Press Release: Chair Participates in 2007 Slamdance Film Festival

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHAIR ENTERTAINMENT TO TAKE PART IN 2007 SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL JANUARY 18-23

Chair’s Donald Mustard Joins Panel of Industry Experts to Discuss Visual Storytelling

Provo, Utah – Chair Entertainment today revealed that Creative Director, Donald Mustard will be in attendance at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival in support of its Guerilla Gamemaker Competition. Mustard will join a panel of industry professionals to discuss the future of visual storytelling in videogames. The panel is open to the public and will take place at the Treasure Mountain Inn (255 Main St. Park City) on Saturday, January 20, at 5:00pm

Slamdance, an organization always looking to foster new and innovative ways to assist emerging artists and writers, has established the Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition. This contest is a natural extension of Slamdance’s stated mission to nurture, support and showcase truly independent works and will be held concurrently with the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, January 18-27, 2007.

A gaming competition at a film festival? It makes more sense than a first glance might indicate. Gaming is one of - if not the - fastest-growing components of the entertainment industry. Like filmmaking, game design is a means of visual storytelling, and the similarities between the two media far outweigh the disparities. Like a film director working on-set, today's gamemakers assumes a leadership role in the outcome of the game, guiding plot points and character interaction, integrating art and technology with game design. Recognizing that the space between film and gaming was becoming increasingly smaller, and seeing a niche for it within their festival, Slamdance developed the Game Competition to help aspiring game developers display their work.
“Video games today are as important and influential as movies have ever been” said Peter Baxter, the President and Co-Founder of Slamdance, who is a filmmaker as well. “The type and standard of creativity we are seeing at Slamdance Games is akin to the trail blazing days of independent filmmaking, a time that artists reacted with more imagination and against the generic fare of the movie studio.”
Game Design is a quickly growing field. Every year, more universities offer game design programs for graduates and undergraduates, more design theory is published, and more pointed critiques are leveled at games released into the market. With the next generation of consoles having built in digital distribution systems, the advent of independent game portals like Manifesto Games, and the growth of digital distribution technology, the independent game designer has more opportunities and methods to reach the marketplace. The Guerilla Gamemaker Competition is a competition for these game designers - it is focused on creative professionals who design and create entertainment experiences. These games will screen in competition as part of the Slamdance Film Festival, just as Slamdance films do.

Slamdance recognized the need for a gaming competition with integrity that concentrated on the art of game design, versus the bottom line of the business itself. The Competition supports developers by helping them make industry connections, providing them with an environment for peer interaction and presenting them with an opportunity for national exposure while they're at the Festival. “We are very excited about the finalists for this year's GGC,” said Sam Roberts, Slamdance’s Games Competition Manager. “This year's entrants range from biting indictments of modern corporate culture to fantastical adventures crashing castles. We have interactive fiction, beat-em-ups, non-traditional puzzle games, and experiments in flow theory. These games push the edges of what games can be and can try to be, experimenting in art style, gameplay, metaphor, story, concept and time. They provide challenges and inspiration for game designers working the traditional space, and game designers who will work in the future. While each of these games forces you to examine something you thought you already knew, or experiment in life and evolution, they also all entertain - they strive to be fun, and to be true play experiences."
There are multiple prizes that may be won. Winners of the Game Competition Grand Jury Award receive over $5,000 in cash and prizes, a not un-auspicious start for a game designer. The Jury is comprised of game industry professionals and luminaries, who screen all of the games at the Festival and choose a winner. There’s also an Audience Award. At each screening, the audience in attendance will place votes on the game they see – just as it’s done with film screenings. The Student Competition, which recognizes excellence in art and technical design, includes a summer fellowship with the University of Southern California¹s Game Innovation Lab in the Interactive Media Division.

For the 2007 Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition, 14 independently designed video game finalists have been selected. Designed by artists, students and programmers from around the world, these games cover a wide variety of genres, from documentary to platform puzzler:

Base Invaders by Seven Sigma/Matt Miner. USA.

The Blob by Banana Games/Jasper Koning. The Netherlands.

Book and Volume by Nick Monfort. USA.

Braid by Number None/Jonathan Blow. USA.

Castle Crashers by The Behemoth/John Baez. USA.

Cultivation by Jason Rohrer. USA.

Everyday Shooter by Queasy Games/Jonathan Mak. USA.

flOw by flow/Jenova Chen. USA.

Once Upon a Time by Waking Games Inc./Justin Meagher. Canada.

Plasma Pong by Steve Taylor. USA.

Steam Brigade by Pedestrian Entertainment/Ryan Thom. USA.

Super Columbine Massacre RPG! by Danny Ledonne. USA.

Toblo by Toblo/Steve Chiavelli. USA.

Toribash by Toribash/Hampus Soderstrom. Singapore.

Started in 1995 by a group of filmmakers, Slamdance continues to be organized and programmed exclusively by filmmakers, for filmmakers, one of many elements that make Slamdance a pioneering standout among its festival counterparts. Slamdance lacks much of the red tape and bureaucracy that can convolute the process that filmmakers come to festivals for in the first place – a chance to show their work. At Slamdance, the link between filmmaker and festival – and, subsequently, filmmaker and industry – is a direct and cohesive one. Slamdance alumni are recruited to serve as programmers, so first-timers are represented and assisted by Slamdance veterans. The mantra of “by filmmakers, for filmmakers” resounds at every level of the organization, and plays
a part in all of its undertakings. It’s what put Slamdance on the festival map to begin with, and what’s made it the viable, big-time contender it is today.
With the renowned film festival as its core, Slamdance has expanded its ventures to include the popular Slamdance.com website, writing competitions for both screenplays and teleplays, the Anarchy Online Short Film Competition, a $99 Special short film production project, a games competition and the newly announced Slamdance Horror Screenplay Competition, where an annual chosen script is guaranteed to be produced as a feature film.

The Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition will be headquartered and exhibited at the Treasure Mountain Inn (255 Main Street), January 18-27, 2007, in Park City, Utah as part of the Slamdance Film Festival. www.Slamdance.com
***