Press

The Theatre School of Barcelona and the Foundation Digitalent joined efforts to bring up a new audiovisual format which introduces recently produced theatre plays to television audiences.

After finishing the recording of the pilot episode last week it is planned to exhibit the results of this new production run called “10 Dramàtics” to tv stations as of March 2010. Digitalent is at the disposal of interested media to study the viability of the project. The recording carried out on the premises of the Theatre School of Barcelona is a production by Talent Factory, a member of Digitalent, and also counts with the expertise of the Oxford-based SAE Institute in the areas of sound and postproduction.

“10 Dramàtics” aims at promoting the talent of new actors as well as integrating professionals and actors who are less known by the general public. The production concept of this new series explores the limits between theatre and cinema while transgressing the boundaries of live entertainment and cinematographic postproduction.

The European project Modul-dance is a project developed to provide artists with support and to foster their professional independence from the creation of a show through to its production, presentation and dissemination. The aim is to provide optimum conditions as well as monitoring and guidance throughout the creative process.

According to the European Union’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, the Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona has been chosen on the basis of previous synergies it has developed with other European countries and as a result of its experience in supporting young dancers. Moreover, it has consistently participated in other European activities, such as the European Dance House Network, of which the Mercat is a founding member. Lastly, the fact that the Mercat has successfully managed to involve the participation of 14 countries was also considered positive, as was the project’s expected outreach: 15 participating countries and more than 400 artistic works.

The project is set to specifically support the international mobility of artists and the consolidation of both local and international dance audiences. Modul-dance also aims to promote multidisciplinary creation through multimedia channels and to generate support for artists from institutions and new entities that support dance. Fundació Digitalent joins the project to achieve its purposes.

Additional tools that will help expand the programme’s content are, amongst others, the organisation of conferences, festivals, discussion forums and parallel programmes in support of emerging artists such as Carte Blanche.

Modul-dance’s main goal is to promote the trans-institutional and trans-frontier quality of European dance houses, thus strengthening the network of creators and promoters as well as dance show recipients.

The dance houses involved in the project are from Paris, Toulouse and Lyon (France), Loulé (Portugal), Dusseldorf and Dresden (Germany), Tilburg (Netherlands), Poznan (Poland), Stockholm (Sweden), London (Great Britain), Dublin (Ireland), Copenhagen (Denmark), Vienna (Austria), Athens (Greece), Nicosia (Cyprus), Ljubljana and Maribor (Slovenia).

The proposal presented was one of a total of 40 proposals assessed. The European Union has assigned 2 million euros to the project which represents 49% of its total cost. Modul-dance will be developed over a period of four years starting this year.

We begin the year with a new addition to the Fundación Digitalent; The Autodesk Training Center Program, 3D Creation with Autodesk Maya.taught by Digital Dreams Films.

Specializing in 3D creation and Visual Effects postproduction, Digital Dreams Films has taught Autodesk Authorized courses since 2004, recently they have been nominated for the Premios Goya for their film "Cher Ami".

The Training Center is part of Autodesk's network of international centres providing instructional content designed to fulfill the needs of the three segments that conform the present and future of audiovisual production: Entertainment, Information Technologies and Communication.

Guided by the proven technical experience of the instructors, through a pragmatic methodology; the theoretical content is reasserted through instructor-led exercises and real projects. Reinforcing the student's knowledge arc, while assimilating advanced technical solutions and the workflow of the sector they will eventually become a part of the reduced number of students is motivated to achieve operational autonomy by reaching their objectives.

More information at: www.digitaldreams.es

Inés Garriga Rodríguez, director of Digitalent Foundation, is a member of the jury of the young Mollerussa Film Festival, Som Cinema. Digitalent Foundation has the pleasure to participate in Som Cinema and to share its point of view. Som Cinema raises a transverse view of contemporaneity and arts to find creative trends and clarify los market parameters.

