Monday Jan. 26th– In the morning Leila and I had a check in with the Art team about the Brick Lane project, tentatively named ‘Ronzo’s BrixTape’. We just wanted to update the progress tracker, and speak to the 3D team about what they felt they could do for Friday the 6th. Shockingly, we only had 1 person not attend, and we hadn’t heard from her in a while, so we sent an email to check in. Everyone else was more or less on track, with onbly a few people who may be a cause for concern. They have two weeks however, and everyone seemed confident that they would have something to hand over. Then the 3D team agreed to the tasks we had laid out for them in our email from last week so it seems that everyone is back on track to be ready for the break. I also put together some very quick sketches of what the gameplay would look like, as some people still seemed a bit unclear about the camera changes.
Tuesday Jan. 27th– In the morning we had a quick session on our assessment brief for DPS. While 4000 words feels quite daunting, Maliha assured me that with the detail contained in this blog, I shouldn’t have an issue meeting the word count.
In the evening we had our “training session” for our industry mentorships. It was mostly just a presentation on what to expect from the program as well as expecations for us. I am nervous as I have had poor mentoring experiences in the past, but I’m really excited to meet someone who can really help me in my career as a narrative animator.
Wednesday Jan. 28th– I spent the morning putting together my contact sheet before my tutorial with Maliha. I really had less contacts than I thought, and a significant chunk of them had actually left the studios they were at and are currently seeking new employment, which does not bode well for me. Anyhow, the tutorial with Maliha went well; I showed her all the things I had updated and we got to talking about possibly getting some of my contacts from The Line to come down to do a talk at LCC where I could act as the student liason. I’m hoping this can get me closer to any of them to the point I could ask for a mentorship.
In the evening I had my first session with Creative Shift and The Kusp, and we got to share our ideas. It got me quite excited for the help I can get for Sawtooth. Quite a few DPS people were there so it was very nice to have friendly faces.
Thursday Jan. 29th– I was at work.
Friday Jan. 30th– We had our SIPs pitch with Eddy from Creative Conscience. While I think we presented well, I’m fairly certain we didn’t present the kind of thing they were looking to fund. Or at the very least we didn’t frame it correctly. In honesty, I sort of forgot this pitch was for a specific brief to get a small fund and we didn’t really prepare the presentation in a way that made it clear what we would be producing. Eddy did like the idea however, and gave us great advice we can carry forward.
I hope to make some real headway in the upcoming weeks for our studio and get working on projects very soon! I also worked on the ACTSA animations.
Saturday Jan. 31st– I was at work.
Sunday Feb. 1st– I had a blood donation in the morning before work. While I was there I got to talk to the manager of the center to ask if they would be willing to collaborate with Sawtooth on a campaign to do a blood drive. He seemed enthusiastic and gave me his email to contact him with our idea. Over the next week we’ll be doing more logistical development on Sawtooth as well as development for the blood drive.
Monday Jan. 19th – Today we had our first set of meetings for Brick Lane/Purr Point with me as a producer. In the morning it was just the production team discussing what we wanted to get from the other two meetings, and figuring out what we would need from the other teams. In the second meeting we met with Joshua and Owen for game dev. They walked us through the Game Design Document and we made small tweaks and solidified all the aspects of the game that were still unclear. I had wanted to get a breakdown of all the steps they needed to take so Leila and I could make a Gantt style timeline, but we ran over time on the meeting so I had to email them for that later. Leila and I organized a meeting for ourselves on Wednesday to go through what they send us. Finally we had a meeting with the Art team. We got Kofi to take on the role of lead character designer, and then we went through everyone’s work so far. This meeting also overran due to the bulk of the staff being on the art team. Leila and I have a lot to do to get the schedule together by Friday, but I think once we sit down and get all our materials sorted out, we’ll be able to come at the rest of the project swinging.
After all the meetings I had a list of emails to fire off as well as booking my own DPS tutorial, but I got through that admin quite swiftly.
