Monday Oct. 20th – In the morning we had a meeting with Sam Beagrie from Purr Point Productions to introduce one of our potential live briefs. This one gives us eight months to develop a game prototype that we can hopefully get funded by the end. We would be collabing with Games Arts and Design students, as well as us on Animation. I think the project sounds exciting and the potential to include cutscenes or a trailer in order to get some more animation for my showreel is what draws me to the project. I’ve been developing a game idea for my studio (Sawtooth, SIPS), as well as using it for the Isobel Stenhouse brief. I very briefly pitched it, but I think the scope might be too ambitious for the timeframe we have. I will however definitely participate in the brief and I’m excited to get started.
In the evening we met with Isobel for the environment pathway brief to discuss initial ideas for our concept pieces. I’ve had some notes as this game idea is something I’ve been toying with for a while.
I explained the concept a bit and Isobel seemed to think it was a good starting point. She wants us to really nail compositional fundamentals to be able to show mastery over basic skills needed for concept design. So, an interior with lots of specific decor and synthetic light sources feels like the right way to go for me.
Tuesday Oct. 21st – I was at work.
Wednesday Oct. 22nd – I spent the day working on more cosplay items for ComicCon.
Thursday Oct. 23rd – I was at work.
Friday Oct. 24th – I was at Comic Con. My roommate and I went in casual cosplays of Dave and Roxy from Homestuck. I also became a patron of the arts by spending entirely too much money at Artist Alley. I do love doing that however, because I know my cash is going straight into the pocket of another artist and I get lots of cool things to hang up in my room. After the con I went to see Black Sabbath: The Ballet with my mom.
Saturday Oct. 25th – I went to Comic Con again and did a cosplay of Commander Karkat from Homestuck. I also went to a Homestuck cosplay meetup where, for the first time, I met so many other Homestuck fans. We took lots of photos and played games. I am now on the Homestuck Cosplayers UK Discord and I hope to be able to meet up with all these lovely people again!
Sunday Oct. 26th – Sunday was a bit of a lazy day. I had tons of chores to do in the house and I also had to pick up my roommate from the train station. I intended to complete some work for the environment design brief, but I didn’t achieve as much as I wanted to.
Now that comic con is over however, I think I’ll have a lot more time to dedicate to DPS work
Monday Oct. 13th – Had a briefing with Isobel Stenhouse for our first live brief. I honestly didn’t get everything right away as I was in a very loud cafe, because I had to go straight from the meeting to work. However I did get to familiarize myself more with what would be expected of us and I knew I definitely wanted to do this brief. We also got to ask Isobel about her background and experiences in the industry which was informative, however just as disheartening as it has been talking to anyone in industry recently. All of these speakers talk about how they got amazing training, and all the people that taught them so much in their early roles where someone took a chance on them. But after speaking to several seniors at InMotion, it seems that no one wants to or has the budget to train new artists… So my question is: where the hell are we supposed to get these experiences??? I get the same answer from everyone that’s just ‘Keep trying.’ ‘If you love it don’t give up.’ and ‘Make the things you want to make.’ But errr, none of that pays my rent… Isobel also mentioned many online training corses that were very pricey when I checked. The numbers she gave us were much lower than what they actually cost. I find it very difficult to understand how so many of these people are able to take all the training courses they talk about, as well as breaks when they experience burnout. I can’t imagine there’s enough money in Animation to be able to save anything so I truly wonder where all these ‘savings’ are coming from. I understand that with university costs I have to spend a lot more than the average worker, but even with my part time job I NEED the money my parents very kindly saved for me to survive. When I have to be working I can’t see how living in London will ever be sustainable unless I can get a stable job.
Tuesday Oct. 14th – I spent the day working on a card I offered to design for my parents for their 25th wedding anniversary (congrats!). While my Mom tries her best to avoid using AI both due to environmental concerns and the fact that both her children work/study as artists negatively impacted by genAI, she isn’t always able to identify it. Companies prey on people who’s eyes aren’t trained to see AI in order to get away with using cheap bad art. She had sent out some save the dates she’d made on a website without realizing that the images on it were AI generated. I had a conversation with her and she apologized clarifying that she didn’t know, and didn’t mean to do so. She had wanted to ask me to make something for her, but as I have been really busy she didn’t want to give me more work. I explained to her some of the things to look out for, and then offered to redo the card. I don’t like to do work for free, but obviously for my parents I would do it. The only problem is that I really didn’t have the time to the card I ended up making is not of the highest quality I can produce. I hope however they can acknowledge the meaningfulness of having me do this card (regardless it looks better than the slop that it was before). My mom said she felt really bad for not noticing, but it really wasn’t her fault. And she just didn’t want to add to my workload. I wish companies would consider the ethical and environmental impact of their choices and stop praying on the less educated to make a quick buck. It’s disgusting.
