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Phew, what a night – 250 odd souls down in the vaults on the hottest day of the year networking their hearts out. Yes, it’s that time of year again when students come out of their 3 year long chrysalis that is university, blinking into the lights of the onrushing animation industry. Rabbits in headlights doesn’t quite . . . → Read More: Graduates, Graduates – as far as the eye can see… Blogging from the train today (thank you national express free wi-fi) and just needing to note a piece in today’s Guardian. A supplement on ‘How to Save Money’ includes a section by Tony Levine – the Guardian’s ‘consumer champion’ who remarks on the latest trend for students to demand refunds over what he describes as ‘non-delivery’. . . . → Read More: Get a refund from your university A quick pointer to an interesting piece on Gamasutra today – the 10 Myths About Game Degrees. Dr Andrew Tuson from City University has set out to debunk some of the popularly held views on games degrees, and has some good insights in the main. However - his argument seems to me to fall down because it misses . . . → Read More: 10 Myths About Game Degrees Well – invitations are on their way. 1st of July is the date, and if you are an employer on the look out for talented artists and animators then this is definitely the event for you. Didn’t get an invite? Head over to www.skillset.org/animation/showcase to register. Registration is for employers only as the graduates are carefully selected from our range of . . . → Read More: The Skillset Graduate Animation Showcase Between education and industry, obviously. Nick was speaking to a mixed audience of industry practitioners, lecturers and students at Games:Edu and gave out some pretty good advice for brokering relationships between education and industry. Nick (and Rare) is keen to see more people doing it, ‘evangelising’ about games, engaging with academics and students. Two sections then, first up, advice . . . → Read More: Games:Edu Post 2: Nick Burton on making relationships work…
I’ve been to Manchester (didn’t stay for the football though) for Games:Edu and was intending to post live from the event, unfortunately, an unscrupulous wireless provider was unwilling to part with a connection for less that £350. However – here are my thoughts on (must stress) Matt’s own thoughts which are not in any way representative of either Evolution or SCEE. Matt’s morning session raised an interesting point, in highlighting attitudes towards games courses in industry alongside some of the more rabid musings of the mainstream press. In identifying the classic entertainment cycle (experienced by books, films, rock and roll and TV) of formation, damnation, acceptance and celebration. Looking at this, and games themselves seem to be hovering in between damnation and acceptance, it strikes me that the games industry itself is guilty of applying this cycle to games courses.
In an interesting thinkpiece on the BBC, Bill Thompson puts out a call for more people to engage with programmers, citing the proliferation of complex PC’s and software as one of the reasons behind a decline in the numbers of people creating new and innovative software. It’s true that in the modern creative industries, there are very few forms of expression that do not require engagement with software of some kind. The sectors we cover are hugely reliant on the tools provided for editing, animating, modelling and so forth, but increasingly it seems people are becoming proficient at utilising computers without really learning what makes them tick. |
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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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