Focusing on international innovations and developments in the field of children and media Cinekid is proud to announce the first subject and speaker of the first day of the conference.
Wednesday 27 October
09:00 - 10:00
Registration + Coffee
10:00 - 10:15
Opening by Carolien Gehrels, Councillor for Culture, City of Amsterdam
10:15 - 11:00
Gary Pope (UK, Kids Industries): Successfully Engaging with Children
In this stimulating presentation Gary Pope one of the founders of Kids Industries, will show best practise examples of how he managed to successfully engage and connect children to content in projects for Disney, Cartoon Network,PepsiCo, Al Jazeera,The BBC and GlaxoSmithKline. During his presentation he will help us understand how to grab and hold children’s attention. Goal of the presentation is to inspire the audience to approach children in the most engaging ways and give insight as to what defines children today in terms of their media consumption.
11:00 - 11:45
James Alliban (Skive): Augmented Storytelling
Augmented Reality (AR) has provided a new and exciting platform for experimental interactive storytelling. Whilst interactive narrative is by no means a new phenomenon (consider computer games, interactive theatre and hypertext to name but a few examples), it has always conformed to either the physical or virtual world. The unique factor in AR is that these two spaces are combined. How does this hybrid environment change the way we consume and generate stories?
In this talk, James will explore these questions whilst examining the way in which AR is currently being used to communicate narrative in a range of forms. Demos from fields such as gaming, mobile, marketing and art will be discussed. He will also consider the potential future of AR as a channel for storytelling both in terms of the technology and the social implications.
11:45 - 12:30
Rebekah Willet (UK, University of London; London Knowledge Lab): 'Play, Creativity and Digital Cultures'
Dr Rebekah Willet will present her research project ‘Children's Playground Games and Songs in the New Media Age’. The project looks back at the records of children’s play in the past and compares it to today’s playground games and songs. The project aims to preserve the important aspect of national culture and explores how it continues to be a part of the lives of children living in the age of computer games and the internet. What does this oral tradition borrow from the media; and how might it connect with the entertainment and information technologies of the age of new media?
The project works in three ways. Firstly, it has digitised material from existing collections of children’s playground games and songs, creating a new digital archive at the British Library, and is designing an interactive website available to educators, researchers, children, parents, and the wider public. Secondly, the project is a two-year study of playground culture in primary schools which is analyzing how these games, songs and rhymes are used by children today as part of a living tradition; and, again, how they relate to children's experiences of popular media such as comics, TV, film, and computer games. Thirdly, an early prototype of a traditional clapping game adapted for the Wii is tested; and other ways to adapt games for computer interfaces are explored.
12:30 - 13:30
Lunch
13:30 - 14:15
Kevin Tod Haug: Keep up to Speed with CGI
Technical innovations in Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) have proven to bring about the most radical of changes in animation and real life action productions at the moment. It is essential to keep up to speed if you want to make the most of this valuable and rapidly developing technique.
Kevin Tod Haug is a specialist in providing a creative view on real-life action features. He works as a visual effects (VFX) supervisor. Kevin will introduce you to exciting CGI developments and will show you how to implement them so as to improve your own production.
14:15 - 15:00
Marie-Louise Mares (VS, Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media; Communication arts department University of Wisconsin-Madison): Tele[re]vision: Taking a new look at TV viewing.
Writers and producers need to create programs that will attract audiences – their shows must entertain and delight or go off the air. This stimulating presentation will address what really makes for good television when it comes to younger viewers. What is it that children say they would like to see? How do children of different ages interpret and perceive fictional TV content? And what if one also wants to have other positive effects beside entertainment? How can producers create stories that help young viewers learn important social lessons, like getting along with others or even just feeling good about themselves? What strategies seem to work best and which ones seem to backfire? Professor Mares will answer all these questions and talk about the key changes in the ways children understand stories and think about the world and what those changes imply for how we should write for young audiences. She presents her own research as well as synthesizing the major findings of forty years of research to describe the challenges and opportunities in television content for children.
15:00 - 15:30
Coffee
15:30 - 16:30
David Freeman: The Secrets Behind Pixar's Magic
How do they do it? Over and over again Pixar films delight, entertain, and move both children and adults. Though every Pixar film is different, we can sense there must be some secret ingredients they share in common. Get out your underwater flashlight and prepare to dive deep - David Freeman is going to lead us to the glowing, hidden heart of Pixar’s magic. He’ll reveal the secret techniques that make Pixar’s films so spellbinding, fun, and stirring. If you make either animated or live-action films, this presentation is a must. However, even if you produce lighthearted half-hour animated television, the best comedies also touch the heart now and then, and thus this session is for you too. Along with all the film clips David uses to demonstrate the techniques, he sandwiches together valuable insights, practical solutions, and a warm, humor-laced style. Don’t miss this memorable one-time event.
16:30 - 17:00
Do's and Dont's
17:00 - 18:00
Cocktail Party