Finally, in the evening, we had a DPS assessment briefing, this honestly was just a session of Hamish talking at us about reflective writing, but I’ve never really had any issues with that, and I am a very strong writer so I admittedly did not get too invested in the session. We are still a ways out from when I feel I would start writing this report so while I did tke a look through the brief, I’m not compelled to do much work on it yet.
Tuesday Jan. 20th – I forgot to mention that toward the end of the vacation, I got an email telling me to come to a recording at LCC for that film part ‘Male Radio Voice’. I had no idea I had gotten the part, but today was the day we went in to record. It was quite a fun experience and the filmmakers and my scene partner were all very fun. I was a bit nervous because I had to do improv in an accent but ultimately it came out well and I’m excited to see the final product.
After the recording, I worked on Sawtooth, and rejigging our presentation for Creative Conscience. I added new slides describing our manifesto and did a check for who would actually be working on this as a SIPs project versus just working in the studio. By the end of the week I want to fix up the discord so we can move our contact point over there as it is a lot more accessible than Teams.
Wednesday Jan. 21st – I spent most of Wednesday organizing materials for the Brick Lane game. Leila and I had a call to discuss the schedule, but Maliha ended up joining and letting us know that there would be a big break due to a new Live Brief. We adjusted some of our timeline for that and then discussed what we wanted from each of our teams before we take that break.
Thursday Jan. 22nd– We had a meeting with Maliha for Brick Lane. Leila couldn’t attend but Maliha and I worked on coming up with an agenda for our team meeting. She suggested Leila and I took over the responsibility of chairing the meeting which I agreed to since I really want to gain hands-on production experience from this. I was always a very anxious child and had lots of trouble speaking to people, but since coming to uni I’ve gotten so much better, and as it turns out, I really enjoy taking on leadership roles.
Friday Jan. 23rd– We had out big team meeting for Purr Point/Brick Lane. I was a little nervous about running the meeting, but ultimately I felt it went well. We covered every item we needed to and I feel like everyone walked out much clearer on what they needed to do by the 6th of February. Joshua, showed off the prototype to everyone and we clarified what we needed from the dev team too, as they had not yet provided us with a task breakdown. Then the art team showed off thier progress on the murals which have been coming along nicely. Fianlly, Maliha gave us a quick rundown of what the upcoming DPS briefs would be and it look like the rest of this year is going to continue to be ultra busy. After the meeting Maliha gave us some advice, to keep things running efficiently and smoothly, but I feel like the meeting went well. We finished on-time and had a pretty decent turnout. Leila and I then spent some time drafing an email, summarizing the meeting and reitorating everyone’s tasks. I’ve provided a screenshot below.
Saturday/Sunday Jan. 24th/25th– I was working at MegaCon. I did wristbanding in the mornings and in the afternoon I was assisting at meet and greets for a few Minecraft youtubers. Later I got to explore the con and we attended the cosplay masquerade and well as a deep dive into artist alley. ComicCon always inspires me so much we all the art and costumes I see and I feel quite rejubinated after taking the weekend to do something fun. Exhausting, but fun.
Over the winter break I took a lot of time off to sort of rest and recoup. I stayed on top of basic admin tasks as well as beginning my inductions to the New Earth team but generallt didn’t do much else. I sorely needed a break. Then when I returned to London, I immediately caught the horrible flu going around and I had to postpone my return to work by another week.
Monday Jan. 12th – I was still quite ill on Monday, so I slept though most of the day.
Tuesday Jan. 13th – I was still recovering on Tuesday, but in the evening we had a call with the ACTSA group to review what was needed for the animation. They provided us with a clearer list of references and beats for the film. We discussed the timeline and while we don’t have a set deadline, we have a tentative three weeks to work on this.
