Posted 04/19/2010
The University of Texas-Pan American's Reel to Red Productions has done it again. Less than a year after nabbing its second Lone Star EMMY for their work on the study abroad documentary "The Heart of Experience," they have scored a nomination for The WEBBY Awards for their work on http://www.reeltored.com/.
The New York Times has dubbed the WEBBYs "the online equivalent of an OSCAR." The awards are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), a 650-person judging academy whose members include Internet co-inventor Vinton Cerf, musicians Beck and David Bowie, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, Martha Stewart and American film producer Harvey Weinstein.
The 14th Annual Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from all 50 states and over 60 countries worldwide. Reel to Red is one of five nominees in the student category. Visit www.webby.aol.com.
Voting is based on content, structure and navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity and overall user experience.
Plans for a Web site began in April 2009 when the group's creative director, Chelse Benham, wanted a place on the Internet to showcase the program's best work. After brainstorming, the group settled on building an interactive, virtual studio.
"I wanted it to have a look and feel of a diorama," Benham said. "The site has a cutout feeling, as if floating in space."
The Reel To Red Production Team has been nominated for a WEBBY Award for their work on www.reeltored.com. Pictured from left to right are Israel Rojas, Nicole Velasco, Hilda Del Rio, Chelse Benham, Alexis Carranza, Oscar Garza, James Hernandez. Not shown are Victor Ituarte and Alina Ortega.
Each team member was assigned a different portion of the studio to build. Once the pages were built, Alexis Carranza, one of the team's graphic designers, was charged with the task of stitching all the pages together.
"Everyone on the team designed a page in Photoshop. They gave me their files and I built the site in Dreamweaver," Carranza said. "I had a steep learning curve to go by. I had taken a Web design class and I remember most of it was in Dreamweaver, but my biggest issue was understanding and writing HTML code."
The Web site was finally completed and uploaded by October 2009, six months after initial talks.
Despite the amount of effort put into its aesthetics, Benham said she feels the Web site wasn't being recognized solely for its interactive appeal, but for its content.
"This is a culmination of the program's six years of work, some of which has earned us four Lone Star EMMY nominations and two EMMY wins, two Auroras, and a Telly," she said. She suggests using Safari when viewing the site for the best result.
Visit http://webby.aol.com/connections/student to vote on the student ballot. Registration to the Webby site is required. Voting ends April 29.
More news about this year's WEBBY
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/tech/2010/04/13/intv.webby.barnett.cnn.html
Reuters
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=10363959
Wired
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/04/webby-nominations/
People
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20360435,00.html
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/13/webby-nominations
Urelsque
http://www.urlesque.com/2010/04/13/webby-awards-nominees-voting-opens-today/
Wall Street Journal/Speakeasy
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/04/13/14th-annual-webby-award-nominees-announced/
Mashable
http://mashable.com/2010/04/13/webby-awards-nominees/
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Reel to Red requests votes to secure Webby win
Reel to Red requests votes to secure Webby win
By Kristen Cabrera
Published: Thursday, April 15, 2010
The WEBBYs are to the Internet as the Oscars are to the movies. And Reel to Red Productions on campus has garnered two Webby nominations; what the group needs now is for students, staff and anyone with an e-mail address --or multiple e-mail addresses-- to help it win. The winners will be announced May 4 and the ceremony will be held in New York City on June 14.
“What’s incredible,” said Chelse Benham the director of Reel to Red, “is that being nominated is an automatic win because for the year 2010 the only people that will be able to stake ‘Nominated for a Webby’ are the five of us in the running.”
Reel to Red Productions is up for Best Student Web site http://www.reeltored.com/ (best viewed in Safari) and The People’s Voice award for Best Student Web site. The latter is where R2R needs the help of its fans.
“We are going to set up computers for the next two weeks in the Student Union so that students can vote,” Benham said. “Our focus right now is the voting. We are going to make a video on YouTube to suggest they vote for us and to show how them how to do it.”
From now until April 29 voters can go online to webby.aol.com and vote for their favorite sites. R2R is in first place with 33 percent of the tally, but with the quick and ever-changing pace of the Internet, that can vary at any moment.
Voters must first register at the Webby site webby.aol.com with their e-mail and create a username and password. Then a verification e-mail is sent to their inbox (sometimes spam folder, beware, check your spam if you don't see your confirmation email from the WEBBY's) and a link is provided to verify the new account. From there the new user can click ‘VOTE’ on the top navigation bar and it will send them to the People’s Voice Webby nominations categories. Reeltored.com is under the ‘Student’ category listing.
