Get ahead of the line. Pick up your VIDFEST Sat-Mon access pass early.

Mixers are for the attendees of VIDFEST in each of the major digital media sectors. Focused, connected, they’re about your community.

Free with your VIDFEST Sat-Mon Access Pass or $20 at the door. One drink included.

Sponsored by: Donat Group

People: Shiny up those resumes and get first in line to meet some of the very best companies in digital media.

Companies: Send out the HR dept. in full force. We’re rounding up an army of talent. Get your pick of the pack.

Companies include:
Rainmaker Animation
Blast Radius
Other Ocean Interactive
Radical Entertainment
Nerd Corps Entertainment
Donat Group Enterprises
Master’s of Digital Media
Emily Carr Institute
Art Institute of Vancouver

This is a free event!

Game pitches. Games on the big screen. Game stuff at the Auction House. It’s all games all the time! Come together for an afternoon of pitch ‘n’ play. Hear about some of the best up and comers in digital entertainment. Teams will take the stage for 15 minutes and give a 10 minute pitch followed by a 5 minute Q&A. In between, play Guitar Hero, Wii tennis and golf in a theatre. Bid on some great finds, all game related, at the WOW styled Auction House too.

Our power pitchers line-up includes:
Mind Habits
Big Blue Bubble
Cerebral Vortex
Cambrian House
Zeroes 2 Heroes
Power Up Studios
HotRocket

Mixers are for the attendees of VIDFEST in each of the major digital media sectors. Focused, connected, they’re about your community.

Free with your VIDFEST Sat-Mon Access Pass or $20 at the door. One drink included.

Sponsored by: Donat Group

Get this into your blackberries: Party with the digerati. Kick-off the Vancouver International Digital Festival at the must-attend gala of the season.

The PopVox Awards is the people’s choice awards for the Vancouver International Digital Festival. The Popvox awards recognizes all major sectors of the digital media industry and celebrates its creativity, talent, and achievements. Awards will be presented at the Gala for the top video game, mobile game, digital animation short, Web 2.0 application, digital visual effects and digital music score. As well, a special award called Homegrown: Best of British Columbia will be presented to a person whose achieved great success and inspired the digital media industry.

Awards: 7pm
Gala: 8pm - 12am

Sponsored by: Blast Radius

Don’t miss the premiere of Infest Wisely - “a lo-fi, sci-fi movie in seven episodes.” A DIY triumph, the film has been hailed by critics as a “great nanopunk flick.” Creator, Jim Munroe, will be on hand to introduce the film and participate in the Creative Exchange on Monday.

The highly anticipated online sci-fi series is here. Shot in HD, enjoy it for the first on the big screen at our exclusive screening. Series creator Damian Kindler will introduce this special event.

Doors open: 6pm
Screening: 7 - 10pm

Sponsored by: BC Film

Macro sessions give you the big picture in digital media today. Micro sessions offer high level seminars for the cutting edge professional.

9am - 10am

Opening Keynote: Ori Brafman and the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

New business thought leader, Ori Brafman, co-author of The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations is coming to the Festival this year. Ranked a top ten book by Amazon for 2006, The Starfish and the Spider offers a powerful model to understand how and why digital media organizations such as Ebay, Wikipedia and Skype are such smash successes. Hint: they are all starfish. Brafman’s insights are powerful and clear. To harness the regenerating power of the starfish and the advantages of decentralized networking, come and join us. We’d love to see you there. Even Spiders are most welcome!

Sponsored by: Telefilm

10:20am - 11:20am

Macro - The Wisdom of Crowds: Web 2.0 Democracy or Mob Mentality?

The Web 2.0 phenomenon has opened the floodgates on user participation, collaboration and content. Online communities and social software are hotter than ever, and the ability to interact with like-minded individuals instantaneously from anywhere around the world has had considerable benefits for users and businesses. But the Web 2.0 democracy, coupled with the anonymous nature of the internet, has also resulted in some unsavoury group behaviour and mob mentality, breeding fear and criticism. Do the benefits outweigh the risks? How do you as an individual or business cope when the mob takes over? How will the web evolve past these growing pains? Join the panel for this very lively, provocative and stimulating debate.