In this edition, which took place from October 16th to 24th, Som Cinema’s jury has considered the work of the directors Ventura Durall, Award for Best Feature Film for “Les 2 vides d’Andrés Rabadán”; Oriol Porta, Award for Best Documentary Film for “Hollywood contra Franco”; Àlex Lora, Best Short Film for “(En)terrats”; Marc Reixach (director) and José Luís Tejero (actor), Jury Special Award for the short film “Runners” and Robert Garcia, “Som 3 minuts” mini film award for “I tu, com la sacseges?”.

Gemma Dunjó and Robert Figueras, Filmutea’s creators and the current talents in Talent Factory, have been developing the first completelly Cross Media and low budget film of Spain. They are regular admirers of “Power to the Pixel”, a festival initially conceived for indie cinema that has become a Forum related to Cross Media projects in this edition.

Thanks to Digitalent Foundation, the creators of the spanish Cross Media project had the opportunity to attend for the second time the conference “Power to the Pixel” this year, now called Cross-Media Film Forum because of its approach to Cross Media projects, from the financing and creative process to the distribution in the current digital environment. Therefore, it adapts perfectly to the project that is being developed.

The activities proposed by Forum Cross Media took place in October 14th and 15th at the British Film Institute, at the Southbank in London. On the first day there were lectures about the experts’ experiences, and on the following day there were a lot of workshops in which Gemma Dunjó and Robert Figueras had the opportunity to talk directly with experts such as Lance Weiler because there were not many participants. They could solve some questions about their Cross Media project as well as find out new challenges.

Catalan Films & TV arranges an interactive video game and fiction session for Sitges Festival 2009 in which Xavier Carrillo (from Digital Legens), Rodrigo Blaas (from Pixar) and Xavier Martí i Renom (from Digitalent Foundation) presented their current video game projects, their points of view about the current situation and the future of interactive fiction. At present, the cinema avant-garde explores the links between animation and video games while analyzes thoroughly the new formats and all the distribution channels open to new interactive contents.

These are issues that got the attention of a great group of professionals of the audiovisual sector in the festival’s last edition, which proves that video games gain some space at Sitges Festival and they are becoming an unavoidable subject within cinema. The growth of companies such as Digital Legends and the immersion of a giant of animation such as Pixar in the video game universe, as well as institutions such as Digitalent Foundation and the current juncture of the audiovisual world make one think about the possibility to exploit interactivity and new formats.

The involvement of the professionals who participated in the sessions arranged by Catalan Films and led by Televisió de Catalunya proves that the video game industry merges with audiovisual industry and shows the importance of boosting innovative contents.

The University of Barcelona (UB) and HEC Montreal dedicate their last Summer School to the «Creativity Management in Innovation Society». Digitalent Foundation was invited to present its task on the promotion of creativity and talent, Talent Factory, which contributes with a specific vision about the relationship between creativity and innovation within cultural industries. The course tries to give importance to creativity in strategies of innovation as a key tool in any current business.

The Talent Factory presentation design was done by the manager, Inés Garriga, and presented by Antoni Roig, from Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, with whom Digitalent is developing a postgraduate course in “Innovation in Creation of Audiovisual Contents, Communication and Information”.

The planning of these intense sessions about creativity and innovation was done by Mosaic (HEC Montreal) and Cátedra de Iniciativa Emprendedora (UB) in order to raise several points of view and compare creative experiences related to fields such as industry, arts or science. The proposal was a success and those present took part actively in the session. There were people from different countries, generations and professional fields who gave Digitalent a very positive feedback about its presentation.

Josep Maria Carbonell, Digitalent Foundation’s manager, presented in Digital Gathering the core of innovation in digital content. The gathering, called “Main points of innovation in Barcelona” took place on July 16th in the headquarters of Barcelona Activa. The meeting consisted of a talk where well-known experts in innovation from different fields exchanged with the audience, mostly professionals of R+D+I sector, some experiences with the aim of promoting innovation in our country.

