2011 ZON Creativity in Multimedia Award winners announced

6 Feb 2012

Fourth edition of the Prémio ZON includes three winners associated with CoLab.

The program is very proud that several members and associates of UT Austin|Portugal Digital Media have been named winners of the 2011 ZON Creativity in Multimedia Award. An initiative of leading Portuguese media company ZON Multimédia, the nationwide competition is supported by the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) and the Cinema and Audiovisual Institute.

GimmeDaBlues, an innovative iOS music application developed by several members of the UT Austin|Portugal program, won first prize for the Multimedia category. The team includes Rui Dias, George Siorios, Gilberto Bernardes, Telmo Marques, and Digital Media co-director Carlos Guedes of U. Porto. The graphic user interface design for the application was created by Clara Morão and the iOS programming was done by Amaury Hazan. The application’s development grew out of the FCT-sponsored research project "Kinetic Controller Driven Adaptive and Dynamic Music Composition Systems,” led by Guedes and Bruce Pennycook of UT Austin.

GimmeDaBlues allows users to generate Blues music in real time, experimenting with several known Blues styles. Through a touch screen interface on an iPad or iPhone, users can work with a virtual quartet comprised of a trumpet, piano, double bass, and drums, exercising a varying level of control over each instrument. The application represents a new paradigm in music applications for smartphones, as users can play and interact at a high musical level without formal musical knowledge. Videos demonstrating the application are available at http://vimeo.com/35743843 and http://vimeo.com/31607650.

Second prize in the Digital Animation category was awarded to David Mourato. Mourato, a freelance animator, is an alumnus of the 2011 ZON Digital Animation Advanced Lab, an eight-week intensive course led by University of Texas instructors Geoff Marslett and Ben Bays in Austin. The winning submission “Depressure” was partly developed during his visit at UT. Looking into the future, Mourato stated, “Now I want to start thinking about a new short, new story, new ideas. But most of all I want to be a great animator and director.” One of his goals includes pursuing an online professional training program in character design offered by iAnimate.net.

João Alves, another alumnus of the 2011 ZON Digital Animation Advanced Lab program, was honored with third prize in the Digital Animation category for his entry “The Extraordinary Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizzaboy II,” an animated trailer for the well-known graphic novel. Alves, who works at Lisbon Labs, is the creator of another award-winning short, “Bats in the Belfry.” Regarding the ZON prize, Alves expressed joyful surprise, stating, “It was amazing—we had little expectation with just four guys working for a month and a half and competing with established producers with huge crews, but we did it. The team effort really paid off, and it was amazing to hear “Dog Mendonça and Pizzaboy” being announced!”

For a complete list of 2011 winners, see the Prémio ZON website.