2021 archive
Industry Talks

Grab a rare opportunity to listen to and interact with the best industry professionals! BLON Talks are aimed towards common traits of video games and animation. Our guests will speak about storytelling, world building and art development for video games, and what inspired them to choose this unique medium. They will help you explore animation and games distribution world and success stories behind internationally renowned VR experiences. We hope that the speakers' experience and insights will inspire others to step into this world in which everyone can become a creator. Facebook event https://fb.me/e/3hgG2e62H (2021)

An Introduction to Systemic Narratives
An Introduction to Systemic Narratives #

Branching narratives are easy to understand, but what happens when games start telling emergent stories by themselves? Petter introduces a number of approaches for telling dynamic stories, from the perspective of both narrative and systemic design. The talk aims to present practical and usable designs based on real use cases.

👨‍🚀 Petter Vilberg
Award Ceremony
Award Ceremony #

Announcement of the Winner of the International Competition Programme, the award will be handed over by the International Jury for the Best Animated Short Film 2021.

Can You Physics Everything?
Can You Physics Everything? #

Wilhelm talks about how physics simulation can be paired with manual animation in order to automate part of the animation process.

👨‍🚀 Wilhelm Nylund
Coffee with Animation Artists
Coffee with Animation Artists #

Cozy and informal talk with animation creators about their work and all the secret corners of the animation industry

👨‍🚀 Gertrūda Nemčauskaitė, Veronika Jakutavičiūtė, Laura Jurkaitytė, Rusnė Dragūnevičiūtė, Antanas Skučas, Margarita Valionytė, Ieva Repečkaitė, Marta Gabiga, Kārlis Vītols, Milda Kargaudaitė, Thomas Tumosa, Ignas Meilūnas, Margrethe Danielsen
Coffee with Game Developers
Coffee with Game Developers #

Cozy and informal talk with game developers about their work and all the secret corners of the game industry

👨‍🚀 Petter Vilberg, Thomas Tumosa, Rebecca Lautner, Wilhelm Nylund, Gediminas Tarasevičius, Povilas Vincentas Jankūnas, Artūras Rumiancevas, Žilvinas Ledas, Tomas Mitkus, Vytautas Lukaševičius
Does the audience matter?
Does the audience matter? #

When talking about films, we usually also define their target audience: children, family, or adults. Based on the content, they are given ratings that allow or do not allow certain age groups to come to a screening. How important are these audiences to the film makers? At what stage of the script writing do they start thinking about it? When should they really start to consider the target audience for their films?

👨‍🚀 Ignas Meilūnas, Christophe Erbes, Kārlis Vītols
How a Book Turns into a Movie
How a Book Turns into a Movie #

Books inspire us, develop our imagination and teach us. But what are the creative and management issues when trying to turn a book into a movie? A talk featuring Edmunds Jansons, the director of Jacob, Mimmi and the Talking Dogs, and Sabine Anderson, its producer.

👨‍🚀 Sabine Andersone, Edmunds Jansons
How Fast Are We Growing: Animation and Games Industry Overview
How Fast Are We Growing: Animation and Games Industry Overview #

Discussion dedicated to an overview of the current animation and games industry in Lithuania and neighbouring countries, as well as the latest trends and opportunities for growth.

👨‍🚀 Rebecca Lautner, Gediminas Tarasevičius, Sabine Andersone, Jaroslav Kocourek , Bernardas Šaknys
How to Create: Animation Impact for Children
How to Create: Animation Impact for Children #

An open talk between a paediatric psychologist and a scriptwriter about products for children and the influence of cartoons when growing up and their subconscious impact. The talk will be in Lithuanian.

👨‍🚀 Milda Karklytė-Palevičienė, Birutė Kapustinskaitė
Interactive performances in virtual worlds
Interactive performances in virtual worlds #

How can the theatre industry adapt to the world of virtual technologies? While some people record 360 degree live theatre performances, true industry pioneers actively produce and organise live virtual performances on social platforms like “VR Chat”. We chat with VR performance producer and actor Braden Roy to discover what interactive performances are, how they are produced and how spectators influence them by taking a part in the story themselves.