The meeting, organised by Tomás Cascante, was moderated by Xavier Testar, manager of the “Barcelona Investigation and Innovation” programme, and included the speeches of two representatives of the public sector: Antoni Martínez, manager of the Energy Research Institute of Catalonia, and Jesús Purroy, manager of Investigation and Innovation in Parc Científic Barcelona (UB); and two representatives of the private sector: Ana Maiques, Business Development Manager in Starlab, and Josep M. Carbonell, Digitalent Foundation’s manager. The main point of the meeting was, in words of Josep M. Carbonell: “to innovate in order to  escape from the current crisis”.

Patricia Luna shares her project with Jean-Jack Queyranne, Josep Maria Carbonell, Inés Garriga, etc.

Jean-Jack Queyranne, President of Rhône-Alpes, in France, and Pascal Brice, consul of France in Barcelona, visited Digitalent Foundation in order to be informed about Talent Factory’s experience as they are scheduling to open a new office in the French city of Lyon.

Talent Factory is a project created and developed in Barcelona by Digitalent Foundation and i2cat Foundation with the aim to incorporate young talents with innovative ideas into the digital content industry.

Josep Maria Carbonell, Director of Digitalent Foundation, explained to the President of Rhône-Alpes and the international relations team the workflow of Talent Factory. The General Director of Information Society of Generalitat of Catalunya, Josué Sallent, and the Manager Director of 22@ Barcelona, Josep Miquel Piqué, also attended the event.

Several French media followed the meeting, which ended up through the Talent Factory facilities, where the French delegation had the opportunity to interview the present talents. The present delegation expressed a great interest regarding all projects being developed at Talent Factory, and they also revealed their interest in the design of future common projects.

On June 10, the Tecnolocal forum was held in Mataró. Xavier Martí Renom, head of innovation of Digitalent Foundation, together with other heads of companies related to the media, culture, technology and official organizations, talked about the importance of braking down barriers between both intellectual and technical development in order to link them with innovative content.

TECNOLOCAL forum of technologies invites   analyzing new formats and creativity in close media. This forum opens up a space for reflection, debate and work in all the media that belong to the local audiovisual network (XAL), as well as in the sector to know about the links between technologies and content. 

Digitalent Foundation opens up and makes itself known in the guided tour Poblenou: 22@ Vell i nou, organized by 22@ Network association and the historical archive of Poblenou. Antoni Oliva, technical secretary of 22@ Network, says: “The aim of this session is to let people know about the works of companies related to technology. New industries are very different from the ones that the eldest people –most of the people in the tour– know, so they are very curious about knowing what is inside those buildings”. Visitors and the head of innovation of Digitalent, who guided the tour, agree on the importance of Digitalent Foundation to find new production, creation and business methods in society. One of the aims of Digitalent is to disseminate digital culture. Therefore, Digitalent’s cooperation in activities that promote integration in society allows to increase community links within new digital production environments.

This year 2009 has been the 4th edition of the Audiovisual MAC awards in Granollers (Barcelona). Francesc Isern has received this award, sponsored by Digitalent Foundation, for his work 10 Dramàtics, which shows a new way of combining theater and television through 10 contemporay plays.

The Audiovisual MAC awards give an incentive to innovation in the audiovisual sector and they have been created to support new creators with risky projects. In this case, the award consists of a grant for Digitalent Foundation to develop a project in Talent Factory.

On May 25 and 26 the directors of 18 dance houses in Europe had a meeting to develop the European Dancehouse Network project (EDN). All the efforts made by the different workteams have led to the creation of the European Dancehouse Network association (EDN). The aim of this association, located in Mercat de les Flors, is to promote dance and its creators.

Digitalent Foundation has received the work team “New Media” sharing its experience in new technologies and the development of projects which use them thoroughly. EDN offers Digitalent great experimentation, and the joint work has been useful to set future meeting points between dance and new technologies. From now on, EDN and Digitalent will develop new projects in order to improve some structures and deal with the quality of arts projects in depth.

