WHATCHA GOt'

Whatcha Got' Interactive Game @melbournefilmfestival.com.au Australia

Take the Whatcha Got' challenge, a street showdown to determine break-dancing supremacy. Simply point your browser at melbournefilmfestival.com.au and get ready to face the music. You will duel with an opponent connected by a satellite hook-up, beaming direct to you from the other side of the globe. Choose between players Sass J. and Slick D., select one of five exotic break battle venues and step up or step off!

Innovative designers Dave Jones and Nathan Jurevicius have collaborated on Whatcha Got'. Both have a highly distinctive style and much sought after talents.

Dave Jones is a illustrator, web, game and interactive designer and animator who launched his career in 1994. In 1999 Jones founded the animation company Transience and shortly afterwards released the critically acclaimed and multi award-winning Teetering. Since then the animations and games of Transience have featured in festivals globally, winning awards in France, Brazil, America, Spain, Italy, Australia and Korea.

Jones' celebrated animation filmography includes The TeeV (2001), El Emigrante: String and Stick Tricks (a 2002 finalist for the Best Online Series at the prestigious Annecy Animation Festival in France) and Swain (2003) all of which are screening at MIFF this year. His game work includes: Pearls Before Swine (2000), Eieio (2000), Pearls Before Swine 2 (2001), El Emigrante: The Immigration Game (2001), Monsta Bar (2001), Chasm (2003), Pearls Before Swine 3 (2003), Pentatonica (2003) and Amazons vs Athenians (2003). Go to: transience.com.au

Nathan Jurevicius began collecting awards for his illustrations at high school and university in South Australia. He branched out from editorial illustration into the world of game design, web art, animation and toy design, a move that has given him free reign to explore new territories while maintaining his surreal stylistic preoccupations.

His most acclaimed project to date is Scarygirl, which began as an online concept but then quickly took a detour into the world of toys. The Scarygirl series has developed into an internationally recognised group of characters, all based on Nathan's wordless and highly stylised comic. The website (scarygirl.com) has obsessed followers around the world. Currently Nathan is working on a number of Scarygirl related projects including developing the concept design for Playstation/Xbox, and is working with the Australian arm of the multi award-winning independent production company Passion Pictures (Gorillaz) to adapt the concept into a TV series. He has also been asked to design the hero mascot for the Australian Pavilion at World Expo 2005. For more: nathanj.com.au

SIDESHOW: NEW MEDIA produced with the assistance of Film Victoria's Digital Media Fund ? the Digital Media Fund is funded by Multimedia Victoria as part of the Victorian Government's Connecting Victoria policy, which aims to bring the benefits of technology to all Victorians