Wednesday Oct. 15th – I spent Wednesday finishing off the card from the day before and then went to LCC to catch back up on emails and scheduling. I also met my brother to pick up posters for his show, for which I will be producing projected visuals.
Thursday/Friday Oct. 16th/17th – I was at work. I also heard back from the ScreenSkills traineeship. I was unsuccessful in my application which I was upset about, but honestly I’ve just come to expect now. It’s hard out here.
Saturday Oct. 18th – I went to Thorpe Park with my roommates. It made me wonder about becoming a scare actor, I think it would be fun.
Sunday Oct. 19th– I honestly can’t remember what I did on Sunday. Definitely slept in, then I believe I was working on cosplay stuff for Comic Con.
Monday/Tuesday Oct. 6th/7th – On Monday and Tuesday I had work so I didn’t do any DPS activities. I had emailed Maliha earlier to see if my part-time job shifts counted towards DPS, because it is withing the comic publishing and retail industry, but alas it seems only events we do would count.
Wednesday Oct. 8th – I attended the third After Effects session with Francesco De Manincor. I have 3 years of experience in After Effects so I found the session to be quite basic, we didn’t cover anything I didn’t already know. He was very meticulous and explained every step of the process thoroughly, which ius something I really appreciate when I am learning new things, but for me, in this particular subject, it meant it dragged on a LOT. However, in the second hour we explored the puppet effect which I haven’t used a lot. When animating/rigging characters, I still prefer ToonBoom Harmony, but I think using puppets in AE for more experimental stuff could be very funky.
Thursday/Friday Oct. 9th/10th – I went to InMotion at the Barbican and spoke to so many people and gained a lot of contacts. Unfortunately there was quite a big divide at the event which made it hard to effectively networf for jobs. I spoke to many people but everyone was either a seasoned professional from studios that were not looking to train anyone entry level, or other students/freelancers looking for work. My biggest take away was that there are no studios with the resources to train anyone new currently.
On the Friday I attended the Golden Wolf talk. The first thing I noted was that all three speakers were white men in their late 30s. I had a surface level familiarity with the company, but I mostly admired Golden Wolf for their very modern, mixed media and graphic design. Unfortunately the talk left me quite disillusioned witht the company itself, especially on an ethical level from an artists perspective. Firstly their Doodles enterprise was apparently an NFT project at first which I didn’t know. It was not clear if they still work in crypto-based areas, which is a huge issue for my personal values due to the lack of transparency and accountability of the blockchain and the environmental ramifications of many cryptocurrencies. Additionally, the speakers made quite a few jokes making light of serious issues, for example a collaboration they did with McDonalds producing custom cups, which they joked about filling up the ocean. It was in very poor taste. I generally have issues with animation in advertizing as it goes against my personal anti-capitalist values, but I am able to respect companies who are discerning with the brands they collaborate with. Golden Wolf however, did not seem to care about this sort of thing in any capacity and ahve worked with a lot of brands I boycott. Generally, I will keep them in my back pocket for reference as they produce very high quality visuals, but I cannot align myself with the company culture.
I then saw The Line’s panel which was incredible, we got insights into the making of the Hades II trailer, the Martin Garrix – Hero music video, and the great British Bake off trailer. Everytime I see process work from The Line I am always left in such awe. They do so many collabs that I love (MARVEL) and their work is always of such high quality. I will forever be upset that Marvel took the ‘Party at the X-Mansion’ concept away from us though. Afterwards I attended JuanPe’s live demo, hoping to get to talk to him, as they weren’t doing a meet n’ greet. The demo was really just an ad for the new Wacom tablet that is wayyyy out of my price range but later I was able to ask him a few questions about what studios look for while building teams. Unfortunately, the line don’t seem to be looking to hire any trainees/entry level positions soon, but he said that efficiency and voice in personal work were the two main things he looked for in applicants. I was hoping to talk a littl emore privately, in order to get him to remember me, but many of my classmates were with us, standing behind me pretty quietly. I didn’t want to dominate all his time, not letting others speak but I felt a bit like we were cornering him and I feel like I’m often treated as a spokesperson for the cohort. Sometimes I have to be a little selfish when it comes to finding work. But once I land the job, I’ll invite all my friends to work with me.