On this year 2009, and for the second consecutive year, the Digitalent Foundation has decided to give support on the interesitng task of the Diba organitzation and the talent of their participants awarding with two reserach fellowship valued in 15.000 euros each to produce the demo of a Project in the Talent Factory. The awarded of the present edition are, in the section of the Diba Express, David Faüchs, and for the category of Diba Clip, Jordi Baltasar and Iban Sarabia.

The winners of the reserch fellowship award were chosen by a jury set up by a team of creative hunters of the Talent Factory. Regarding the award of the Diba Clip for the best music video, the team had the collaboration of the artist Nubla (www.nubla.es)

Winner Shortfilm of the Digitalent-DiBa Express 2009 Award

“Fragile” by David Faüchs and collaborators
The shortfilm of the Girona based David Faüchs and his collaborators was the recent winner of the Digitalent award on the category of Diba Express. The Diba Express competition is a challenge for all the enthusiast of the audiovisual, which consists on a shortfilm made in three days just with a reference of a Word. This year the Word was “change”.

		Award presentation
		Watch video

Winner Shortfilm of the Digitalent-DiBa Clip 2009 Award

“Reconocer” by Jordi Baltasar and Iban Sarabia
The winners of the Digitalent award to the best music video, the winners are the TV Producers Jordi Baltasar and Iban Sarabia. Their music video will also be included as an oficial video of the theme song “Reconocer” included in the last album of the pop rock group Vinodelfin and their “Seres Unicos”.

		Award presentation
		Watch video

Digitalent Foundation celebrates the creation of “Mercado Atlántico de Creación Contemporánea” (MACC) and adheres to the principles of its manifesto

From April 23 to 25 Inés Garriga and Xavier Martí i Renom, associate manager and innovation responsible of Digitalent Foundation, went to the first edition of “Mercado Atlántico de Creación Contemporánea” (MACC), celebrated in the Auditorium of Tenerife, in order to share their experiences as the people in charge of Talent Factory.

MACC is a professional meeting focused on innovation, emergent talent and artistic investigation attended by creators, producers, cultural managers, institutional agents and curious; in other words, anybody who wants to give free rein to their creative potential and look for new stances for vitalizing a productive tissue in the transition to digital era.

Talent Factory’s representatives have been absolutely impressed by the quality of several sections organized by MACC (maccEncuentros, maccLabs, maccShow, maccInspira) and they emphasize the compliance between the way of working of Talent Factory and the principles in MACC manifesto. Both of them define creation as a collective process which aspires to satisfy common necessities.

Not only MACC but also Talent Factory think that artistic value not only lies in the development of a new product, so they bear in mind the experiences and the different stages of creators and their work. Nowadays, the creative process is pure creation. The manifesto created by MACC participants and the way of working carried out by Talent Factory draw the new profile of creative trends: collective work, multiculturality, hybridization of disciplines and agents, and most important, opening of creative process in order to improve the works.

The organizers of “Mercado Atlántico de Creación Contemporánea” invited Inés Garriga, assistant manager of Digitalent Foundation, to present the Talent Factory in one of their MACCmeetings.Inés Garriga developed Digitalent’s ideas in order to motivate digital creators who will provide new horizons to the changing tissue of cultural industries.

The meeting was also attended by: Ferrán Tomás, Director of the audiovisual department of ICIC; Anton Reixa, President of Clúster Audiovisual Galego; Carla Reyes, Manager of Clúster Audiovisual Galego; Josep Maria Carbonell, Director of Digitalent Foundation, and Oriol Ivern, President of Cromosoma Group.

See Power Point presentation, click here

On February 18, the Director of Axencia Galega das Industrias Culturais (AGADIC), Miguel Martín, visited Digitalent Foundation, with headquarters in Cromosoma and Digital 360º’s facilities.

