On Friday, February 11th, Tribeca Flashpoint, The Computer Graphics Society (CGS) and Pipe Dreams 3D welcomed guests to the February meeting of the CG Society. Speakers (including Dan Bruce, Rob Rice, and Tribeca Flashpoint alumnus Rick Livingston) from Pipe Dreams 3D presented on “The Pipeline of 3D Animatics” in the animation industry.

From Friday, January 28th, to Sunday, January 30, Tribeca Flashpoint students, alumni, staff, and faculty participated in the Global Game Jam. In less than 48 hours, teams created thoughtful, playable, beautiful games on this year’s secret topic, “Extinction.”

In this blog post, alumnus Pete Stilwell (Game & Interactive Media, Class of 2010) talks about his experience.

When asked to write about my experience at this year’s [Global Game] Jam, a lot of options popped into my head.

There’s the epic, ‘baptism of game building fire,’ route. The humorous, ’smells only a group of 50 gamers in a room with very low ceilings can produce,’ route. Or the adrenaline fueled, ‘one more energy drink is going to A: cause a life ending aneurysm, B: get this game playable, or C: cause an aneurysm that raises me to a transcendent state and makes this game change the industry forever’ route.

Screw that. You wouldn’t remember it tomorrow, or worse, you’d only remember the story because it revolves around an old man, his broken hip, and 300 dpi.

Instead I’d like to tell you a story about what’s going on under the surface of the Jam. What – after the zombie state washes away – you hold on to. What will bring you back next year?

I’ll tell you, it’s not the games. We can, and we will continue to make those.

It’s the quality of everyone involved. Tribeca Flashpoint has brought something insanely good to the table, and the Jam is an experience that proves it.

It stems from the staff and faculty, then trickles down and infects each new generation of students. It’s that insatiable desire to be the best team in the room, but never denying a helping hand to those that falter.

It helped define my experience at Tribeca Flashpoint, and I was filled with pride to see it alive and well throughout the Jam.

Tribeca Flashpoint embodies the traits that make the game industry successful, and as a result the institution is successful.

The Global Game Jam is an event unlike any other I’ve experienced in a creative medium. It’s a combination of the sleepless camaraderie of the Marine Corps’ Hell Week, your dirty laundry, and what it probably feels like to be a bubble getting pitched about inside an energy drink.

If you’ve experienced it, you’ll get what I mean. If you haven’t, permanently clear your schedule for the last weekend of January, we’ll reserve you a spot on next year’s team.

We’re well-trained. We’re the nerds. We’re the quiet ones in the corners. We’re the goddamned outliers, but together, in that setting, we’re brilliant. See you next year Jammers…

The City of Chicago is buried under a foot and a half of snow. Check out this great video footage from Daley Plaza showing the storm rolling in on the 1st, and winding down the evening of the 2nd. (Tribeca Flashpoint’s campus can be seen in the upper left corner, at Clark and Washington.)

From the start of spring classes to a sneak peak at our latest Production in Action, “Who Died and Made YOU Boss?,” the latest happenings and student projects are here in this week’s edition of This Week at Tribeca Flashpoint!

Congratulations to director Debra Granik on the success of Winter’s Bone!

Granik screened the film at Tribeca Flashpoint in May for an audience of students, faculty, and staff. Yesterday, the film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Best Supporting Actor (John Hawkes), and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards.

From all of us here at Tribeca Flashpoint, we wish Debra and the whole Winter’s Bone cast and crew the best at the Oscars!

Congratulations to first year Game & Interactive Media student Paul Otake for taking one of three Best Entry spots in this month’s Game Career Guide Game Design Challenge!

This time, student game developers were challenged to create a game along any winter holiday theme.  Read Paul’s winning entry below!

Paul Otake, Flashpoint Academy, Revolution X-mas

It turns out the north pole is nothing like you heard about as a kid. The rustic little workshops bustling with jolly fairy gnomes are actually dirty, sprawling factories where elves are forced to work 18 hour days year in and year out. Starved, demoralized, and broken the elves work tirelessly beneath the despotism of Santa Claus.

