Interdisciplinary Film & Visual Culture Research Network - Ifvcr

Today in 1973 Kristen Wiig was born! To celebrate her birthday, I've found a clip of her on SNL. The slightly cringy ones are the best, aren't they?

How could I have missed! After all our waiting, Telltale's final instalment of The Walking Dead game is OUT! I didn't think I could be rooting for Clem any harder than I already was. (Look at those eyes...)

Found this super interesting article about game design and why clothing is so hard to animate...and how to get around the difficulties:

On this day in 1961 Charlie Gemora died, best known for his portrayal of King Kong. RIP, Charlie!

Harry Potter was born in Godric's Hollow today. Happy birthday, Harry! (In the books/films, he was born in 1980, but I'm sure you already knew that.)

Today is the initial release of Spirited Away in Japan! I have to say that My Neighbour Totoro is my favourite, but this anniversary is certainly worth celebrating! Gotta love those soot sprites!

GAP (Gaming for Peace) Conference
January 10th & 11th, 2019, Trinity College Dublin
The Keynote Speaker is Michael Beary, Head of Mission and Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
... PROJECT BACKGROUND:
GAP is an EU H2020 funded project which is developing a curriculum of soft skills derived from interviews with experienced military, police and civilian peacekeeping personnel, and the state of the art in peacekeeping relevant soft skills and serious games. GAP is embedding a selection of peacekeeping relevant soft skills in a digital role-playing game with in-game assessment. The key soft skills are: gender awareness, cultural competency, communication, cooperation, decision-making and stress management. In-game assessment is reported in individual ‘skills passports’ for players, and the learning metrics have been standardized against international benchmarks. The GAP module (curriculum and game) provides an inexpensive, accessible to all, standardized training in soft skills for peacekeeping and is at the cutting edge of State of the Art in the domains of training for peacekeeping, curriculum development, soft skills, assessment, game design and soft skills standardization.
CALL FOR PAPERS
We invite academic/research/policy papers from researchers from academic institutions, international organizations, training institutes for militaries, police and civilian humanitarian workers, policy institutes, and game designers, in each of the domains and at the intersection of these domains to participate in a conference that is designed to bring together key thinkers from all these domains to share relevant research, network and brainstorm for future innovative collaboration such as GAP.
KEY TOPICS:
training for peacekeeping curriculum development soft skills assessment serious games design soft skills standardisation training for military, police, NGOs peace education Abstract submission(400 words): by July 31st 2018 to [GamingforPeace@tcd.ie]
Notification of accepted authors: September 1st, 2018.
September 30th: Full programme available. November 30th: Close of registration. Please register at: [Registrations tbc]
2019: A selection of presentations at the conference will be invited to submit full papers for publication in an edited book volume after the conference.
The Conference will also host demonstrations of the GAP game, and special events to bring together key personnel in this area.
REGISTRATION (TBC)
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A new CfP is here (check out Events)!

On this day in 1954, BBC aired its first news bulletin! Such an exciting anniversary!

Aileen Quinn's birthday is today, so let's remember her role as Annie (1982)!

Happy birthday to Welsh born Shefali Chowdhury who played Parvati Patil in HP!

Missed E3? Don't worry, we've got you covered. So many reveals!

Have you heard yet? Telltale is releasing the final season of The Walking Dead Game in only a few months! Go Clem go!

The countdown is almost up! Have YOU been waiting for DONTNOD's next game? (The same developers who brought us Life Is Strange.) 5 more days, and you can bet I'll be playing!

Hitting on the social media aspects this week with this article sparked by the removal of the instagram account 'Mother of Daughters' over the possible exploitation of her children for her family's 'brand'. What are your thoughts? Is it ok to share content about your children when they're too young to consent?

Love it or hate it, it was released today! Happy release anniversary, Episode II!

Check out the new event for a great CfP for the New Directions in Media and Sociology Research 2018 Conference: ‘Digital Lives and Alternative Politics’!