TTA: pitch day

The Friday is always a kind of a pitch day. The nominee teams get a chance to tell about the project. What the project is, why they made particular choices, what technologies they used, what problems they experienced. These teams were nominated in the particular categories:

Broadband/Online: Amazing Croatian Fauna - Gorjan Agacevic, Design studio (R)evolution (CRO)
Glassbox – Emmanuel Fréard, Paris 8 University (F)
Guitar Shred Show – Mika Tyyskä, Lahti Polytechnic, Institute of Design (FIN)

Offline/DVD: Medianatomy – Kamen Anev, Hungarian University of Art and Design (HU) Pantha Rei – Judit Erdélyi, Hungarian University of Art and Design (HU)
Sitka – Artur Jaros, Uniwersytet Wroclawski (PL)

Mobile Contents: APCompass – David Wiltshire, University of Plymouth (UK)
iCoach – Andrew Devlin, Bournemouth University (UK)
RealReplay – GPS racing on your mobile phone - Andreas Jakl, FH Hagenberg (AUT)

Games: Air Guard – Lubor Kopecky, SleepTeam Labs (CZ)
Neon Racer: Augmented Gaming – Markus Weilguny, FH Hagenberg (Digitale Medien) (AUT) The Farm (Episode one) – Benedict Webb, Bournemouth University (UK)

Content Tool and Interface Design: Coeno One – Jakob Leitner, FH Hagenberg (AUT)
Supreme Auction – Carlo Blatz, Powerflasher GmbH (GER)
Virtual Air Guitar – Teemu Mäki-Patola, Helsinki University of Technology (FIN)

Interactive Computer Graphics: Randart DNS – Christian Male, FH Salzburg Studiengang MultiMediaArt (AUT)
Strip Generator – Ziga Aljaz, Academy of Fine Arts,Ljubljana (SLO)

Interactive TV & Video: No nominations in this category

Cross Media: Jumping Rope – Orna Portugaly, Daphna Talithman & Sharon Younger, Camera Obscura School of Art (ISR)
MEMORY – Martin Bricelj, KD CodeEp (SLO)
Mirror_SPACE – Brigitta Zics, Academy of Media Arts Cologne (GER / UK)

Special Awards
ATI Award:195/95 – Michal Staniszewski, University of Lodz, Department of Mathematics (PL) Car Demonstrator – Alexander Peschke, Fachhochschule Salzburg (AUT)

EUROPRIX TOP TALENT THESIS AWARD
My Social Fabric- Steven Blyth, Interaction Design Institute, Ivrea (IT)
Emotion and Acousmêtre for suspense in an interactive Virtual Storytelling Environment – Wendy Ann Mansilla, International School of New Media, University of Lübeck (GER)
Txt2Tug – Louise Gumbrell, Staffordshire University (GB)

TOP TALENET AWARD FUSION AWARD
Virtual Air Guitar – Teemu Mäki-Patola, Helsinki University of Technology (FIN)

The list of nominees is very interesting. You can look at from the technology point of view, but you can also look at it graphically. Looking from the perspective of countries, there are some interesting observations:
1. There were 411 entries from 32 European countries, including Turkey and Israel and 1 entry from Argentina. The EUROPRIX Top Talent Award is truly European.
2. The nominees in the 11 categories came from 11 countries.
3. More entries per country do not guarantee a nomination as is clear from this list:
Country:Number of nominations (number of entries)
Austria: 5 (32)
Croatia: 1 (21)
Czech Republic: 1 (6)
Finland: 3 (18)
France: 1 (17)
Germany: 2 (48)
Hungary: 2 (13)
Poland: 2 (10)
Slovenia: 1 (15)
UK: 4 (61)
4. There is an interesting phenomenon in the Offline category. All the nominations are from Central or Eastern Europe. The question may be asked: are the people in those countries strong on CD-ROM/DVD due to a lack of broadband? But if you look at the category Broadband you see a country as Croatia taking a nomination. I personally think that in those countries storytelling was always stronger and storytelling you can do on disc or through broadband.
5. Another remarkable phenomenon is the category mobile. Nominees come from the UK and Austria, countries that have strongly performed in the past. In the history of the EUROPRIX TTA in mobile the following countries have been strong: UK, Austria and Germany. No Spanish or Italian projects and no Finnish either.
6. In the category Interactive TV and Video there was no nomination. This category is a difficult one. It attracts the lowest number of entries (17 out of the 411) and they mostly come from the UK, one of the few countries where interactive TV is working. Theoretically there should be some entries from the Netherlands next year as UPC is rolling out 2 million set-top boxes. I personally think that interactive TV is a dead horse (famous last words). Channel 4 in the UK was right by pulling the plug on the interactive TV.

Tags: Europrix, EADiM