Speakers
Andrew Keen, Author, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture
Jim Munroe, Novelist, Filmmaker, Infest Wisely
Jason Roks, Citizen 001, digitalpeasants.com; Founder, misovision.org
Michael Sikorsky, CEO, Cambrian House
Michael Tippett, Co-founder and CEO, Now Public

Moderator: Jennifer Ouano, President, Elastic Entertainment

Sponsored by: Rainmaker Entertainment

Micro - Convergence: Maintaining IP Integrity Across Platforms

Honour your property and maintain a reliable user experience across all digital entertainment mediums. Whether you’re breathing new life into a pre-existing IP or creating one from the ground up. Find out how to successfully direct this process.

Speakers
Joshua Lowcock, Manager, Convergent Technologies for the Nine Network Australia
Cliff Plumer, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Domain
Kevin Gamble, Producer, Studio B; Co-Creator, “Tiki Bar TV”

Moderator: Mike Agerbo, Executive Producer and Host, GetConnectedTV and Radio; Co-Founder, Blink Media Works

Sponsored by: Bell Broadcast & New Media Fund

11:40am - 12:40pm

Macro - MyFace, YourSpace: Maximizing Your Online Identity

Utilize social networking sites to your advantage. From Facebook, to Myspace to Second Life, which community offers you the best tools to market yourself or your product online? If you’re developing games, tools or applications for social networking, understanding the social and cultural world of these sites is key to getting the most out of them and realizing how you and your projects might benefit from them. What do these sites tell us about our social habits and needs? Join this session to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of some of the biggest social networking organizations.

Speakers
Jeremiah Owyang, Web Strategist, Podtech
Sean Embury, Senior Producer, CBC Television
Douglas Gayeton, Chief Creative Officer, Millions of Us

Moderator: Megan Cole, Consultant; Director of Social Media, Catapult Media; Co-Producer, ThisCityRocks; Blogger, megsjargon, Canada Bombshell

Micro - Bite-Sized Entertainment: How to Get more From Less

Making, watching and playing films, games, is getting shorter, faster, and easier than ever before. How is the bite-sized entertainment offered by RSS, micro games, mini comics, and youtube on ipods and other mobile devices changing our future? Do good things always come in small packages? Learn how to seize the business opportunities and creative possibilities for getting fast, cheap, and out of control with the new entertainment in digital media.

Speakers
Steve Bocska, Joint Chief Executive Officer, Hothead Games
Ping Jiang，Vice-President, China Film Animation, a China Film Group and Director, International Relations, EAE Group Inc. Canada
Dan Marchant, Executive Producer, Games for EM-Media

Moderator: Tarrnie Williams, General Manager, Relic Entertainment

1:40pm - 2:40pm

Macro - Baby, You’ve Been Branded

How do you stay true to your content and retain the integrity of your brand? Discover the advantages, pitfalls & paths to successfully managing sponsored content. Whether you’re employing content to sell your product or employing a product to sell your content, you’re bound to learn from this panel of industry vets.

Speakers
Dan Reitzik, President, DY Mobile
Dave Sylvestre, Group Creative Director, Organic
Matt De Castro, VP Brand Engagement, Arkadium

Co-Moderators: Jim Southcott, Chief Strategic Officer, TBWA
Catherine Warren, President, FanTrust Entertainment Strategies

Sponsored by: UK Trade & Investment

Micro - The Reality Continuum: Physical, Blended and Virtual Realities in Second Life

How do alternate realities offer opportunities for organizations to augment their real world life? In this session, reps from a digital media graduate school share their views and experiences of metaverse Second Life. Hear the highlights and the lowlights of their world blending projects. Find out their plans for modding, reworking and experimentation with digital spaces for education, recruitment and research on the digital frontier.

Speakers
Michael Griffin, Virtual Research Assistant, Masters of Digital Media Program
Chuck Hamilton, Director, IBM@PLAY, IBM’s Centre for Advanced Learning; Learning and New Media Leader, 3D Internet team, IBM
Joanna Robinson, Masters of Digital Media Program
Catherine Winters, Masters of Digital Media Bricoleur, Masters of Digital Media Program

Moderator: Gerri Sinclair, Executive Director, Masters of Digital Media Program

3pm - 4pm

Macro - Find Some Sanctuary

Co-presented with the Vancouver International Film Festival, this session takes you behind the scenes of the Internet’s most expensive series. Shot in HD, Sanctuary is an online series by creators with top notch sci-fi pedigrees (Stargate SG1, Atlantis). Mixing fan community input, immersive interaction and, of course, broadcast quality webisodes, Sanctuary is something you don’t want to miss out on. Sanctuary will provide an excellent case study of how the Internet is positioned to become the home of traditional broadcasting entertainment. Get the full scoop at this first-time, exclusive session with its creators.