Wednesday Jan. 14th – Today, Leila, Maliha and I had a call to discuss our roles as producers on the Purr Point/Brick Lane project. We began work on a timeline spreadsheet, as well as discussed when we would have meetings with every department, we agreed that we needed to speak with each department to establish a more detailed Gantt style timeline, but we would have a document that is ready by next Friday to share with the whole team during our first monthly team meeting. Later on in the day I finally got around to getting on top of my tutorial points set by Maliha. I updated my CV and reformatted it to fit more of my roles, and I also re-did my showreel and replaced it on my portfolio site. I still however need to get back in the swing of applying to jobs, as well as get my contact sheet together since I don’t have that done yet. I also really need to get back on top of Sawtooth prep and talk to Amy, Sophia, and Alex T. about our SIPs pitch to creative conscience.
Thursday Jan. 15th – I was at work.
Friday Jan. 16th – I spent today thumbnailing and timing out some boards for the ACTSA animations as well as put together a moodboard.
I also got production training for New Earth which was exciting, but also took a while. Next week my tasks for that should begin so I am looking forward to be working on it too.
Saturday Jan. 17th – I was at work.
Sunday Jan. 18th – I was at work. Then at 8PM I had a meeting with the New Earth production gang.
Monday Dec. 15th – In the morning we presented our works for Isobel, Maliha, and the rest of the course. Like I mentioned last week, I felt my piece was very unfinished, but I only had time to work on it so sporadically that I ran out of steam so quickly. Especially, considering all the other work I’ve had recently, plus the winter time giving me frequent and more intense depressive episodes.
After that, I finally got around to checking out the material I got from New Earth, I got set up on the discord and read the pilot script. I’m under NDA so I won’t say much, but I’m veryt excited to begin work on it.
I have quite a few things to continue working on over the next few weeks.
Finish the Titmouse mentorship application
Collate and share SIPs feedback and plan next meeting
Record audition for ‘MALE RADIO VOICE’
Begin the video invitation design for my mom
Tuesday Dec. 16th – ?
Wednesday Dec. 17th – I was at work.
Thursday Dec. 18th – I was at work.
Friday Dec. 19th – I spent the day working on the video invite I told my mom I would make for my parent’s 25th anniversary party.
I read an email from Maliha and I had a few questions about IP ownership within the Purr Point project, so we had a quick chat to clarify that.
Saturday Dec. 20th – I had my first production meeting with New Earth, but it was during my work holiday party which made it difficult for me to engage.
Sunday Dec. 21st – ?
I’m going to be completely honest, I did not realize I hadn’t completed this reflection before I left to visit my family for the holiday, so anything that I hadn’t written down has left my memory. These days have ‘?’ next to them because I cannot remember.
Monday Dec. 8th – I spent the entire day working on Isobel’s brief in order to be able to show her anything at all in our 1-2-1 tutorial. Because I hadn’t made much more significant progress she just reitorated previous points made and I noted them down to work on.
Tuesday Dec. 9th – In the morning I met with Amy and Sophia online to go through our pitch for SIPs.
Then I began updating my CV with my creative work experience, I’m still not entirely sure how to format it and how much description to include. I’m thinking about switching the job title and the company name lines but that might make the formatting in the ‘Other Experience’ section confusing.
Wednesday Dec. 10th – In the morning we had a Purr Point meeting to discuss the research we have done on our sustainability goal and the mural designs. Honestly I didn’t actually have anything prepared, so I threw some stuff together while we were waiting to begin.
Because ‘Gender Equality’ focuses on girls and women, the main subjects will be women depicted in positions of power/professional fields they are under-represented in. However, I picked this particular prompt because I wanted to add representation for more than just binary women, but include trans and non-binary people too. Anyone not reperesented equally under patriarchy. While presenting I realized the optics of someonel like me who is very masc presenting, doing a piece for gender equality might seem a bit weird, however I am AFAB and non-binary and my lived experiences make this topic very important to me.
Afterwards, we presented our pitch for SIPS we got a ton of great feedback, and we have a lot of details to iron out. I will be putting together a document outlining our next steps and a second meeting agenda. We also gained 4 new members from the pitch!
Thursday Dec. 11th – I was at work.