👨‍🚀 Thomas Tumosa, Braden Roy
Let's play!
Let's play! #

Time to play! Want to find out how much you know about animation and video games? Take part in this quiz devised by Tomas Mitkus and Žilvinas Ledas to prove that you are the best!

👨‍🚀 Tomas Mitkus, Žilvinas Ledas
Open Mic
Open Mic #

An interactive networking evening during which a microphone will be presented for three minutes to anyone who wants to introduce themselves, present their companies, projects, ideas, and find likeminded people or colleagues.

Script writing consultations with Christophe Erbes
Script writing consultations with Christophe Erbes #

Individual screenwriting consultations with screenwriter and international consultant Christophe Erbes. Registration is mandatory: forms.gle/xPwA48hF39VJiYfS9

👨‍🚀 Christophe Erbes
Script writing masterclass with Christophe Erbes
Script writing masterclass with Christophe Erbes #

Screenwriting workshop with screenwriter and international consultant Christophe Erbes. Registration is mandatory: forms.gle/xPwA48hF39VJiYfS9

👨‍🚀 Christophe Erbes
The importance of narrative in short animated films
The importance of narrative in short animated films #

A conversation about how ideas become scripts and whether a narrative is important in short animated films.

👨‍🚀 Tomek Popakul, Michalina Musialik, Antanas Skučas
Turning Historical Events Into Game Content
Turning Historical Events Into Game Content #

A talk exploring how transforming complicated historical realities into fun game content can be challenging, and some possible ways of tackling this challenge.

👨‍🚀 Daniel Moore
Utility for the Soul – Are Museums a Place for Games?
Utility for the Soul – Are Museums a Place for Games? #

This spring, the National Gallery of Art (NDG) in Vilnius presented the exhibition 'Shaping the Future: Environments' by Aleksandra Kasuba. The exhibition was dedicated to the life and work of Lithuanian American environmental artist A. Kasuba (1923–2019). It was unconventionally accompanied by the meditative puzzle game Utility for the Soul. Povilas Vincentas Jankunas, a member of the game development collective Weekend Warriors, will talk about the adaptation of the author's work to interactive media, and the relationships between games and museum culture.

👨‍🚀 Povilas Vincentas Jankūnas
Virtual reality in medicine - How storytelling in virtual reality can help to reduce children pain and fear
Virtual reality in medicine - How storytelling in virtual reality can help to reduce children pain and fear #

We will present and showcase a virtual reality project / animation created by the charity foundation Auginame Ateitį, based on the children's book series “Arklio Dominyko meilė” by Lithuanian writer V. V. Landsbergis. The project is intended to facilitate and speed up vaccination for both children and medical staff. The experience takes the viewer into the fabulous world of the horse Dominykas, away from medical white robes and the walls of a vaccination room. Its goal is to introduce gamification to the entire vaccination procedure to reduce children's anxiety.

👨‍🚀 Paulius Juočeris
Working With International Partners: Pros and Cons
Working With International Partners: Pros and Cons #

Panel dedicated to talking about the ways in which animation and games industry studios work with international partners, and discussing the opportunities and challenges of such collaborations.

👨‍🚀 Bernardas Šaknys, Artūras Rumiancevas, Agnė Adomėnė, Meinardas Valkevičius, Šarūnas Ledas
Writing for Games, a Crash Course
Writing for Games, a Crash Course #

What are the elements of a narrative? How do they connect to a game? When does a story need to step back and let the game design narrate? We’ll go through the basics of narrative design and explore where and how it connects to game design elements and core loop flow. We’ll be hands-on, crafting worlds, characters, plot structures that fit the pillars of fantasy and the gameplay itself. The workshop is only for pre registered participants. Registration to this workshop required: https://blon.lt/workshop

👨‍🚀 Ranko Trifkovič