Then, we all went to a sing-along screening of K-Pop Demon Hunters. This was honestly just for fun and we all had a blast. However, at the end Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans (the directors) came out for a little Q&A, I had to leave early however to make it to the next panel which was Pen Ward and Patrick McHale’s talk. This was quite laid back and I really got the impression that both of them were a bit unaware of the current struggles facing entry level animators. I admire both of them immensely and the talk did help me to reframe a lot of my behaviors. The main advice being ‘do what you want to do, and do it well, and the work you actually want to do will come.’ However, I felt that after being so successful and having the connections they did going to CalArts, they didn’t really understand the urgency a lot of us were facing regarding finding work.
The next day I tried to get a portfolio review from either Pen or Patrick, but really I was willing to take anyone with a 2D background. However, it turned out even showing up half an hour early and joining friends who were ahead of me in the line was not enough to secure a slot (after waiting for 2 hours T^T). We then went to see Cartoon Saloon’s talk where they screened their new short film Ériu. It was absolutely gorgeous, and they talked about the process of working on it. As someone who is half-Irish, but disconnected from my roots as a third culture kid, I have a huge interest in learning about my country through their studio and I would love to someday work with them. I did leaver early however, to be able to line up for the drop-in sessions hosted by Kwok and Pete Addington (I believe it was) from The Line. I spoke to a UAL graduate working on the New Earth series, and asked about helping with production (which I have since messaged her about, waiting on a response) and well as to a self taught animator from Scotland. We all exchanged contacts. I then got to talk to Kwok and show him my showreel. I could tell he wasn’t moved by any of it and he gave me the advice to cut anything that I wasn’t 110% convinced by. His advice to my age old question about finding entry level positions was the classic ‘just keep working’. Kwok then left for a break but I continued to talk to Pete(?) who is head of 3D at the line. I asked him about finding early work and he essentially gave me the same advice. I told him about struggling to balance school, work, care duties and socializing, as well as doing extra portfolio work, and he said it will definitely take more time, but to keep working and trust that if I really want to do something I will. He also suggested narrowing in even more on a single focus and getting really good at one skill, to stand out in a particular area. I struggle with this because I’m interesed in 3 big areas of Animation but I think I really need to focus efforts in character movement. The Scottish animator I spoke to, Richard Stevens, complemented my lipsync and acting in my showreel, so I’d like to try do more of that.
While waiting for my last planned panel of the day I caught up with Megan who’d been working at Disney, while we were in line for the K-Pop Demon Hunters meet n greet. She told me tht they had laid off a huge amount of people and her workload became huge, and a lot more difficult as they had to coordinate a lot more with the LA offices. She said she had become a lot more acutely aware of truly how bad huge animation companies are and that if she can avoid ever going back to Disney, she would. Finally, we attended the K-Pop Demon Hunters talk with was very fun. They spoke at length about the focus they had on representing not only Korean culture accurately, but also on letting female characters be silly and ‘ugly’. This resonated with me a lot, especially after Pixar had been saying that they wanted to step away from stories that were ‘too specific’ (after Turning Red). It is more important now than ever to tell stories from unseen perspectives especially when you have a global platform, and I hope and believe that the success of KPDH will pave the way for more personal, but relatable stories (c’mon major movie with a trans person).
Overall, I will admit, the weekend left me feeling a bit defeated. So many of the folks I spoke to were animation graduates who still hadn’t found any industry work, or studio heads that were not willing to fork out any resources to train new recruits. But I did enjoy seeing all the great work happening and I won’t give up on trying to improve, because there is literally nothing else I can imagine myself doing.
