Getting your foot in at low entry

One thing Nicky Ball emphasized on was that we cant expect to go in at the top in our desired profession, we need to start at the bottom and work our way up. So I had a look at what these jobs would be and entail on the web and took these from actual live jobs.

 

Production assistant apprentice

•Supporting all producers across all media

•Researching directors and other crew where required
•Assisting in the arranging of crew for shoots
•Generating call sheets / booking of post-production / cars for shoots / risk assessments etc…
•Attendance at shoots for on and off-air if required
•Organising radio bookings where required
•Ensuring music cue sheets completed per project for delivery to transmissions
•Rotation and clocking projects for TV
•Ensuring Health and Safety procedures are adhered to
•Liaising with runners duties day-to-day through team meetings
•Ensuring freelance production have the support around them to do their job i.e. desks, petty cash, staff, IT support
•making sure show reels are up to date (mpegs / jpegs created for all projects for new business)
•Archiving & logging of all project material across the business
•Cutting basic house reels when required
•Organising photographing of all outdoor work where required by Print Producer

Runner

A runner works as the most junior member of the production team and will get involved in all aspects of the production from making the tea, running around to pick up tapes and props etc, to helping out with research.

• Look after the contributors/actors
• Go and get lunch on location/for a small office
• Go and get props to film on location
• Make the tea
• Move cars around
• Move set/set dressing around
• Pleasant personality
• Good communication skills
• Sensitivity
• Lots of energy
• Curiosity
• Attention to detail
• Lateral thinking
• Knowing when to shut up
• Not afraid of getting their hands dirty
• Not too grand to make the sandwiches/wash up, etc.
• And of course A PASSION FOR THE INDUSTRY!
• Commonsense

Big brother wants to watch us too

There are 40 million online Xbox online users and 90 million PS3 online users. It turns out that there are worries about terrorist and paedophiles using our online gaming consoles to communicate and share sensitive information. I covered the worries of paedophiles in a previous blog but now terrorist?? I do think the consoles communication abilities have been overlooked as people see it more for just playing games, but not as this multimedia machine. But now officials are becoming more aware of its communication capabilities and want to develop hacking software to be able to gain access to this possible ‘sensitive information’ on these consoles. It’s the US officials that have assigned a contract to the tech company Obscure Technologies to develop a prototype to capture data.

Chris Boyd senior threat researcher said;

“The project highlights the need for gamers to be more security conscious around their console”

So basically the article came with a warning to ‘ think about what we are doing with our consoles, what information we are storing on them, the kind of communications we are having with people and what sensitive data we are putting through them.

Keeping up with the gosip

This is just a quick post about where I have been finding things to blog about for the creative industry module.

Twitter @Blaine901

I have started to you use Twitter as a way to keep up with goings on with companies in my areas of interest. This is a quick and easy way to get information coming to me and i have been finding recently that people have been following me on twitter who have similar interests and few tutorial makers have added me so in turn I have added them and can make use of their advice and videos. But I’m making sure that my Twitter account is just a professional outlet for my thoughts work and interests within the industry. I want to be able to direct a client or other professional to my Twitter account.

News paper / Metro

Quite often a Metro news paper is floating around the studio and I have been finding it a really good source for unusual and interesting articles about the gaming /industry/ technology. I dont buy the news paper, wouldn’t read it but I do have a flick through to see if there is anything I might find relevant for the course.

BBC news web site

Mainly the Education / technology /sci& environment section I have been finding some great and sometimes bizarre things to blog about and in quite a range of topics surrounding the industry.

Facebook

I dont really use Facebook for work/college. I’m trying to keep a separation between work and my personal life. But I do find information from 3D world page and CGSociet, also about new films. These keep me in the loop about competitions, new artists and tutorials available.I get posts on my news feeds daily and it is probably the only web page I do look at daily so maybe I need to make sure I look at my Twitter on a daily basis.

 

 

 

Notes from Bridget’s own business lesson

 

Another world of opportunities!

I like my documentaries, on BBC iplayer  is a program called City beneath the waves. It is about a 5000 year old submergered city in Greece called Pavlopetri and they are trying to re- build it using CGI. This is quite exciting for me, having an interest in archaeology since i was a child i didn’t consider using my CGI skills for projects or jobs like this one. How exciting would it be to build a city as close to as it would look 5000 years ago before it was destroid.

