Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was in town today to visit some of the facilities and companies that make up Central Florida’s digital media industry.
Orlando’s film, digital media and entertainment production industry includes more than 333 businesses with more than 3,400 employees that account for $845.5 million in total sales, according to the Metro Orlando Film and Entertainment Commission.
Crist started the tour by stopping at the Electronic Arts Tiburon Studio in Maitland, home of such popular video games as Madden NFL Football, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and NCAA Football. Crist was given a sneak peek of NCAA Football 10, which hits stores tomorrow. During the tour, the crew at EA showed off a customized player made to look like Crist.
Sentinel photographer Joe Burbank attended and posted some information and photos about the visit on the Sentinel’s Political Pulse blog.
Sentinel business columnist Beth Kassab was also at EA Tiburon this morning and filed this report.
After that, Crist got a tour of the University of Central Florida’s Center for Emerging Media (pictured), a 114,000 square foot, $14 million facility across from the Amway Arena that houses the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, a graduate digital media school. The center also includes a state of the art motion capture studio, which has been used to produce a Hannah Montana video game, Gillette Commercials featuring Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter, and other projects.
Since it opened in 2005, FIEA has graduated about 100 people with more than 90 percent earning an average starting salary of more than $52,000, according to UCF.
“These are great jobs, it’s a clean industry and it promotes Florida,” Crist said. “There are no downsides.”
Dan Holsenbeck, UCF’s vice president of university relations, said because the center is able to make money by renting out parts of the facility for commercial ventures, it’s somewhat insulated from budget cuts to higher education.
Here is video of Aaron Jeromin, an art faculty member at FIEA, and FIEA director Ben Noel explaining motion capture to Crist.
Crist also got a demonstration of a video game created by students called “Sultan of Scratch,” which is sort of a hip hop version of Rock Band. The game is one of two final projects FIEA students are producing. Here’s a video of the students showing off the game.
Crist finished his day by visiting the Employ Florida Banner Center for Digital Media, which is headquartered within Seminole Community College’s new Heathrow Center for Economic Development. The center is a statewide resource for digital media workforce education and training. In coordination.
