President of Rockstar North, producer of all games in the Grand Theft Auto series, starting with GTA III (2001), as well as producer of sensational projects Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3, Leslie Benzies has decided to end cooperation with Rockstar. The Kotaku resource, which received a letter from an American publisher, reported this the other day:
“We can confirm that Leslie Benzis has been on creative leave since September 1, 2014 and has decided not to return to work at the company,” Rockstar’s press service notes. — We are very grateful to Lesla for her contribution to the common cause over the past 15 years, during which we have created a number of amazing games. Leslie has put together an incredible team [of developers] that will continue to create great games. He will always be a friend of the company, and we will, of course, miss him, but we wish him all the best.”
The paths of Benzis and Rockstar North crossed in 1999. Leslie was a programmer in the Space Station Silicon Valley project for the Nintendo 64, and the Rockstar North studio was then, at the end of the 20th century, called DMA Design and was best known for the Lemmings series of puzzle games.
After the departure of Benzis, Rockstar North was headed by old-timers Aaron Garbut and Rob Nelson, who previously held the positions of art directors of the company’s major projects.
SPIROGRAPH School of Arts
The school was founded in 2003 by the Lviv regional charitable foundation “TORBA” as part of the international project “High level of culture – for a European city” as the Studio of Aesthetic Education “SPIROGRAPH”. The Studio is the intellectual property of its founder, the “TORBA” Charitable Foundation, which takes care of it and thanks to which children who are not very lucky in life (orphans, from large families, and others) have the opportunity to work in the Studio. According to the decision of the coordinator of the activity of the Studio, the Supervisory Board of the Charitable Foundation, the official name was changed to the School of Arts “SPIROGRAPH” with a change in the concept of the program in June 2007, in connection with the strategy of its development, with the use of a wider range of interests, the methodology of teaching disciplines and other qualitative innovations
In April 2007, the School became a member of the INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CULTURE AND ART.
The goal of the project is to provide an opportunity to all interested persons to become its participants regardless of gender, nationality and social status, which is available to the least protected members of society.
The age of the School participants is from 3.5 to 100 years old!
The comprehensive cognitive program of the “Creative Preschooler” School is designed for people aged 3.5 to 5 years. Participants from the age of 5 are accepted for certain areas. Persons over the age of 17 attend classes in the “Seniors” system also in separate areas.
Offered program:
- dance (pop, ballroom, folk);
- theatrical art (acting skills, stage language, stage movement, vocals, pantomime, basics of directing);
- visual and decorative arts (drawing, painting, color science, composition, carving, drawing on glass, installations, collage, calligraphy);
- art history;
- foreign languages (Polish, English, Japanese);
- international etiquette.
The academic specialized program enables each participant-graduate of the mandatory general cognitive program to choose the most exciting direction for him for the purpose of further in-depth study:
- theater arts department;
- department of dance;
- department of fine and decorative and applied arts;
- department of foreign languages.
- Since 2005, the Educational Theater Laboratory “SPIROGRAPH” has been fully operating at the School under the auspices of the Lviv Author’s Drama Theater “ScenA8”.
The best students are recommended for a scholarship.
Specialists from relevant areas are involved in classes with participants. The coordinating body of this project is the School Council, which includes cultural and artistic figures, teachers of higher educational institutions and employees of scientific institutions. During its activity, the School, namely its members, students and teachers, took part in city, all-Ukrainian, and international projects.