In January 2011 I began working with a student group at the Centre for Digital Media called Man Kind. We created, managed and produced content for the Men's Health Initiative of BC. Man Up is an online community outreach program created entirely by our team. Manupcanada.ca is a web site aimed at getting young men (ages 18-35) interested in their health, and it is populated with content created by us. I am our primary researcher and copywriter, and work in the Adobe Creative Suite 5 (Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects) for design mockups. We shot and edited a 30-second PSA with the help of the Vancouver Canucks. With the help of Stan "Steamer" Smyl as our celebrity endorser, our spot ran on the Jumbotron at the Rogers Arena on March 31, 2011, as the Canucks played the Los Angeles Kings. The ad directed the 20,000 fans in the arena to the...
During the second year of my Masters of Digital Media (Sept. 2010 - April 2011), I worked as the teacher's assistant (TA) for the Visual Story course for George Johnson. My degree in film theory and 9 years of video game reporting made me a strong fit for this course, which examines storytelling techniques in popular films and adapts them to the world of video games for inspiring video game designers. Averaging 10 hours a week, my duties included assistance with lesson preparation and tech support for the instructor, and project guidance for 25 first-year graduate students.
In fall 2010, I worked as a producer and audio director on a video game project called Galactic Shadow Shooter at the Centre for Digital Media. The game is an HTML5 arcade-action title our seven-person team created for Microsoft Game Studios. I helped build and fill the game's official site, and was charged with aligning our biweekly deliverables with the client's vision via documenting an ongoing Vision Document and Project Charter. As an audio director, I was responsible for creating and implementing all the sound effects and soundtracks related to the project, using GarageBand '11, Adobe Soundbooth CS5 and Audacity. Unfortunately, the game is not available for public play. You can read a production diary I wrote at the game's official site. Also below is a trailer I created for the game using iMovie '11. Galactic Shadow Shooter - Trailer from Nick Lewis on Vimeo. And gameplay video, courtesy...
This is a student project from the Animation in a Digital World class in my Masters of Digital Media program. Classmate Jordan Braun and I worked on creating a tilt-shift short video based loosely around our individual daily commutes. We shot all footage in digital video, batch processed in Photoshop CS4 for tilt-shift, and only kept every fourth frame to give it a stop-motion feel. Bon Voyage. (Tilt-Shift) from jordanbraun on Vimeo.
The Project I entered the 2nd annual Global Game Jam at the University of British Columbia in early February 2010, an event where amateur game designers from across the world create and collaborate on a video game in just 48 hours. The theme of this year’s jam was “Deception,” and the game had to involve “A skunk, a monk or a punk.” I lucked out with a great team, and we set about trying to rapidly prototype an idea that fit these parameters. Working non-stop from Friday at 5 p.m. to Sunday at 3 p.m., we fleshed out a game inspired by Peggle (who doesn’t love Peggle!) that involved two skunks stuck inside the belly of a monster. They find a tumor-like outgrowth named Mr. Pickles who shoots them out from his mouth, and they try to break out of this monster’s belly by ricocheting themselves off dead cells and...
MyWorld is a digital literacy tutorial I worked on while receiving my Masters of Digital Media. By simulating the typical online experience (e-mail, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc.), this tutorial intends to inform high school students about managing online privacy and reputation, and understanding digital copyright laws. I was project manager and script editor on a student team that created the program for the Ottawa-based Media Awareness Network. I negotiated the scope and breadth of our deliverable with our client via weekly Skype conference calls, and created and maintained a schedule with milestones for our team to hit. In addition, I helped create audio and graphic assets for the tutorial, and played the part of homeroom teacher Mr. Billings for the Video Chat component of our game. MyWorld was created by Think Ray, consisting of Nick Lewis, Ian McDonald, Jeunessa Cheng, Khadija Ghazi, Matthew Schade Tools Adobe Flash CS4 (AS3), Photoshop, Dreamweaver,...
Courtesy of project lead and team mate Al Sinoy, you can play 7 Days here. Or you can view the trailer for it here. The Project The first assignment for our Visual Story class required us to make an interactive photo-film. We had to pick a strong image and then storyboard a number of narrative lines that all used that one image. We decide to build a storyline around the idea of a man dangling from a ledge, being held onto by another man who could determine his fate. We then weave this into a storyline that involves a supposed love triangle between three central characters, good friends Dave and Mike, and Dave’s wife Mia. My Role On 7 Days, I played the role of Head Writer, fleshing out a multi-strand, cohesive narrative. I also acted in the production as the husband Dave, created a production blog for our group over at...
The Project As our final six-week assignment for George Johnson’s Visual Story class, our task was to create a game that explored aspects of journey, transition, and character development through an interactive game or film experience. We were asked to consider the mythical tale of Charon and his boat traveling down the River Styx, transporting dead souls who may or may not interact with one another. But its main tenants included the following: “The specific challenge for this exercise is developing strong characters.” The idea was that the more the user explores the game space or environment, the stronger any sense of the personality of one or more characters becomes. Also from the assignment instructions: “The nature of the player should be addressed and made clear within the project.” As with most of this course, we were also working to understand implicit vs. explicit narrative and what role these types of communication...