But don’t worry kids, its not the real Santa Claus, its a clever impostor who usurped the throne almost one hundred years ago and changed the north pole into the industrialized hell it is today. Nez and Tiz are two elves determined to fight back, incite a revolution, and bring the tyrant down.

Standing in their way is an army of evil teddy-bears, giant toy soldiers, and traitorous elves. Players will need to utilize stealth, guerrilla tactics, and a small arsenal of gadgets and make-shift weapons to combat this army. Even then, it’ll be an uphill battle all the way, and they’ll need to free the elves and fight to save the real Santa in order to have any chance of success.

Revolution Xmas is a 3rd person, two player co-op game intended for current-gen consoles; gameplay is a mashup of Fable 3 and Assassins Creed with an emphasis on stealth, parkour, and fast, hit-and-run combat. The world of the north pole is actually a massive underground complex consisting of small, rundown villages set up around a sprawling hub of factories.

The player controls either Nez, a small yet vicious melee fighter, or Tiz, a slingshot sharpshooter who is noticeably taller than her male counterpart. You see, there are four races of elves populating the north pole. Well actually three and a half. There are the Ez, the Iz, the Az, and the Uz. The Ez, the Iz, and the Uz are all physically different from one another, and each have their own talents. The Az are the traitorous half-elves who work for the evil Santa and keep the other elves under his iron fist. They are the progeny of the impostor Santa and elves (naughty!).

Not only are our heroes just tiny little elves, they’re also vastly outnumbered. Because of this combat is mostly hit and run; slinking around in the shadows to viciously ambush an unsuspecting team of baddies before agilely slipping back into the darkness.

At your disposal are Nez’s twin knives and Tiz’s deadly slingshot, they share an assortment of homemade Christmas ornament explosives ranging from flashbangs and smoke to fragmentation grenades. Combine explosives with an army of evil toys, and you have blissful holiday destruction. The player can single-handedly stealth kill smaller enemies like teddy-bears but the larger, sentinel like Toy-Soldiers require strategy and teamwork to take down.

Free the Ez from the dangerous mines beneath the pole, fight to save the Iz from the textile factories, and the Uz from the assembly lines to fuel the revolution and progress the story. Most missions revolve around sabotage and causing general destructive chaos; these missions affect the game world and freeing elves rewards the player with different perks and gadgets. The Az are formidable opponents and serve not only as the evil Santa’s generals but bosses that each patrol a different section of the map.

Beat all of them, and uncover the location of the real Santa. Save old saint Nick and the game concludes with an epic sled chase. But remember, he’s been keeping a list and he’ll check it twice, all your good deeds and bad deeds throughout the game will be remembered and affect the ending in dramatic ways.

Check out the latest happenings and projects from Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy!

Today, Tribeca Flashpoint welcomes Peter DiCola, assistant professor of law at Northwestern University, for a JumpStart session with first year students from all disciplines.

About Peter DiCola:

After law school, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Thomas L. Ambro of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He has recently co-authored a book titled Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling with Kembrew McLeod (University of Iowa), which Duke University Press will publish in March 2011.

After months of hard work and burning the midnight oil, Focused Study Broadcast students at Tribeca Flashpoint today launched block56, a brand new, online News & Entertainment Magazine.

Named for the 56th block of the Burnham city plan (the block occupied by Tribeca Flashpoint’s main campus in Burnham Center), block56 will cover all things related to Tribeca Flashpoint, our four disciplines, and our surrounding community.

In addition to featuring the latest news and happenings around campus, block56 will showcase short films and vignettes, photos, opinions, blog posts, and more.

It will also serve as a place for individual contributors to showcase their work as producers, directors, writers, editors, camera operators, and cinematographers.

The Focused Study Broadcast students and faculty proudly invite the public to view the inaugural issue of block56 at http://broadcast.flashpointacademy.com.

To submit story ideas, contact the managing editors of block56 at block56@tribecaflashpoint.com.

William Ury, author of “Getting to Yes,” offers an elegant, simple (but not easy) way to create agreement in even the most difficult situations — from family conflict to, perhaps, the Middle East.

Check out this great TEDTalk filmed in Chicago last month by Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy.