The newly renamed Northwest Vision + Media has announced the follow-up to its entertaining Digital Futures conferences and seminars, which took place earlier in the year.

Its Digital Academies will comprise two three-day residential courses at Manchester’s City Inn in July. Here’s how they’ll work:

We will support a handful of creatives and entrepreneurs to work in partnership with the region’s top production houses on real projects adapting innovative content for new formats, applications and platforms.

Successful candidates will receive professional industry advice and coaching in the application of creative thinking, idea development, pitching and selling. They must have bold ideas and new approaches to creative content.

The production houses in question are Multi Media Arts, Hat Trick North, Channel M, Centini and All Out Productions. Between them their briefs, available on the Digital Futures website, cover online, mobile, radio and – primarily – television platforms.

Thirty successful candidates will be selected for the academies – five of whom may be invited to continue their work with paid placements. Proposals should be submitted by July 4.

North West Vision, the region’s strategic film and tv agency, is currently running a very interesting competition that takes advantage of the latest mobile phone technology:

Got an idea, some mates, and an eye for a good shot? Then now is the time to make that short film, documentary, or animation.

If you’re 18-24 and in the North West, send us samples of your handy work and you could win one of ten places in a mobile filmmaking boot-camp plus £250 to spend on a new production. The best of the best will then be selected by audience vote.

Want to have a go? It’s simple, just send us anything you have recorded using your mobile phone. We’re not looking for perfection, just an indication of your ability to be creative with a mobile phone.

Short Sharp Shots’ submission deadline is Wednesday July 4, though you can already view some examples on their YouTube channel. They’re also on Myspace.

Entries should be under three minutes long and must be submitted via the competition website in .3gp or .mp4 format. Camera phones at the ready…

I’ve just been for a wander around Manchester’s newly unveiled Second Life presence. Second Life, for those who don’t know, is an online community with millions of ‘residents’ and it’s own currency, which is convertable to real money.

The virtual city (actually an island) includes Urbis, the Printworks and what is possibly the Great Northern. There are plenty of less recognisable buildings too – and lots of potential space for retail and the like. It is unoccupied at present, other than the odd BrandRepublic stall and shop (for Manchester’s own Second Places, who appear to be the developers).

Urbis, both physically and virtually, hosted the ceremony for the Big Chip Awards last month. A clever move in theory but – according to a comment on North West media site How-Do – ‘a total disaster’ in practice.

Anyway, here are a few snapshots of Second Life’s Manchester (click for full view):

If you’re a Second Life user, you can visit Manchester by clicking here.

I’ve been meaning to post an update about the BBC Manchester Blog since finding this post, which calls it ‘a sustainable project’. But, as often happens, the internet has overtaken me and Robin Hamman and Richard Fair have now saved me the effort.

I’ve included the middle of three videos here, because it is the most explanatory, but you can check out the other two videos for more information. They talk about the Manchizzle in detail, while Spinneyhead and The43 get brief mentions too.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTbku-L5j3w]

[Hat-tip to Craig McGinty]