Executive Director, Dr. Gerri Sinclair announced the appointment of six new instructors in August. Glenn Entis, Tom Wujec, Jeffrey Ventrella, Magy Seif el-Nasr, Steve Mamber and Jeremy Gibson (shown in the photo above) have joined the award-winning faculty of the Masters of Digital Media (MDM) Program this month.

Academy Award winner Glenn Entis is the former Chief Visual and Technology Officer at EA and former CEO of Dreamworks Interactive. Glenn will work with Tom Wujec who is a fellow at Autodesk. As adjunct professors, they will provide guidance and leadership in developing the collaborative design skills of the MDM student body through "Hawt" Design Workshops and ongoing mentorship.

Jeffrey Ventrella and Magy Seif el-Nasr will be teaching two fundamental MDM courses: "Building Virtual Worlds" and "Foundations of Game Design", respectively. Jeffrey is an artist, artificial intelligence researcher and developer of virtual worlds and artificial life. Magy is an award-winning researcher focused on using interactive environments for training, education and entertainment.

Steve Mamber also joins as adjunct professor. He is a digital media pioneer specializing in film analysis in the digital environment. Steve will be working with Jeremy Gibson whose focus is on the rapid development of entertainment and educational software. Steve and Jeremy will be developing and delivering two existing MDM courses, "The Visual Story" and "Foundations of Digital Media", as online curriculum.

For more information about the MDM Faculty, visit mdm.gnwc.ca/faculty.

MDM program now in its second year

The Masters of Digital Media (MDM) Program kicked off its second year and welcomed returning and many new students. Both the new cohort (dubbed, "Next Gens"), and the returning class (or "First Borns") were treated to a full week of orientations, introductions, team building workshops, and presentations. Now, the new students have formed teams to begin their intensive course work, while returning student teams have started collaborative work on industry-funded projects.

First and second year MDM students.

A number of students are also working as teaching assistants over the next two semesters, providing support to faculty and MDM staff. T.A.’s will be involved with helping prepare course materials, technical support, and making contributions to the website. As in the previous year, students will post blogs about their experiences in the program. Students Ryan Nadel and Ashley Blacquiere will also post their own weekly updates.

With classes and project work in full swing, the Centre for Digital Media has returned to full activity, though it had been far from quiet during the summer months. Renovations to the Centre over the summer (Phase II of the Centre’s renewal plans) were completed in time for classes. Of the building’s improvements, several project rooms and editing suites (now abuzz with activity) were added to accommodate an increase in demand for new student work spaces. The Centre also hosted a hugely successful three week digital boot camp for teens in July.

Stay tuned for regular updates on student work, and visit our website at mdm.gnwc.ca.

Second year Masters of Digital Media students working on the UBC Fisheries Project for ecosystem visualization.

"Getting paid to do what you love is not a bad way to spend the day."

As classes got underway, returning Masters of Digital Media (MDM) students reconnected and exchanged stories about their summer industry internships. Internships ran from May through August, and students took on a variety of roles including: Assistant Producers, Development & Project Managers, Interactive and Social Media Designers, Virtual World Researchers & Technologists, and Data Visualization Specialists. A variety of digital media companies (local and international) participated including:

Game Companies: Radical, Threewave, Relic, EA
Mobile Companies: Telefonica (Spain), Nokia, MobileMUSE
Animation Companies: Bardel, Rainmaker
And Others:
Nanyang Tech U (Singapore - Virtual Worlds Project)
UBC Fisheries (Data Visualization Project)
InTransit BC (The Tunnel Project)

Industry response to the internships has been very positive, and employers are now anxiously looking to secure MDM’s first graduates as employees. And with industry internships, real world industry projects and meeting the high-profile guests at the Centre (for example, Sims creator Will Wright, and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spielgelman), students are building impressive rolodexes. A variety of businesses continue to express a strong interest in offering internship opportunities, and industry veterans themselves have even expressed an interest in taking part in the MDM program!

For more information about student internships, contact Dennis Chenard, Industry Liaison Manager.

Second year MDM students were introduced to new approaches to collaborative work at the "Hawt" Design Workshop.

Industry leaders Glenn Entis and Tom Wujec with EA veteran Rick Stringfellow introduced first year MDM students to the "Hawt" Design Workshop, an innovative approach to collaborative digital media creation. This day-long session, held during the first week of class, encouraged teamwork, critical thinking, and the use of visual communication tools and techniques to explore topics and present key learnings. Equipped with markers, Post-it notes, and an open mind, the MDM student body, strangers but a week ago, gelled into productive and creative teams.

The methodology designed and taught by Glen and Tom is especially applicable to the digital media and entertainment industry where iterative development is prevalent. Iterative development is a process where a program or product is developed in and repeatedly reviewed in small sections. Within this framework, the skills and tools taught in this workshop will assist MDM students in their coursework, projects and throughout their professional careers.

The workshop significantly impacted last year’s MDM students. So much so, they strongly suggested that the session be offered to the incoming cohort earlier in the academic year. Still, the students immediately saw the benefits when they implemented the methodology to their industry-funded projects resulting in improved workflow and increased creativity.

Launched in September 2007, the Masters of Digital Media (MDM) Program is an innovative, full-time professional master’s degree offering students team-based experiences focused on project learning in close collaboration with the international digital media industry. Housed in the Centre for Digital Media at Great Northern Way Campus, the MDM is a 20-month program and includes a paid summer internship. The MDM graduate degree is granted by all four GNWC partner institutions.

Great Northern Way Campus (GNWC), in Vancouver, BC , is a unique, collaborative university environment that combines the strengths of four leading academic institutions: University of British Columbia; Simon Fraser University; Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. An urban campus, GNWC has the mandate to intersect arts, technology and the environment in a manner that bridges academia with industry, artists with technology, and innovation with development. It is an integrative environment that builds community and celebrates innovation.