Creative Futures

This week is 'Creative Futures' it's designed to provide us with an insight into the realities of working in the creative industries as well as giving us an opportunity to meet and network with industry professionals to help develop our future careers.

The first speaker of the day was Dr Stuart Cunningham who is the Academic Leader for the Creative Industries. His presentation provided an holistic view of the creative industries in the UK. Below are the salient points from the presentation.

He explained that there are 400+ creative businesses in the Wrexham area and over 3000 within a 1 hour drive of the university. The good news is that the industry is easily accessible and highly scalable.

Creative industry facts:

• The UK creative industries make up over 7% of the UK's GDP. It's the largest in Europe although there is increasing competition from France, Canada, the Middle & Far East.
• 1,165,500 people are employed in 157,400 businesses and there are 805,700 people in creative occupations outside outside the industry, 19,000 in Wales
• Consistent employment growth

67% of those working in creative industries are graduates and success isn't random.
Creative people understand entrepreneurship and enterprise.

• Without creative content technology achieves little
• Creative talent is highly mobile and it needs to be retained for the benefit of the UK
• 80,000 Brits work in Hollywood (twice the number that work in the British Film Industry

Important themes for success are:

• Ability to communicate
• Focus on clients, customers, audience and participants
• Central importance of creativity for achieving business success

Creative Industries in the UK benefit from the following:

• A key strategic priority for the UK economy
• Welsh National education priority
                     -Digital economy
                     -Printing technology
                     -Product design and rapid prototyping
                     -Visualisation
• UK is the largest publishing industry in Europe
• UK has the largest number of games development companies in Europe
• 3rd largest filmed entertainment market in the world
• By 2014 £56 billion of entertainment revenues

There are a number of challenges but also opportunities:

• Embracing technology and challenging creative ambition
• Cementing Wales and the UK as worldwide creative leaders
• Maintaining skills and expertise
• Work to create content for an increasingly media hungry market
• To stand out from the crowd

Barry Purves, Animator 
The second speaker of the day was Barry Purves an established animator who gave a presentation entitled 'Passions and Passports'.

Barry began by showing a film clip from the 'Sound of Music'. It was the lonely goatherders scene where Maria (Julie Andrews) and the children put on a puppet show for Baron Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). Barry explained that the scene changed his life as it introduced him to the world of puppets.  He informed us that his favourite film is 'Mary Poppins' and he particularly liked the scene at the end of the film where she speaks to the parrot carved into her umbrella. We also watched one of his favourite animations called 'John & Karen', it's a short heart warming tale about the relationship between a polar bear and a penguin.

It demonstrated how the subtle use of animation can make all the difference to the story. Barry went on to show us one of the first animations he created entitled 'Next' it was basically the whole of Shakespeare's works in 5 minutes. We also watched another film entitled 'Overtime' created by a group of French students in 2004. Barry ended the presentation by showing us a number of his favourites images (E.g Warhorse & Swan Lake). Overall it was a very interesting and engaging presentation from Barry. He is very passionate about what he does and I'm sure the animation students in particular would have got a lot out of it.

Portfolio, CV & Showreels The final speaker of the day was Harriet Buckley who spoke to us about portfolio, cv and showreels. Harriet has experience in reviewing cv's, showreels and also applying for a number positions so had some great advice for the students. A businesss card, live portfolio website and showreel are must haves. After applying for a position if no response is received then it's a good idea to follow up with a phone call. 

Other tips from Harriet were:

• Don't be too brutal with editing work
• Sound and music added to animation can boost your work although some reviewers will turn it off
• Showreels should be short and sweet (i.e. best clips of your best work)
• Don't included anything on a showreel that needs to be explained
• Be prepared to create a dvd showreel as well as a website
• A dvd is a physical reminder of your work

When creating a portfolio think about your USP (unique selling point) and concentrate on your technical skills. Life drawings are invaluable, being able to draw detail such as hands a feet will demonstrate that you can draw almost anything. 

When submitting a portfolio electronically Harriet said it's best to ask permission before sending large file sizes. Also get feedback from friends and other students before sending anything.  When writing an application leter keep it to one side of A4 and your CV t o a maximum of 2 sides of A4 and always check the grammar and spelling!

Overall the presenation was very information and contained lots of useful information that will be invaluable when applying for jobs.