Speakers
Damian Kindler, Creator/Executive Producer Sanctuary
Amanda Tapping, Lead actor, Executive Producer, Sanctuary
Martin Wood, Director/Executive Producer Sanctuary
Richard Patterson, VFX Supervisor, Stage 3 Media Inc.

Co-sponsored by: Vancouver International Film Festival

Moderator: Rick Mischel, President, Reach Games

Micro - How 2 Talk 2 A 10 Yr Old

How do u talk in txt 2 a 10 yr old? If teens make up the largest percentage of users who employ cell phones and iPods for video content, such as music videos, movies, TV programs and web videos - does your content fit the bill? Learn the difference between organic digital trends VS synthetic trends. Take this crash course in what’s hot in digital media youth culture. This session is 2G2B4G.

Speaker
Anastasia Goodstein, Publisher, ypulse.com; author, Totally Wired: What Teens And Tweens Are Really Doing Online

4:20pm - 5:20pm

Closing Keynote: Mark Verheiden, Co-Executive Producer; Writer, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Paul Chadwick, Creator of Concrete, The World Below, writer of The Matrix Online

Join these two sci-fi visionaries for our festival title presentation: Reminiscing About the Future. Get in on the debate about how sci-fi, though tv, movies, books, comics, and games influences the way we live & the way we create entertainment now.

C’mon, get happy. Chat with other delegates. Compete for the biggest facebook network.

Sponsored by: Nintendo Canada

Mixers are for the attendees of VIDFEST in each of the major digital media sectors. Focused, connected, they’re about your community.

Free with your VIDFEST Sat-Mon Access Pass or $20 at the door. One drink included.

Sponsored by: Donat Group

International Partnering Forum (by application only)

Update! John Walker, Feature Film Producer/Director of Production, Pixar Animation Studios to provide opening keynote.

John Walker, producer of the Disney-Pixar film The Incredibles and associate producer of Warner Bros. Studios’ The Iron Giant, delivers a keynote address on creating successful partnerships with filmmakers when collaborating in digital entertainment productions at the International Partnering Forum. Attend this address to find out how one of the most acclaimed animation studios really does it!

Come for a full day of networking sessions and hand selected one-on-one meetings. Companies looking for business matches, distributors, and development partners in all sectors of the digital entertainment industry may apply. The IPF is an exclusive event offering your company the opportunity to meet industry veterans and decision-makers, cutting edge creators and emerging players. Past attendees have said this about the IPF:

“[it] built upon our superlative experience from the first year, with fantastic networking and solid business opportunities for partnerships between Asia and the rest of the world.”

“I am sure you have heard this before, but the event gets better and better every year. We are already following up on significant opportunities. Well done!”

Contact Dennis Chenard, International Partnerships Manager to apply.

Sponsored by:
BC Ministry of Economic Development
Vancouver Economic Development Commission
Canadian Heritage - Trade Routes Program
PricewaterhouseCoopers

One of VIDFEST’s most hailed speakers. Last year Josh showed us the potential of his art making programs. This year get behind the scenes on how it all works and make it work for you. In this intensive workshop, Josh will show you how to use Macromedia Flash MX and ActionScript to build a program that does design work. It will speed your production, expand the range of your works, enhance your skills of composition and selection, and give your creative process a booster shot. You need only a basic understanding of Flash; advanced scripting knowledge is not necessary. Bring your laptop!!

Sponsored by: Emily Carr Institute

You can’t have too much happiness. Join us in the lounge. Chill, chat, and chew.

Sponsored by: KPMG

Mixers are for the attendees of VIDFEST in each of the major digital media sectors. Focused, connected, they’re about your community.

Free with your VIDFEST Sat-Mon Access Pass or $20 at the door. One drink included.

Sponsored by: Donat Group

Come chill on Threewave Software’s Rooftop Patio and enjoy a cocktail, appies or a freshly BBQ’ed burger. In collaboration with New Media BC & WIGI, Threewave is celebrating their 11th Anniversary of Capture the Flag! The event will run from 5-8pm at #400 – 948 Homer Street on the Roof. Please email your RSVP by September 19th to rsvp@threewavesoftware.com