They used custom made, 3D photo- mapping technology, it gave a result of which in their words was like draining the sea to take a look at what they had discovered. These images would also have helped to re-build an accurate reconstruction.

They also used a 3D scanner to scan in the smaller artefact segments found, imported them into maya and then re-build the object from it! wicked!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Movie VFX expert, Simon Clarke  from Broadcast VFX in London, was asked to recreate the artifacts and buildings. And the program he was using MAYA!! Suddenly I can feel the world open up so many more opportunities around the world using my skills!! Imagine recreating an Egyptian city!! or the Myans!!

It seems Simon Clarke takes part in several Documentries like this one. He has done work for BBC, National Geographic , Discovery and Channel 4!

Getting to work on projects like this would take you around the world, to see and experience things you wouldn’t normally see. You would need to get hands on to recreated an accurate reconstruction. That to me seems incredibly exciting

Console preditors

It seems that online gaming has become a new hunting ground for paedophiles! The issue caught my eye on the front of the Metro newspaper about sexual predators  taking advantage of platforms like Xbox, to pursue young children and abuse them. The sheer numbers of children on these platforms allows these predators to ‘fish’ through 100’s of innocent children until one child that is willing to interact with them. The live conversations and messaging means they can very quickly become sexualised. These findings came from police logs of online conversations and interviews from convicted offenders, concluding that the faceless properties of the internet allowed these sexual approaches to happen almost instantly, asking for meetings with the intentions to abuse.

I think parents need to be made more aware of the contact capabilities of consoles like Xbox and PlayStation. Warnings on boxes, website and from sales teams could be introduced like ” under 18’s need parental observation” or something in that manner. A parental hand book could be issued with the consoles or leaflets in game retailers, to advise them of how to protect your children from these situations. Password protections and parental guides. Just some measures like not allowing under 16’s to have head sets so that they can hear what is being said to there children when they are playing. Could ID check or code could be implemented at stores to create an account to register your age and address officially?

But I wouldn’t want parents to stop their children playing these games that they love so much but to advise them of how to keep them safe.

 

 

Creating a name

As part of the project report for Annabeth we needed to come up with a name for what our hypothetical company would be called. My company would provide motion capturing and motion tracking services. So I began by doing a little brain storm of words that came to head when I thought about mocap and such. It’s actually quite hard to come up with something effective and original and relevant to what your does. It doesn’t have to be relevant but think it helps to have a name that immediately you can tell what the compay does. But names like Naughty dog! have the remembrance factor but to people who are unfamiliar with the games industry wouldn’t know what they do.

Things like hyper-reality came to mind also the myth of pandoras box, with the idea that your imagination tells you whats in the box, so it could be anything you like. I quite liked that idea, but it sounded more like a concept artist or animation studio, also it has already been taken! I used thus site to check for company name avalibilites. http://www.companyregistrations.co.uk/

After a good long think something came to me and it is available! It has relevance to the type of work the company would offer and already think I have a nifty logo too.

Bridgets lesson on Who am I.

This session was a chance to think about the kind of person I am and the kind of qualities I have, to take and give in a working environment. Also I can identify some negative areas that might hinder me in my development.

So it seems I fall into these categories –

Positive

• Disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient
• turns ideas into practical actions
• Mature, confident, a good chairperson
• clarifies goals, promotes decision-making, delegates well.
• Co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic
• listens, build, averts friction
• Explores opportunities
• Creative, imaginative, unorthodox
• judges accurately
• provides knowledge and skills in rare supply.

Things that could pose a problem

• Inclined to worry unduly
• over optimistic
• dwells on the technicalities
• Reluctant to delegate

Interesting…not to look real but to look good!

I have been taking advantage of my book allowance and have bought , Studio Techniques by Mark Christiansen. Now I have always said ‘ I wanna make things look real ‘ photorealisum amazes me and its something I wish to master at some stage of my career. Reading through the first couple of pages and there was one sentence that stood out to me. ” not t0 look real but to look good!” It’s so true, there is no point in having a photorealistic scene or characters if it doesn’t fit or would look way cooler enhanced! So that’s some advice I know I will take with me and consider when creating anything from now on.

Nicky Ball Talk

Wow what an inspiring woman! I found Nicky’s talk very helpful and she gave some great advice regarding CV’s and writting E-mails to clients and companies!