Friday Dec. 12th – Today was the day of the Ice Nine Kills gig and popup shop so I spent most of the day out. Between the popup and the show however I worked a little bit on the brief from Isobel.
Saturday Dec. 13th – I was at work.
Sunday Dec. 14th – I stayed up until 3AM trying to get as far as possible with the piece for Isobel’s brief. I didn’t quite finish and a lot of the details are missing, but I would like to come back to it at some point. However, I do need a break from it because the stress has been sending me into orbit. Below is what I was able to complete. I don’t think visdev is my calling, however I really enjoyed designing and drawing the layout and it’s something I’d love to continue doing. I’d really like to practice rendering more through style studies, but I’m not sure when I’ll have time for it. Maybe I should take a painting class.
Monday Dec. 1st – In the morning I had my Premiere Pro exam. It was definitely the least confident I felt during one of these but I still passed with 94%. Out of the three exams I did, Premier is the software I use the least so I definitely took more time to figure certain things out. I also asked the guys in the Digital Zone if I could take the Adobe Animate exam in January as a self-study and they were very on board. (I think I make their pass rates look good heehee). I really hope these certifications will help me find some work as I feel like I have an edge when it comes to industry standard software compared to my peers. After the exam a few of us went out to get ramen and then I came home to work on Isobel’s brief before the meeting. I, once again, hadn’t really done much work on it, but I had a sketch done for the prop and some colors flatted in.
I’ve also booked a room in the library for tomorrow to present my studio idea to those interested.
Tuesday Dec. 2nd – Today I hosted the first meeting for Sawtooth Studios! It was a briefing session for anyone interested to hear my idea and ask any questions they had. We had 8 people show up from 4 courses and everyone seemed very into the idea. Sophia, Amy and I will be meeting on Friday to put together the pitch for Tuesday. Below are the things we covered in the meeting.
Friday Dec. 5th – In the morning I had to go to the Chelsea college to help my roommate who was running a workshop for her third year project. Once she was set up I had my tutorial with Maliha. We went over the tasks from last tutorial but I really hadn’t completed much. I then shared my updated CV with her and we discussed how I would go about adding creative projects to the CV in its own section. I will have to find time in the coming weeks to work on this.
Later in the day, I hosted a call with Amy, Alex T. and Sophia about Sawtooth. We went through the slides and wrote in what we were going to pitch as well as discussed and prepared answers for more logistical questions we may encounter in the pitch. It took two hours but it was quite productive. We will be meeting again on Tuesday to rehearse the presentation as the actual pitch got moved to Wednesday.
Saturday Dec. 6th – On Saturday I had to go out to do holiday shopping as it was my only day off, so I didn’t get a chance to do much work.
Monday Nov. 24th – Monday was a full on ACP day. In the morning we had our first premier Pro session with Oscar. I loved his energy and even through I again, have many years of experience in Premier, he made the class quite engaging, it was like being with my ADHD friends. He also let us know that aside from the three courses that Maliha signed us up for, with the GMetrix codes we have, we are allowed to take any of the other exams as well. Over the next few weeks I am going to study for the Adobe Animate exam, and potentially do Illustrator and InDesign, depending on what time I have. I figure that since I can do them for free I might as well do as many as I can since I’m already familiar with most Adobe programs. After the class I went to the library to do a bit of work on Isobel’s brief. The session did not end up getting moved so I would have to miss it, but I still need to get more work done on this brief, as I’ve been spending all my free time studying.
In the afternoon, I took my Photoshop exam. It was even easier than After Effects and I finished 20 minutes early with a score of 97%. I really wish there was a way to review our exams however, as I am curious to know what mistakes I did make. After that a few of us went up to the animation floor to get some more work done, but the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate. I got bored of waiting to be let back in so I just went home.