The aim of this visit was to know about Digitalent’s projects, specially the first big projects for the next years: Talent Factory and the virtualization of live sports events: Arena Life project.

Miguel Martín was very interested in the development of these projects and he does not rule out a future involvement of AGADIC, Clúster Audiovisual Galego and ICIC (Institut Català de les Indústries Culturals) in Digitalent Foundation to carry them out.

The meeting was also attended by: Ferrán Tomás, Director of the audiovisual department of ICIC; Anton Reixa, President of Clúster Audiovisual Galego; Carla Reyes, Manager of Clúster Audiovisual Galego; Josep Maria Carbonell, Director of Digitalent Foundation, and Oriol Ivern, President of Cromosoma Group.

The year 2009 has been declared European Year of Creativity and Innovation. In this year, universities and the main cultural agents, both public and private, will coordinate efforts to explain and disseminate values related to these pioneering concepts, which are an essential part of the European productive axis within knowledge society.

The postgraduate course on Cultural Management by the University of Barcelona joins the European initiative by devoting a day to “Creativity and Innovation in Cultural Cooperation Projects”. Digitalent Foundation emphasizes the importance of cooperation in the development of joint projects and creative businesses.

This year Digitalent Foundation, with the support of a professional team that represents national and international institutions, concentrates efforts to make the European citizenship aware of the importance of creativity and innovation within today’s personal, social, and economic development.

If we see creativity as the generation of new ideas and projects, just as the teachers and coordinators in this event believe, the process of innovation involves a step forward in cognitive development, which leads to new conventions, formats, organization models or behaviors. Digitalent deals with these fields through the projects being carried out in Talent Factory.

The challenge of being creative and innovative in cultural projects involves dealing not only with art but also with production and culture diffusion. Since art and heritage involve a process of personal development, nowadays creativity and innovation have become skills of common interest.

STSI BULLETIN N. 42

The Telecommunications and Information Society Secretary, Jordi Bosch, and the General Manager of Information Society, Josuè Sallent, have had a meeting with the President of Digitalent Foundation, Oriol Ivern.

The reason for this meeting is the evaluation of the agreement between STSI and Digitalent Foundation about the project “Talent Factory Internationalization”, subsidized by STSI.

The aim of this project is to search for new talent to incorporate it into local industry. It consists of three important challenges: content creation in digital industry, the boosting of Catalan digital content industry in the new communication channels and new technologies, and the boosting of cultural change due to new technologies. Recruitment is one of the main points for the project to succeed, and therefore, there must be a Talent Factory network all over the world with similar aims.

Regarding 2008 evaluation, exposed in this meeting, the agreement has allowed the financing of a 109.000 € project, with a 50.000 € contribution by STSI. During this year there have been relations and some contacts have been made in ten cities: Santiago de Compostela, Bilbao, Sevilla, Madrid, Paris, Lyon, Milan, Amsterdam, Lisboa and Stuttgart. The first results of these actions have been obtained in Santiago de Compostela, where Digitalent Foundation has finalized an outline agreement to carry out Talent Factory by means of Clúster Audiovisual de Galícia (CLAG). Internationally, Lyon is the city in which there has been better progress.

According to the President of Digitalent Foundation, the idea is to set up two Talent factories for 2009, one of them in Spain and the other one worldwide. The Telecommunications and Information Society Secretary, is very happy with the evaluation of the project and the progress in the internationalization process. He also said that “talent recruitment is essential for the development of this industry in Catalonia, and proposals such as Digitalent’s will surely help to detect and recruit talent in our country”.

From January 19, Digitalent Foundation’s team has Josep M. Carbonell to consolidate their project “Talent Factory”.

Talent Factory, a recent creation which has a 2 million euro financing by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism searches for innovative talent in content and new technologies to incorporate ideas into industry.
 
Digitalent Foundation develops innovative projects within cultural industry, and also finds strategies to implement digital culture into content industry.