arts and culture : In The News

The Grid reports on Toronto's annual ToJam competition, a contest that has participants design videogames from scratch in only one weekend. The game-design marathon, now in its sixth year, attracts over 200 participants and brings together the best of Toronto's burgeoning software design scene.

"The premise of TOJam is that a bunch of people�over 200 this time, but fewer in previous iterations�bring their computers to a George Brown College building near King and Sherbourne on a Friday. The goal, by Sunday night, is for everyone to have created a complete video game from scratch�and that means art, music, code, and all."

"Anyone who's ever taken a course in computer science knows that a single weekend isn't enough time to make something as complex as a game. Even attempting to adhere to that sort of timetable would be a little insane. And yet, TOJam attendees keep finding ways; this was the annual event's sixth year."

"People continue to come out partly because the pressure-cooker environment sometimes yields brilliance, and also because of the networking opportunities. This year's guest list included a Superbrother; other local gaming luminaries have been known to participate.
Keeping things simple makes achieving that ridiculous deadline easier. But Bethke and his five teammates (his Golden Gear Games business partner Andrew Traviss, plus four graphic artists) weren't even doing that. Their game was going to be a feature-rich platformer with an elaborate back-story."

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original source The Grid

Toronto is the world's second most impressive city according to new survey by international consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The report, which graded 26 global financial centres, ranked cities based on business opportunities, culture, livability, and innovation. As reported by the Atlantic, Toronto's high ranking (second only to New York), is result of its ability to retain and attract talent, its business trip index, and its entrepreneurial environment.

 "New York City, Toronto and San Francisco were named the world's most impressive metros in a new survey of the global capitals of finance, innovation and tourism. The report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the Partnership for New York City graded 26 metro powerhouses from Stockholm to Santiago on business opportunities, culture, livability, and innovation."

 "Toronto is a "beta" city, the authors say, because it's not considered a part of the conversation with London, Paris, and New York for greatest city in the world. But it has all the building blocks of a superlative international city, beginning with smart ideas about sustainability and innovation."
   
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original source the Atlantic

Eye Weekly writes on Type Books' fifth anniversary. The independent Queen West bookstore celebrated their success with a day of free cake, tea, and readings.

"It's fun to have 'good news' and 'books' together in the same sentence," laughs Joanne Saul, the co-owner of Toronto independent bookstore Type Books. Saul has plenty to smile about: Type is celebrating its fifth anniversary this Saturday (April 30) with a full-day public-reading event at their Queen West location. The event will feature 18 authors reading their own material, ranging from novels to memoirs and all literary works in between."

T"he day will consist of the authors giving "pop-up" readings, where they emerge from within the crowd and read from their work for two to three minutes. "It's kind of crazy; every 20 minutes we're going to have an author 'pop up,'" Saul says. "It could be the customer standing next to you at the magazine rack� the store will be bustling, and the person beside you will hop on a stool and start to read!"

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original source Eye Weekly

Torontoist goes behind the scenes of Toronto's Pinewood Studios, Commissioners Street's 11-acre film and television production facility. With seven soundstages and a giant warehouse on site, Pinewood provides a combined 250,000 square feet of studio space making it "one of the most comprehensive purpose-built film facilities in the world."

"Getting behind the gates of Pinewood Toronto Studios is kind of exactly like securing a golden admission ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Except instead of chocolate waterfalls, everlasting gobstoppers, and jolly, ginger-skinned Oompa-Loompas, Pinewood has well-maintained offices, an impressive ventilation system, and a muddy old berm out back. And a whole lot of movie studio space. Like, huge expanses of it."

"Granted, Pinewood Toronto's 11-acre facility in the Port Lands (near Commissioners Street and the Don Roadway) may not appear to be suffused with "movie magic"�especially if your only frames of reference for what a movie studio is are the scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure when our bike-riding hero giddily baits a low-speed pursuit through the Warner Bros. lot and a bunch of Animaniacs cartoons. But though its facade may be a little plain, evoking little of the Hollywood "Dream Machine" or whatever, in the past three years alone, Pinewood has gained a reputation as a go-to destination for film and television productions in Toronto."

"Since opening in 2008, the studios have provided space for plenty of Canadian film and TV productions (CBC's Battle of the Blades, Atom Egoyan's Chloe). They've also done something even more exceptional: attract big-time Hollywood bucks. Since 2008, larger-budgeted shoots like the forthcoming prequel/remake of John Carpenter's The Thing (also called The Thing) and last summer's hometown would-be blockbuster Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) setting up shop at Pinewood. And with Pinewood currently hosting the most expensive production to ever come to Toronto (we were asked not to name the film, even though it's already been announced elsewhere), we finagled our way behind the scenes of the studio that's reinvigorating Toronto's film industry."

"Toronto has historically been a very successful film and television production centre, but it hasn't had a facility like this," notes Edith Myers, managing director of Pinewood Toronto Studios. "[Toronto] has very good facilities and a lot of people put a lot of money into the industry. But this facility is designed to attract a certain type of film that had come infrequently to Toronto. Our biggest selling tool is to show people what we've got here." And what Pinewood's got is impressive."

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original source Torontoist

Twin cities newspaper StarTribune writes on Toronto's captivating Distillery District neighbourhood. The restored Gooderham & Worts Distillery is lauded for its unique art galleries, many shopping and dinning destinations, and historic streetscape.

"Toronto is a safe, clean, comfortable city. Its eclectic streets and scenic avenues appeal to your inner walker, and few parts are better to explore on foot than the automobile-free, pedestrian-friendly Distillery District."

"Just off Lake Ontario, with the CN tower and a collage of skyscrapers hovering above, this former industrial area melds the corporate and cultural in a historic setting. Walking through the Mill Street entrance, you'll immediately get the picture, sensing the significance of it all."

"By 2001, the distillery had become mainly rubble when Mathew Rosenblatt and his development partners began to re-create the area into something that people, locals or tourists, would return to, says Rosenblatt."

"Viewing business as art, and intent on establishing a neighborhood where you "get a sense of the city's culture," Rosenblatt and his partners have taken 44 buildings, possibly the largest collection of Victorian industrial architecture in North America, and incorporated business, retail and artist spaces into a setting that exudes small-town charm. Walking these streets is akin to visiting an amusement park, and not having to pay for the rides, as the visual feast is entertainment enough."

"Koilos," a 14-foot tall, crouching sculpture by California artist Michael Christian, lords over Distillery Lane, alerting Parliament Street entrants that this is not going to be your ordinary walkabout.

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original source StarTribune