The Web site is relatively new and has only been up and operational since October 2009. The eight members responsible for constructing reeltored.com, including Benham, have been involved with the program from anywhere from one to six years. She attributes the nomination to the dedication and skills of the student team that created the site.
“I have the best students,” Benham said. “They are exceptionally trained and are not the average student. That’s how you build a winning team: you need the best people and to you need to support them…I have the best students, that’s all there is to it.”
The inspiration for the Web site’s look and feel was generated from a tiny working space: despite being the university’s campus-wide television network, R2R does not have an actual television studio. The 30-foot by 40-foot (that’s shared with University Relations) was the reason the student team that crafted the project wanted a virtual studio.
Alexis Carranza, the 22-year-old assistant program director, was the one who pieced together all the individual page composites once they were made by the team.
“It took about seven months to make,” she said. “Everyone on the team designed a page in Photoshop. They gave me their files and I built the site in Dreamweaver.” Carranza, also a designer for The Pan American and Panorama during her career at UTPA, doesn’t consider herself a Web designer because most of her graphic design background is in print. Having never created a Web site before, she had to do some research.
“I had a steep learning curve to go by,” she admitted. “I had taken a web design class and I remember most of it was in Dreamweaver. But my biggest issue was understanding and writing HTML code.”
To register to vote click here webby.aol.com/student/connections/ and create a new user account. To go directly to the Webby's Best Student Website category page click here.
By Kristen Cabrera
Published: Thursday, April 15, 2010
The WEBBYs are to the Internet as the Oscars are to the movies. And Reel to Red Productions on campus has garnered two Webby nominations; what the group needs now is for students, staff and anyone with an e-mail address --or multiple e-mail addresses-- to help it win. The winners will be announced May 4 and the ceremony will be held in New York City on June 14.
“What’s incredible,” said Chelse Benham the director of Reel to Red, “is that being nominated is an automatic win because for the year 2010 the only people that will be able to stake ‘Nominated for a Webby’ are the five of us in the running.”
Reel to Red Productions is up for Best Student Web site http://www.reeltored.com/ (best viewed in Safari) and The People’s Voice award for Best Student Web site. The latter is where R2R needs the help of its fans.
“We are going to set up computers for the next two weeks in the Student Union so that students can vote,” Benham said. “Our focus right now is the voting. We are going to make a video on YouTube to suggest they vote for us and to show how them how to do it.”
From now until April 29 voters can go online to webby.aol.com and vote for their favorite sites. R2R is in first place with 33 percent of the tally, but with the quick and ever-changing pace of the Internet, that can vary at any moment.
Voters must first register at the Webby site webby.aol.com with their e-mail and create a username and password. Then a verification e-mail is sent to their inbox (sometimes spam folder, beware, check your spam if you don't see your confirmation email from the WEBBY's) and a link is provided to verify the new account. From there the new user can click ‘VOTE’ on the top navigation bar and it will send them to the People’s Voice Webby nominations categories. Reeltored.com is under the ‘Student’ category listing.
The Web site is relatively new and has only been up and operational since October 2009. The eight members responsible for constructing reeltored.com, including Benham, have been involved with the program from anywhere from one to six years. She attributes the nomination to the dedication and skills of the student team that created the site.
“I have the best students,” Benham said. “They are exceptionally trained and are not the average student. That’s how you build a winning team: you need the best people and to you need to support them…I have the best students, that’s all there is to it.”
The inspiration for the Web site’s look and feel was generated from a tiny working space: despite being the university’s campus-wide television network, R2R does not have an actual television studio. The 30-foot by 40-foot (that’s shared with University Relations) was the reason the student team that crafted the project wanted a virtual studio.
Alexis Carranza, the 22-year-old assistant program director, was the one who pieced together all the individual page composites once they were made by the team.
“It took about seven months to make,” she said. “Everyone on the team designed a page in Photoshop. They gave me their files and I built the site in Dreamweaver.” Carranza, also a designer for The Pan American and Panorama during her career at UTPA, doesn’t consider herself a Web designer because most of her graphic design background is in print. Having never created a Web site before, she had to do some research.
“I had a steep learning curve to go by,” she admitted. “I had taken a web design class and I remember most of it was in Dreamweaver. But my biggest issue was understanding and writing HTML code.”
To register to vote click here webby.aol.com/student/connections/ and create a new user account. To go directly to the Webby's Best Student Website category page click here.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
14th annual WEBBY Nominees released our website was nominated!!!! visit www.reeltored.com
The Webby Awards
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web's infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which includes an Executive 750-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities, and Associate Members who are former Webby Award Winners and Nominees and other Internet professionals.
