Trigger Happy (The inner life of videogames) FREE!

News courtesy of wemakemoneynotart that Steven Poole's excellent book 'Trigger happy' has been made available for free download. A link to the download + copies of all of Steven's articles for Edge magazine are available here.

'Trigger Happy is a book about the aesthetics of videogames — what they share with cinema, the history of painting, or literature; and what makes them different, in terms of form, psychology and semiotics. It was first published in 2000; this is the revised edition with the Afterword written in 2001. It’s offered under a CC license, for a limited time only. I’m not sure how limited that time will be, so grab it while it’s hot.'

Film : No country for old men

Saw the Coen Brothers new film 'No country for old men' yesterday . Like their other films it's a great example of a film designed with sound in mind and consequently worthy of study (as well a being an excellent film of course !). I was struck by the way the film engaged the audience with the act of active listening again and again, making us focus in on the smallest sounds before hitting us with a shocking dynamic contrast. Best supporting actor role should almost go to the wind in this film, used very evocatively at a number of key points throughout.

There's some discussion from filmsounddaily here.
Some more here.

Hans Peter Kuhn - Artist talk in Leeds Nov 20th

Sound / Light artist Hans Peter Kuhn is giving a talk at Leeds college of art and design next tues 20th Nov.

http://www.leedsinitiative.org/default.asp?initiativeIdentifier=20021224_3292263

Location and production sound recording

Great post from filmsounddaily on the issues and challenges surrounding location recording on Ridley Scott's American Gangster.
Location recording videos Rob Noakes
1 , 2

Call of duty weapon recording

Equipment emporium Inc guide to production sound

A beginners guide to field recording by West Latta Part 1, Part 2

More articles

Quiet on set please !
Location Sound Mixing
Ric Viers Location Videos

ipod rhythm action

News courtesy of createdigitalmusic comes of a new ipod based rhythm action game Phase. Like vib ribbon and dance factory you can use you own music to generate gameplay - presumably derived from some form of signal analysis.

I guess it must be something in the air ... 'Beats' for PSP.

Blitz games open days

The games company Blitz are running their open days again this year. For those of you wanting to find out more about working in the games industry they are an invaluable experience. I went last year and found them to be a really nice bunch of people who genuinely care about the development and well-being of their staff - not a bad place to work then !!

Blitzgames

Sounds of science

A couple of great programmes from radio 4.

' Acoustic Engineer Trevor Cox takes us on a two-part journey into the world of acoustics research, starting with the sounds we love to hate.'
' Exploration using sound is carried out across science, from inspecting the structural integrity of bridges, to testing sea temperatures to measure global warming.'

Always amusing - Star wars spoof

Via Unidetified Sound Object

An embarassment of festivals in yorkshire

Starting weds 7th Nov 'Leeds international film festival' - of most interest to those of an audio-visual / exprimental bent is the Nexus strand.

A week later on weds 14th Nov the 'Bradford animation festival' kicks off which features a gaming strand.

Last but by no means least is the 'Huddersfield Contemporary music festival' 16th - 25th Nov.