As the generation of digital natives reach university age its sobering to remember they haven’t necessarily experienced the richness and danger of pre-digital animation with its exploration of the darkest recesses of the id, desire and the subconscious….they haven’t seen Raoul Servais’ Harpya or Jan Svankmajer’s stop motion frenzies. Many today couldn’t sit through the reels of . . . → Read More: Is Animation still Moving?
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Over the last few years the acronym STEM has increasingly entered debates within the collective creative industries, and also at Skillset. Maybe now is the time to be promoting STEAM with the powerful addition of Art, and the way it harnesses multidisciplinary innovation and what’s more, adds huge economic value. Will our future students make the right choices in the new education marketplace presaged by Lord Browne? . . . → Read More: Why we need to be STEAM driven With a major report highlighting that women are leaving the media industries in their droves, Animation and Games are shown to particularly lack female talent. So what’s it like for that rarest of species, the female games animator? . . . → Read More: MISSING IN ACTION: Why Women aren’t animated about games Seemingly, games is no longer the male preserve in terms of consumption that it once was. Whilst there have always been small numbers of hard-core female gamers, there are many more casual or social gamers now playing Bejeweled, Farmville, Wii fit. But if you look around the Games industry workforce there’s a different story. . . . → Read More: Where’s the Level Playing Field?: women in games When times are tough, some actors have to swallow their pride, close their eyes and take the cheque. Never work with animals? Depends if the price (artistic or remunerative) is right. James Stewart co-starred with Lassie in The Magic of Lassie (1978) whereas Clyde the orangutan took the cheque and decided to team up with Clint Eastwood . . . → Read More: Greenscreen with Envy
Producing relevant talent is just one aspect of the work of Skillset academies and accredited courses. Another is to interface and stay in dialogue with industry, and to feed back knowledge collected this way into the teaching system. In order to make this happen and lure industry into these relationships, the university needs to promote the work of its students, who are after all the output of this endeavour. In the past it was enough to set up a shop-window and invite people to look in. On creative media courses this traditionally takes the form of the degree show, an annual rite of passage for the student, and an opportunity for industry to recruit or at least to get a drink of wine and informally network with the host institution. But maybe now is the time to examine the degree show from industry’s perspective. A degree show is an excellent vehicle for students to test out their presentation skills, and an opportunity to take stock of their personal development, and even to learn from peers. But as an opportunity for industry, it is increasingly anachronistic Continue reading DOES THE MILK ROUND STILL DELIVER? The demise of the degree show and why we should do something about it At the annual Develop Conference in Brighton’s lugubrious Hilton Metropole Hotel NESTA gave what could be called a half term report on how their Games Mentor scheme had been going- 6 months into a one year pilot. Maybe Skillset needs to start engaging more with epistemology- the skills agenda needs to become more of a knowledge agenda? . . . → Read More: MY NEW BEST FRIEND: mentoring in the games industry |
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Skillset blog has been set up to stimulate and encourage debate around skills issues within the Creative Media Industries. The individuals who post at Skillset blog work at Skillset. The opinions and ideas expressed are their own and are not necessarily reviewed in advance by anyone but the individual authors. Neither Skillset nor any third party necessarily agrees with them.
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