Tuesday Nov. 25th – This was my first day off in the last few weeks, meaning I didn’t have any classes or meetings, and I didn’t have a shift at work either. I had planned to get a lot done but because the extent of my plan was ‘get a lot done’ and no more specific than that, I did not in fact get a lot done. First, I recorded and submitted my auditions for the Hail Mary final project for both ARIS and Ramsey. I love voice acting so much but haven’t found any success so far in auditions I have previously done. But I’ll always take an opportunity to throw my hat in the ring because it’s fun. For the rest of the day when I wasn’t paralyzed by the thought of getting something done, I worked on Isobel’s brief. I feel, I really need to commit a little more time to it than I have been because for the last two weeks I really haven’t made much progress. I’m putting a lot of effort into the layout and perfecting the perspective, but haven’t even looked at how I’m going to color or render the scene. Then I switched to GMetrix to study for Premier Pro. At this point I’m quite confident in how my exams have been going, but the GMetrix courses have been great in helping me focus on exactly what I need to have fresh for the exam, thus I will continue completing the courses.
Tomorrow, after the excursion to Brick Lane, I’m going to once again sit down and look at my calendar for the weeks leading up to the end of Isobel’s brief and make a more detailed plan of what I will be doing. I’ve also decided to give up my shift this Friday, as I don’t think it will be a good idea for me to work 4 days of the week with an exam coming up.
Wednesday Nov. 26th – This morning a few of us from the Purr Point brief met up in brick lane to take pictures and reference. It was a little disorganozed as a few people showed up late and it was a bit chillier out than most people wanted it to be but I feel like we got a good feel for the place. We discussed how we would like to elect an Art Director, despite Maliha initially shooting this down, as we feel there need to be executive decisions made so we can stay on track style-wise. Leila and I will be meeting with Maliha to create a production schedule, so we will bring this up with her then. Another thing we need to consider is that we need to liase with the programming and modeling teams to find out exactly what they need and when, in terms of assets and visual concepts. I’ve never worked on a game before so I don’t know exactly what the pipeline looks like, but I want to make sure no one hits a stagnation because they don’t have the materials they need from someone else.
Friday Nov. 28th – I spent the majority of the day trying to organize a meeting for my SIP and liasing with everyone interested to find a time for us all to meet. While waiting for replies I also applied to be a mentee under the UAL industry mentor program. I had to write 750 words about why I wanted t be in the program and what I could get out of it. I think it would be amazing to have someone who is actively working in 2D animation to learn from as the industry is looking quite bleak right now. I could definitely use the connections they’d be able to provide as well. Then I spent the rest of the time studying for the Premiere Pro exam.
Saturday/Sunday Nov. 29th/30th – I was at work. Upon coming home I spent a few hours studying GMetrix.
Monday Nov. 17th – Because I as well as my roommate were at work all weekend, Monday was going to be a chore heavy day. However I also hadn’t done anything for the Isobel brief. I had planned to work through some chores and then work on the environment piece, but that plane quickly devolved into chaos. Firstly, because our neighbors hate us, they once again were blasting music right below our windows. At 2:30AM my roommate who had class the next morning went down to yell at them, while our other roommate (who had work) and I (who had to clean the whole house, do dishes, do laundry, and do DPS work), yelled at them from our windows. They quickly drove off after that and we finally got to sleep. Unfortunately, this meant I woke up at noon, and light was already fading in the sky. I set my laundry on, and sat had some breakfast while sorting emails. The rest of this post didn’t save so I will summarize: Emails took me a lot longer than expected. I tried to make an Instagram post about the freelance project I made, but the video was too big to post and I kept having to adjust it. It wouldn’t post from my computer so I tried on my phone but it doesn’t have enough storage to save the video, so I tried to free up storage by updating. Something went wrong while updating and it corrupted my phone, bricking it. I spent the rest of the day trying to get my phone to work again and this took me right up until midway through the session with Isobel. I didn’t have anything to show, but she said that we could email her with any progress, as well as to ask for any specific tutorials. I was thinking it would be useful to get advice on detailing for filling out a scene, as well as painting and rendering.