(I will try to add photos from the event when my file sharing is working)
Monday Sep. 29 – Today was our first day back at LCC and we got a total information overload. Admittedly, I didn’t do a great job at keeping up with DPS updates over the summer, as I find Teams chats incredibly hard to navigate, but the briefing we got about our first few weeks back definitely helped clear somethings up for me. We went over the requirements for the diploma and I took some notes on the things I would like to participate in/complete over the year. I took the time to sign up for the Lego workshop on Thursday and noted down the Live-Briefs I was interested in (Isobel Stenhouse, Purr Purr prod, Blink Industries). I am most excited however, to officially do a Self-Initiated Project surrounding an idea I had for a co-op production studio. I also found out a lot of my volunteering at convention’s can qualify as work for DPS so I would like to have a conversation with Maliha about it. I’m wondering if my current job also counts as I am surrounded by comic books all day and technically working in tandem with the publishing industry.
My list of things to get done this week: – Update spreadsheet of contacts – Schedule designated time for each aspect of DPS (applications, SIP, freelance, work) – Look into GCS
Tuesday Sep. 30 – Today we had a session with Roxanne Peters around Intellectual Property, and in the afternoon I got a little taster of the Global Campus Studio.
The IP session was quite surface level but we covered the basics of copyright and Roxanne was able to very succinctly answer all of our questions and assuage any concerns we had around IP law. We disscussed some of our own experiences with copyright and IP and looked into several types of IP including trademarks, moral rights, fair use etc. We also discussed current industry cases related to IP such as genAI. I am someone who is vehemently against genAI both on the grounds of ecological impact, as well as in regards to creative theft. We discussed this quite in depth, however we all seemed to be in pretty solid agreement with each other. We finished off the session with a fictional case study that can be seen on the padlet (pw: creativerights). Again, most of the people in the room seemed in strong agreement that given the situation, in any position of the hierarchy, we would make sure our concerns were heard. The issues highlighted in the prompt triggered both ethical and legal concerns and us (the studio) would be the ones to deal with the backlash. It reminded me of a previous job I left, due to similar issues, and I know personally, my morals always come first. However, we did discuss that we can acknowledge that not everyone necessarily has the privilege to leave work in the same way.
“I’m too punk-rock to let anyone get screwed over like this.” – me, 2025
Because I want to start a studio founded on my personal anarcho-communist values, hopefully aimed at both a local and global market, I need to learn about business practice, and the intricacies of individual creator’s rights both within the UK, but also pertaining to other jurisdictions. I’m very glad we got to meet Roxanne because this is a point of contact for me that will be very important to my Self-Initiated Project.
In the afternoon we joined a session of the Global Campus Studio. Admittedly this did not go well for a lot of us. I hadn’t signed up for it initially, however Maliha encouraged us all to attend just to see what it was all about. A group of us joined the call and were immediately lost. It seemed that 1) it had been structured for every student to be on their own device, which we were not, and 2) many of the other schools apparently had already had sessions for this, so the organizers did not explain anything to us. I was honestly under the impression that it would be a briefing session with Izzy, but we just got right into it and I had no idea what this thing was even about. After quite a bit of faffing I found the initial call-out email detailing what GCS was (admittedly I was not on top of my emails this summer due to my job) and I joined a fellow DPS student who was signed up, to participate in the activity. We had to work with other internationally based students to come up with a fictional marketing profile. This however was not totally clear to us UAL students because we were generally just quite confused about everything. Our breakout group did not to a very good job of communicating with each other, and I felt the profile we came up with was incredibly bare-bones and poorly crafted, not representing any tangible consumer experiences. I would have liked to speak up more and take the lead, but I felt I didn’t have the information I needed about the program, the activity, or any of the people I was working with. Ultimately, GCS felt very disorganized to me, though I can accept partial blame for not keeping up with the provided info, and reminded my intensely of a business class I took in high-school that I really didn’t enjoy. While I am aware that marketing and product R&D is important even in the animation industry, I’d like to focus my DPS year much more on animation and hands-on creative development.