The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 13th Annual Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide.
Reflecting the tremendous growth of the Internet as a tool for business and everyday lives, the 14th Annual Webby Awards expands the mission of the Webby by honoring excellence in over 100+ Website, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile Web categories.
The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category -- The Webby Award and The People's Voice Award -- in each of its four entry types: Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video and Mobile Web. Members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences select the nominees for both awards in each category, as well as the winners of the Webby Awards. However, you, the online community, determine the winners of The People's Voice by voting for the nominated work that you believe to be the best in each category. Each year, the People's Voice Awards garners hundreds of thousands of votes from the Web community all over the world.
Visit http://www.reeltored.com/ a see what all the fuss is about!
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web's infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which includes an Executive 750-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities, and Associate Members who are former Webby Award Winners and Nominees and other Internet professionals.
The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 13th Annual Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide.
Reflecting the tremendous growth of the Internet as a tool for business and everyday lives, the 14th Annual Webby Awards expands the mission of the Webby by honoring excellence in over 100+ Website, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile Web categories.
The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category -- The Webby Award and The People's Voice Award -- in each of its four entry types: Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video and Mobile Web. Members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences select the nominees for both awards in each category, as well as the winners of the Webby Awards. However, you, the online community, determine the winners of The People's Voice by voting for the nominated work that you believe to be the best in each category. Each year, the People's Voice Awards garners hundreds of thousands of votes from the Web community all over the world.
Visit http://www.reeltored.com/ a see what all the fuss is about!
Friday, April 9, 2010
Day 17 - GameSalad new release: Quirks, Crashes and New Features; iDevices comes through
As I start today's entry, I acknowledge it's been a while since I updated my app building progress. My app is a game for marketing purposes, but I actually like playing my level. When I do play it my heart races as I try against the clock to make points. I love it!!!!!
When I started this journey I was working with the Apple SDK - Xcode point-of-entry into game designing that ate up at least half the time it's taken the entire journey to get here and the only thing I had accomplished with Xcode was reading the HIG, learning a little Objective C, and how to build the infamous "Hello World!" program. Oh, how far I've come with tech help and GameSalad software.
That leads me to discuss the newly released version of GameSalad. I haven't identified much in it that has improved. I believe that the touch rule can be applied and previewed by using the mouse to see if it will work properly. That's a nice change because I had to use a rule like “spacebar” before without knowing if it will work using the touch feature for the iPhone.
I did discover a repeatable crash in the program. If you add a "Play Sound" behavior to two different actors for two different scenes and you go to preview the game the game will crash as it transitions to the next scene. I found that I had to add a sound cue to one actor and one scene, then save a new version and add the sound cue to the next actor and scene and save that new version. Now in the new version the game transitions and cues sounds without crashing.
My team also experienced something strange. One member couldn't get anything to show up that she imported into a new project in either the old or new version of GameSalad. Yes, she brought in PNGs and she placed them into the scene, but when she went to preview nothing would appear. No one had experienced this and we couldn't isolate what was different with her work from our own. Ultimately, she open the Canon template cleared all the information, actors, rules and such to create a shell in which she could work. And it did work. I have no idea what caused this.
As aesthetics are concerned, I found that simple, bright, and clean graphics work well when building a level. At first, I tried to create a crowd scene that initially darkened and cluttered up the scene. I removed the crowd and completely overhauled my set. It's so much nicer to have simple sets with clean objects when building for a 480 x 320 screen. Sound FXs add to the ambience and help to create the illusion of a crowd without having to see one. I believe the psychology behind designing for small screens includes the art of illusion with use of color and sound. It's rather fascinating really. The ergonomic design of the virtual space is compelling. Simplicity is best. When identifying where actors fit with spawners nothing beats iDevices iPhone app.
Recently, I was contacted by Victor Leach, administrator for Vlmweb, the producers of iDevices. He'd seen my blog and earlier reference to iDevices and just wanted to say hello. Great guy! I'm a big fan of their work with iDevices. I love that app because it really helps orient the designer with the coordinates of X, Y, and Zed (a Brit term) both for the screen and the accelerometer. I highly recommend it. Victor offered his help and assistance should I need it.
I've written this before and I'll write it again. Game designers are a nice bunch of people. Full stop. I have been provided a lot of generous advice as I have fumbled through this process. Vlmweb admin, Victor Leach, is no exception. There seems to be a general sense that people are learning, most far ahead of me, and we're in this together because we share something in common, namely GameSalad and the desire to build games for iPhone. There is a community out there of nice, intelligent, and helpful people. It's wonderful.
