Board Meeting Minutes – November 2013

January 13, 2014 1:24 am Published by

ACM SIGGRAPH Cascade Minutes Board Meeting 11/5/2013 Attending

  • Sven Bonnichsen
  • Jeffrey Sens
  • Will Lewis
  • Demetra Gilmore Arnett
  • Christina Beard
  • Patrick Coan (attending via Skype)
  • Rob Bekuhrs

Pixel Arts, Games for Change, PIGsquad are organizations in town that Will and Jeffrey are both apart of. We are trying to come up with some ideas for events to run for the next year in entertainment, networking, studio involvement, festival, etc etc. Sven is looking for video game sequences / animation / in game cinematics for a festival idea or an event. Pigsquad developers are more hobbist then serious about cinematic creation and submission. Try a game jam around it. Sven and Will might want to collaborate about this in the future and involve SIGGRAPH. Global Game Jam in January. Games and the internet. Portals on the internet are mostly for browser base games on the internet. To be able to play something that isn’t as big as you usually put on your console. Portals are an easier avenue for smaller / free games. Some portals

  • Kongregate
  • Steam
  • Newgrounds

Rob worked on a game called Forge, it was featured on Steam, but the massive volume of sales offset the initial launch issues. Valve is the company who started this. You can sell virtual goods on this portal, like hats in Team Fortress 2. Thinking of going through the things we have established for events and then brainstorming: Brainstorming Session:

  • Autodesk event coming to town but six other organization are coming with tables. It is happening on November 20th. The main person putting that on is 3DV, mission theater. It’s well set up, it’s on the website to sign up.
  • November 30th, Light Troupe, Symphony of Light. Real time use of a sketch pad to project light onto a building. It’s a holiday event.
  • Downtown portland, room reserved at a bar, we want the second Tuesday of the month and have a board meeting that day as well.
  • January; global game jam / PIGsquad event.
  • Meeting before the main SIGGRAPH
  • Events are open from February / March / April, etc
  • The Northwest Animation Festival is going into it’s 4th year. Planning for a seven day event, reserved an upstairs auditorium for six two hour slots. Intended to be a reunion for the animation community event. Showreel for whole Oregon animation industry.
    • Friday – Sunday has 150 films. Student field trip. Something for the whole region to just converge onto. Want SIGGRAPH to get an auditorium to do something with. Sounds good to Demetra.
    • Dark Horse and Laika, advise is always to see them at a convention if you want to get work, maybe have an event / make it apart of the Northwest Animation Festival.
  • Retrospective about the PJ’s in January with Rob Bekuhrs
    • Ran for three years, want to revisit it, anecdotes, puppets, talking about the experience and the show. Need to look into the legality of it.
  • Potential speakers: Laura Heit; animation sketchbook.
  • Tie ins with Portlandia and Grimm – local shows, etc. Might be a great co-sponsor opportunity. Need to look into it.
  • PIGsquad did a designweek event in town.
  • Lynchpin of Asifa’s stuff is around August with the summer social.
  • Stratacut event
  • Mike A Smith’s film “Cooped” WIP show of his film on December 7th.
  • Benjamin Bremmar feature length film about a Bear and Mouse at Cinema 21 on November 19th. In order to get him into town, had to make a deal to get him into town by promising only members will see the film, trying to currently recruit members.

Right now we need a list on the home page showing other organization events. Sven etc gives permission.

Animated Arts PDX in happening tomorrow, Wednesday at 8:30pm.

Three areas to overlap in the local community. Get someone from Portlandia and Grimm to talk about the process, etc.

Sketching in part of the process of computer graphics and this relevant to SIGGRAPH cascade.

Need one more in June, Will might do another Game Jam in june. Will was approached by a software company called Click Team. Offered space, free food, sponsorship, etc. Trying to get it so that PIGsquad does three jams a year. Might want collaborators but Will isn’t sure yet. Need to figure it out in the next two weeks.

Bring your own art. Allowed people to come and show their art live at a show. Had people come from Second Story. Is a big huge art show during First Thursday. Have an artshow as a goal to shoot for.

There is a group that meets up every month called Attack of the Flix. They hold it in NE off of Grand and Alberta. Filmmakers bring in their films between 5 and 6, people vote at there end for their favorites and it’s a cool exposure opportunity and inclusiveness opportunity. Maybe collaborate with the NW Animation Fest? Film has to be under 10 minutes. Curious Comedy Theater.

  • Event is large enough so you can have the theater for the whole day.

Will has done video game tournaments on a theater screen. Might be neat.

Let’s Play video online with Youtube. The Neverhood. 1994 game / claymation game. Might be really fun to watch.

Recurring event with SIGGRAPH is a drink and draw event.

Animated Arts drink and draw event tomorrow.

The Secret Society might be a good venue for something. Moth Radio Hour done there. It is a Radio show via NPR.

Games for change: loosely organized, not a lot going on right now, but trying to coordinate an autism in games event. Youth in games initiatives. Will says it’s very sexy.

  1. We’ve got four pilots in East and North Portland. Multnomah County Library is this month. They serve at risk youth. Three games camps in spring, summer and fall.

  2. Two are five days long. Art / Animation, gamedesign and programming.

  3. They have a lot going on, a lot of stuff not rolling out until next fall.

  4. Five outstanding schools asking for services and support. Need to get enough qualified mentors to be the leads and guides. Volunteer based.

  5. Portland Youth Builders has a youth media program, trying to build a collaboration with them. Apprecticeship program. Connects students to worlds of work. Teaching soft skills / maturity, looking for paid internships for these students. Linking up with boarder moves at the state level. Partner’s in a couple of different organizations.

  6. Art Therapy / Film Therapy partners involved. Combo of tech and arts driving it.

  7. Priority for Jeffrey is letting the community self organize.

Siggraph could list Games for Change’s events on their event page. Send Jeffrey an e-mail to learn more about it.

Will asks if there are any venues in town that are good, here is what we brainstormed:

  • PCC

  • 5th Ave Cinema

  • PNCA

  • Fjorg

  • Art Institute of Portland

  • University of Oregon – white stag building in downtown

  • University of Portland (tentative, will doesn’t recommend yet)

  • Multnomah Arts Center

  • ITT Tech (is kind of out there though)

  • Stage 13 (Reel Love event via Rob Bekuhrs, good for networking)

  • Hipbone Studios

  • Second Story (used to have flash developers meetings)

  • Backspace (losing license for bands to play, they needs more butts in the seats, Backspace would shift prices, timing, etc according to Will, be weary)

  • Multnomah Library (they need a month’s notice however, central needs 3 months notice)

  • Beaverton Public Library (has a great public auditorium)

  • Tektronix

  • Puppet Labs

  • Lucky Lab (NW one is really good, they have a side room that you can reserve / other options for money, but all of them have a side room. Sometimes they play music really loud)

Use Calagator for event spamming around town, it’s really good for it. It’s an opensource tech by people in Portland.

Barcamp Portland – users are the ones who decide the schedule and conferences for this. Talk to Jeffrey and Will about this and how it works. They planned a few events through it and it’s great! It is free, but they want people to RSVP. Google barcamp portland about it to get more info on it. E-mail Will and Jeffrey about their experiences.

Monique Stabler might be a good person for the board. Might be up for a leadership role. Demetra will contact her.

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