Wednesday Oct. 1st – We started the morning with an I Like Networking session with Isabel Sachs. She was very enthusiastic, but I felt the session just reiterated things we had learned from previous networking sessions. My biggest takeaway was probably to reframe all of my bios/profiles to state what I can do for others rather than, ‘Hey, I’m looking for work please hire me.’ While I tend to feel I don’t have enough experience or skill to be desireable, I think I can reframe a lot of my online presence around serving others in industry. Another thing it helped me realize is the importance of a call to action in any posts or messages while networking. I want people to do something when they see me, whether it’s hire me, look at my profile, follow me back etc. Finally, I decided I really need to get on top of creating a contact spreadsheet and tracking who I’ve spoken to, so I feel less awkward about messaging people out of the blue after months of no contact.
At home I decided to work on my application for the LEGO internship in Denmark. I’m not entirely sure it’s feasible for me to leave London for 5 months but I feel that if I got this opportunity I would have to take it. I wrote my cover letter which was a bit difficult as they had a maximum of 300 words, and I tend to write around 400, so I really had to condense. I also began drawing and collaging the poster they asked for.
I’ve never had to do something like this for an application but I had a lot of fun putting it together.
Thursday Oct. 2nd – In the morning we had a session with Eddy Altman from Creative Conscience. He gave a really impactful presentation showcasing lots of projects. We did an activity listing passions and complaints and used it to ideate ideas for our Self-Initiated Projects. I had already been thinking about an idea for a co-op style production studio, founded on anarcho-communist values, and I feel that it aligns very well with many of the sustainability goals. Eddy was very vulnerable with us and it made me think of my little brother and the cancer scare we had with him. I thought about how I’m also not optimistic about my future, it’s bleak, and there is absolutely a new normal we will al have to get used to, we are definitely past the tipping point, both politically and enviropnmentally. However, despite everything I will do everything in my power to make things as good as they can be, for myself and everyone in my life. Especially after struggling so much for my entire late childhood and adolescence. That’s why I want to start my studio. To put good things out into the world, while making good things happen for the teams I work with. My biggest takeaway was to reach out to the communities I want to serve, and build on what’s being done already. I don’t have to change the entire world from scratch.
In the afternoon we began with a session with Sat Sehmbey and Davinia Clarke from Creative Shift. I wasn’t really sure what it was about but they introduced it to us as an extracurricular support program for students from underrepresented communities. I’m not sure that any of the partner companies interest me, and I’m not quite sure how Creative Shift relates to the DPS, other than just extra live briefs. However, I appreciate there being a place to go for help as a queer, disabled, immigrant student. I may look into it a little more to perhaps find a mentor that I can talk to with similar expreriences. Maliha said they will send us the briefs as soon as they get them so I will evaluate them once we know what they are.
Finally, we ended the day doing a Lego Serious Play workshop. There were only four of us so we got side-tracked quite a bit, and were forced to leave the room early, but the session facilitated a lot of discussions between us surrouding work, play and all the problems with UAL’s administration. When we left the room we ran into some coursemates who weren’t on DPS and set up an improptu Lego session in the middle of the LCC gallery. I’m not really sure if the whole idea of Lego Serious Play works for me, as I’m definitely more the type of person to collect specific Lego sets and build them according to instructions and then display them. But, having a more casual environment to facilitate discussions where it feels like there’s less pressure, is definitely something I enjoyed. I am a fidgeter and I love having something in my hands as I talk and learn.
Friday Oct. 3rd – We did a networking workshop with Alexiane Cazenave from CreativeFabric. What I hadn’t realized was it was actually the same workshop we had last year. We did activities focusing on projecting confidence with your voice and body as well as some improvized scenarios to practice approaching networking in person. I find all acting workshops super fun. I really like getting up and moving around, and the theater kid in me still likes to play a part in front of classmates, so I enjoyed myself. I also found that I remembers a lot of the techniques from the first workshop, and I was much more coinfident practicing them the second time around.
When I got home, I had an hour and a half to finish my Lego application poster, whittle down my cover letter, and make a PDF portfolio (as mine is a website), before I had to leave for Refused’s last ever London show!! I locked in and finished everything with 15 minutes to spare and the had an absolute ball at Brixton Academy.
Saturday/Sunday Oct. 4th/5th – I spent Saturday sleeping because I went to a club after the gig on Friday and got home at sunrise. No class, job, or DPS is going to alter my #1 ethic value of life; having a good dang time. On Sunday I was at work all day and then went to my local pub quiz with my roommates as we do every week.