Tuesday Nov. 18th – Today we had a session for the ACP Photoshop exam. I’ve been using Ps for over a decade so we didn’t cover anything I didn’t know. I was a bit frustrated because for some reason we decided to move the exam from Friday to Monday, meaning the Isobel session will have to be moved. Tuesday is the only day next week I have off, but it seems like I’ll have to join the character session then… Overall, I’ve been a bit irritated today. I think the combination of being ill, seasonal depression kicking in, and my general intense busy-ness have put me really on edge.
Wednesday Nov. 19th – I was at work.
Thursday Nov. 20th – At 12 we had a meeting about the Purr Point project. We primarily discussed the roles we would take in the production and I also pitched the idea of going out to Brick Lane to collect reference photos and sketches.
I also sent out a few job applications. I’ve decided to fully omit any demographic information they ask for as an experiment to see if this gets me any responses. I also took my pronouns off my CV. I used to fill out all the diversity information, since I am queer, disabled, and an immigrant, I thought this would give me a chance to be a diversity hire since the market is already so over-saturated with people of the same skill level as me. However, since I haven’t been getting any responses, and the government continues to propagate fascist rhetoric, I fear being honest about these things has decreased my chances, at least on paper. Hopefully, this way I’ll at least get some interviews, as I am told that my cover letters and CV are already well done.
In the eveing I worked on Isobel’s brief a little more, just detailing the perspective on the shelves and other regular forms in the scene. I also begam building a logo for my studio in Illustrator.
Friday Nov. 21st – In the morning we had another Photoshop class with Esmeralda. We covered selection and masking as well as retouching tools like spot healing tool and patch tool. These are features I don’t use very often so it was good to get a refresher. We also went over adjustment layers which was back into expert territory for me. After the class I went to the library to put together a little call out for collaborators on my SIPs. Almost instantly I got one reply from Sophia Davies, and I hope to get a few more before the pitch in December.
After sending that out I logged onto GMetrix and kept studying for the Photoshop exam on Monday.
Monday Nov. 10th – In the morning we had the first session of our ACP After Effects course. In honesty I thought this would be a professional level exam, however we covered the barebones basics of After Effects. I think the tutor wasn’t aware that the majority of us were Animation students and I myself, have already extensively used AE. When he began to explain frame rates, or said that we ‘probably didn’t know what the 12 principles of animation were’, I was a bit taken aback. However I do acknowledghe that these exams tend to be hyperspecific and they look for exact ways of doing things, so I will be studying the Gmetrix lessons he provided for us. Essentially, we covered how to open an AE document, make a composition, animate properties, add effects and pre-composing. I’d rather not go into detail because sitting through it was already mind-numbing. nI do want to point out that I do know that not everyone there was an animator or has used AE, but I was just under the impression that this was a professional exam for some reason. It can’t hurt to have the certificate anyway though.
In the Evening I then had a 1-2-1 tutorial with Isobel. Before the meeting I quickly sketched out some alternate roughs as the first one wasn’t working proportinately. The left vanishing point was too close to the canvas and it was warping the whole image when I tried to add in more details on the left and I widened it up. I’ve settled on the bottom composition pictured below.
She gave me some general advice to fill out some of the space and draw the eye toewards the desk area as seen in my notes below.
Immediately afterwards, my roommates and I went to go see ‘Be More Chill’ in concert. It was incredible and so funny and my 13 year old self would have had been so jealous.
Tuesday Nov. 11th – I attended a course rep session in the morning. The other DPS rep wasn’t there when we had to discuss the feed back we got but we didn’t have much to say anyway. Below is an image of the debrief I sent the rest of the cohort.
Afterwards I went to digital space at LCC to finish off the video for the ECR project. Because my process is very effects heavy it took a while to finish the edits because playback was quite slow. When it came to rendering I started at the digital space, but it took too long (3 hours) so I had to stop it and restart at home. My GPU is worse than those at uni so I had to leave it rendering overnight, but it finished fine and I was able to send it off in the morning.
