Wednesday April 7 --  Red Octane (Guitar Hero), Blackpoint and dSonic Studio Co-Founders on "the Business of Being Creative"

Gone are the days, if they ever really existed, where creatives could count on being sponsored by a large studio for their entire careers.   By choice or necessity we may have to create our own.

Ever wondered what is the secret to founding and keeping a creative studio alive? Unfortunately there’s no magic lantern you can rub,  yet there are many aspects of that “business” thing that involve creativity, which you might - god forbid - enjoy.

We have the founders of a game, graphic and sound studios here to share the stresses, the sucesses and the inflection points for the unexpected.  Walk away inspired and apply some points to ease your own journey.

Bios:

Kai Huang, co-founder of Red Octane and its President and CEO since 1999. Publishers of the popular Guitar Hero franchise, RedOctane was acquired by Activision in June 2006. Prior to RedOctane, Mr. Huang was co-founder and CEO of Adux Software, a software company developing solutions for the server appliance market and prior to that, he was a consultant with Accenture. Mr. Huang holds a BA in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley

Alejandro Gil, co-founder of Blackpoint Studios. Alejandro has been working on television, film and games for nearly 15 years, starting his career in real time Broadcast TV back in Spain and transition to film and commercials after his arrival to Los Angeles in 1998 in the middle of 'El Nino' storm.  He moved north to join EA at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and then spent 4 intense years as founder and creative director at Blackpoint Studios.  He joined EA for a second term, to help finish Godfather 2 and is now Lead Environment Artist at a brand new studio opened by Activision.

Simon Amarasingham, co-founder and CEO of dSonic Inc., a company that has been creating audio for games for 10 years including titles such as Brutal Legend, Bioshock, and Farmville. Starting from amongst a sea of competitors, dSonic has grown to become one of the game industry’s premier suppliers of audio for games. Prior to his dSonic days Simon did a little programming during the dot com boom and composed music and sound effects as an independent contractor both in the US and Australia.

When: April 7, 6:30pm

Where: Cogswell Polytechnical College
Who:  Three Fabulous Studio Founders - Game, Graphic and Sound.
Presented By:  The Silicon Valley IGDA  -- linkedin,  facebook,  google group
Cost:  Free and you must register here

Agenda:
6:30 - 7:00 Refreshments, socializing
7:00 - 7: 15 Intros, Abert Chen (Cogswell) & Ann Burkett (SV IGDA)
7:15  - 7:45 Simon Amarasingham of dSonic, special prepared talk
7:45 - 8:00 Refreshments, Socializing break
8:00 - 9:00 Panel with Kai Huang, Alejandro Gil, and Simon Amarasingham, Q&A
9:00 - 9:30 More socializing/networking and byes.