I'm getting seriously close to having to stitch the five levels together into one game. My team of five (including me) built our own individual levels on different computers so we are getting to that stage where we need to put it together. Victor generously offered to help us with that next step and he's in the UK! Gotta love technology. I'll likely take him up on his offer, but the team feels we need to learn the steps for ourselves. Game building is such an intriguing problem solving activity that not doing the work feels like you cheat yourself of the learning the process. No doubt we'll search out the information on how to bring it all together.
It's exciting to be at this stage of the journey. We've come exceedingly far in a relatively short period of time. I don't want to jinx the project, but it feels good. I still hold firmly to the opinion that GameSalad, for all its issues, did help expedite our process. And yes, it gets easier the more you use it. I'm still focusing my sights on Unity. I want to wade in its waters and see what I can soak up. Game designing and building is addictive. Seeing and playing with something you built has so much intrinsic worth that exceeds the sole goal of making the almighty dollar.
When I started this journey I was working with the Apple SDK - Xcode point-of-entry into game designing that ate up at least half the time it's taken the entire journey to get here and the only thing I had accomplished with Xcode was reading the HIG, learning a little Objective C, and how to build the infamous "Hello World!" program. Oh, how far I've come with tech help and GameSalad software.
That leads me to discuss the newly released version of GameSalad. I haven't identified much in it that has improved. I believe that the touch rule can be applied and previewed by using the mouse to see if it will work properly. That's a nice change because I had to use a rule like “spacebar” before without knowing if it will work using the touch feature for the iPhone.
I did discover a repeatable crash in the program. If you add a "Play Sound" behavior to two different actors for two different scenes and you go to preview the game the game will crash as it transitions to the next scene. I found that I had to add a sound cue to one actor and one scene, then save a new version and add the sound cue to the next actor and scene and save that new version. Now in the new version the game transitions and cues sounds without crashing.
My team also experienced something strange. One member couldn't get anything to show up that she imported into a new project in either the old or new version of GameSalad. Yes, she brought in PNGs and she placed them into the scene, but when she went to preview nothing would appear. No one had experienced this and we couldn't isolate what was different with her work from our own. Ultimately, she open the Canon template cleared all the information, actors, rules and such to create a shell in which she could work. And it did work. I have no idea what caused this.
As aesthetics are concerned, I found that simple, bright, and clean graphics work well when building a level. At first, I tried to create a crowd scene that initially darkened and cluttered up the scene. I removed the crowd and completely overhauled my set. It's so much nicer to have simple sets with clean objects when building for a 480 x 320 screen. Sound FXs add to the ambience and help to create the illusion of a crowd without having to see one. I believe the psychology behind designing for small screens includes the art of illusion with use of color and sound. It's rather fascinating really. The ergonomic design of the virtual space is compelling. Simplicity is best. When identifying where actors fit with spawners nothing beats iDevices iPhone app.
Recently, I was contacted by Victor Leach, administrator for Vlmweb, the producers of iDevices. He'd seen my blog and earlier reference to iDevices and just wanted to say hello. Great guy! I'm a big fan of their work with iDevices. I love that app because it really helps orient the designer with the coordinates of X, Y, and Zed (a Brit term) both for the screen and the accelerometer. I highly recommend it. Victor offered his help and assistance should I need it.
I've written this before and I'll write it again. Game designers are a nice bunch of people. Full stop. I have been provided a lot of generous advice as I have fumbled through this process. Vlmweb admin, Victor Leach, is no exception. There seems to be a general sense that people are learning, most far ahead of me, and we're in this together because we share something in common, namely GameSalad and the desire to build games for iPhone. There is a community out there of nice, intelligent, and helpful people. It's wonderful.
I'm getting seriously close to having to stitch the five levels together into one game. My team of five (including me) built our own individual levels on different computers so we are getting to that stage where we need to put it together. Victor generously offered to help us with that next step and he's in the UK! Gotta love technology. I'll likely take him up on his offer, but the team feels we need to learn the steps for ourselves. Game building is such an intriguing problem solving activity that not doing the work feels like you cheat yourself of the learning the process. No doubt we'll search out the information on how to bring it all together.
It's exciting to be at this stage of the journey. We've come exceedingly far in a relatively short period of time. I don't want to jinx the project, but it feels good. I still hold firmly to the opinion that GameSalad, for all its issues, did help expedite our process. And yes, it gets easier the more you use it. I'm still focusing my sights on Unity. I want to wade in its waters and see what I can soak up. Game designing and building is addictive. Seeing and playing with something you built has so much intrinsic worth that exceeds the sole goal of making the almighty dollar.
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