Week 17 (19th Jan.)

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.

Week 16 (12th Jan.)

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.

Week 12 (Dec. 15)

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.

Week 11 (8th Dec.)

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.

https://uk.pinterest.com/cosmicCactoos/purr-point/

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.