Wednesday Nov. 12th – In the morning we had a short meeting about our SIPs where we got to pitch them to Maliha and the rest of the group. I talked about my studio idea and it seemed quite well recieved. I would like to come up with a short mission statement and send it out to the DPS group and see if any one would like to produce their projects under the Sawtooth name. This would give me an opportunity to gather members as well as begin a portfolio of work.
In the afternoon I worked on studying for the After Effects exam on GMetrix.
Thursday Nov. 13th – During the day I worked through more of the GMetrix After Effects course. I didn’t manage to finish the last domain but I felt confident enough that I could pass on Friday. Later, in the evening my roommates and I went down to Brixton to see my brother’s show, with the animation I did projected. He performed very well and I was proud. My mom even came over from Switzerland and got to see him playing on stage with my work there as well. Lot’s of people in the crowd as well as from his label complimented both of us on the work and performance. While I’d love to work in TV animation, I also enjoy doing visuals for music and would enjoy this type of work as well.
Friday Nov. 14th – In the morning I took the After Effects test. It was a little harder than I expected but I still passed with a 94%. It seems like the majority of the class did not pass so I think my extensive experience in AE definitely put me at an advantage. I spent the rest of the day with my mom and had dinner with my cousins.
Monday Nov. 3rd – Last week had been incredibly insane for me and I was honestly still trying to recover today. I’ve been feeling really burnt out with work, uni and conventions. I’m hoping that once I get this freelance project done I’ll be able to re-establish a pace that works better for me. I also got a rejection from the Lego internship which was unfortunate. I haven’t been applying to much recently, just because I haven’t had any time, but I’ve been rejected from everything I was waiting on now, other than a few unpaid indie projects, so I really need to get back on top of that. Anyway, today I worked on Isobel brief until we found out it was moved to Wedensday. As soon as I saw this message I switched to my freelance project for ECR. I scanned in more of the assets I had made and then spent some time playing in After Effects. I had planned to take more screenshots and pictures, but the process gets away from my sometimes, especially when I am working on so many projects at once.
Tuesday Nov. 4th – Today we had a meeting for Purr Point Productions where we went through some of the initial game ideas. The majority of us are animators / visdev artists so we didn’t have the necessary experience to know what genre game would be feasible to produce. We ended up playing with the ideas of an endless runner style game or some sort of collector or territory capture, in the vein of Temple Run and Subway surfers or Splatoon or Jet Set Radio. The idea for a platformer came up as well as we have a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog fans on the team. The devs said this might be more difficult to get right because the physics need to be super polished, but ultimately I think it’d be best for the two devs to have the final say in the game mechanics. As for style, we all seemed very set on a Y2K aesthetic with lowpoly models, saturated colors and flat textures. For the next meeting I want to put together some moodboards for environments, characters, graphics and props. I also want to talk to Maliha about possibly taking on a production role on the project, as it is something I’d like to learn about and I feel like I have strengths in leadership and organization.
Later, I went to a screening of Guillermo Del Toro’s new Frabkenstein film at Soho House. Netflix invited 15 UAL students to watch the movie and it was really quite good. I am a big fan of the original book and the film made some changes I didn’t like much, but it was definitely by far the best film adapation of the novel. I especially liked the costumes and the color grading, as well as the re-characterization of Elizabeth. She was much more interesting and it definitely made her appeal more for modern audiences without erasing her original characterization. I did not enjoy the re-imagining of Victor and Henry’s relationship because they had a completely different dynamic to the book, and I think it detracted from the necessary juxtaposition between Victor’s isolation in his obsession with playing god, and the rest of humanity. I did like the new story when the creature goes out alone and meets the old blind man who is ultimately killed. It was definitely updated for a modern audience, but for me it was one of the most impactful plotpoints. While I think the creature saving the girl from the river is a pivotal moment in the book, Del Toro’s execution of the creature’s development was spot-on for the character. I also liked that the movie replaced the somewhat rapey and vaguely sexist motivation for the creature to have a wife, with a simple desire for companionship, “We can be monsters together.” Overall, it was a great watch and I am always enamoured by Del Toro’s artistic skill.
