developed a battery of social media marketing tools prepared for anyone that wants to be a little extra entertained and socialize even more in Facebook. If you like the 80s awesome style in clothes, music and cars, you’ll soon experience a wave of free amusing, awsome stuff that will challenge you. Hopefully another of Film Arc’s many success stories that will unravel shortly. Stay tuned for more.

Photo: Michael Gill

One day lecture followed by one day workshop will be led by Tom Fleischman, sound re-record mixer known for such tiles as The Departed, Shine a light, Chocolat, Goodfellas, Life is Beautiful and many others.

If you have a project under sound post production, we suggest you to apply to our workshop and get the privilege to work with Tom and other sound professionals. If you don’t have a project to work with, we also have limited seats for observers – or just join in for the audience lecture!

Deadline for applications is 10th of March. Read HERE how to apply!

If you are located in Northern Scandinavia (FilmArc – region), you can talk to your local Film Arc reprecentative about getting help with travel and course fee. You can find their contact info here.