Finally, when I came home I began to add some of those references to the Miro board and created a little section for visdev.
Wednesday Nov. 5th – In the morning we had a session with Zoe Tynan-Campbell on ‘Charting Your Vaues’. Personal Values are something that is at the forefront, and completely intrinsic not only to my practice but to the way I conduct my entire life. After contextualizing the session a bit, we began with an activity listing our personal values.
I found this quite easy because of my dedication to authenticity and activism. I spent a lot of my time discussing and analyzing my personal ethics. I subconsciously bolded the word that felt most important to me, and came up with my own 3 Fs. They helped me boil my moral mantra down to ‘Being able to do the things we want to do, with the people we want to do them with.’ What I want out of my life, and subsequently my career is to do things I enjoy, and provide joy to those around me. Politically, I am a self-declared anarcho-communist, but I refuse to hold myself to any code defined by someone else, anarchist theory just alignes strongly with my navigation of the world.
After that we did an activity where in five minutes we we’re to draw ourselves as some sort of archetype reflective of how we see ourselves within our creative practice.
Initially I thought of myself as a rock, a sturdy base to uplift my team members with a solid foundation of skills, but this felt too passive. I am someone who trys to encourage others, but myself as well. I considered the title ‘genie’ but I didn’t like the mysticism of just granting wishes. I feel my skills lie in the consistent effort I make to allow myself and other to achieve our goals. So, I went with the enabler. That word has a bit of a negative connotation, but I see it as ‘one who allows a person to make the things they want happen.’ The last thing I want is to be a restrictive force upon myself or others, thus I put my best efforts into doing the things that need to be done to make things happen. Now that I think about it, maybe ‘The Catalyst’ is a cooler name for it.
Finally, in groups, we charted skills we thought we possessed, both soft and hard. The activity made me realize that I believe that every single person posesses every single skill that can be fathomed. Or at least the potential for it. Even when thinking of my weaknesses, there are situations in my life where I still demonstracted proficiency in said skills. For example, time-management is an area I feel particularly weak in. However, my group helped me realize that whether I feel I am managing my time poorly or not, I have rarely missed a deadline. My time-management process might not be the most efficient or comprehensible, but somehow, my time does get managed. I believe this can be true for any skill. Furthermore, this emphasized the importance of collaboration and community. If a certain skill comes easier to your friend than it does to you… work with your friend!
Zoe also mentioned introspecting on your NEEDS. Rather than focusing solely on what you can bring to your practice or to a company, thinking about what you want to gain from it/them. We didn’t have time to chart these out, but it made me realize that for my SIPS project (Sawtooth) I want to make sure I remember to put emphasis on worker’s needs (it is a socialist endeavor afterall). I wrote down “Focus on worker’s NEEDS in order to serve client needs.” If the needs of everyone working are not met, then how can a client expect us to serve their needs. This is also a refection of one of the core failures of capitalism.
She finished of with suggesting a 3x3x3 reflective task. I believe I covered the first two 3s in my reflections above (3 things that resonated with me oin the session, 3 things/values central to my practice). The third however, was 3 small actions I can take immenently for my practice. I think the first thing I can do is chart a list of my personal needs as described in the last paragraph. Secondly, I’d like to create a research plan to really kickstart this Pitch project. Basically finding out what I need to find out, and what kind of team I need to build. In all honesty, the last thing I feel I need to do is finish the freelance project I’m working on. In order to shift my focus to the other things I need to get done, I need to get this project off my back. I’m not being paid very much for it, and it is just a supplementary piece for a music event, it is not the main focus, and I need to let myself stop at ‘good enough’ rather than stewing in the pressure of producing something perfect.
In the evening we had our session with Isobel.
Thursday Nov. 6th – I was at work.
Friday/Saturday Nov. 7th/8th – I am going to be completely honest, I cannot remember what I did these days as I obviously did not write about them here until now. I almost certainly spent most of the day doing chores and working on
