Puppet love, sexy cheese and three days of creative futures.

This week is creative futures week, we've known since the start of the course back in October that as part of our studies we're to look into industry. This includes contacting people in the industry for shadowing and work experience, attending talks, lectures, demos etc. As part of that, creative futures is organised so guest speakers can come in and talk about their fields and answer burning questions.

Day one - an opening address from Dr. Stuart Cunningham

"Without creative content, technology achieves nothing." It was a successful opening that caught my attention. It was very statistic-based, but interestingly, it was very Wales-bias. Duf

fy, Anthony Hopkins, Catatonia, The Stereophonics, Charlotte Church, Peter

Greenaway, Rhys Ifans

are a few examples of stars that have co

me from Wales. He explained that we need to stand out from the crowd in order to succeed whether it be freelancing or interviewing for a position. Mentioning the skills and traits that employers look for in potential staff was also helpful as well as what we as students should aim to achieve whilst studying for our degrees.

Dr. Cunningham also went on to talk about

the new creative industries building that is opening at the end of this month

over on the Plas Coch campus. It has been built to be eco friendly and sustainable as well as housing some cutting edge technology with the intent of becoming a hub for local and na

tional companies to hire and film there.

And of course, I cannot fail to mention the grass roof!

This is a view of the new building.

Day one - Key note speaker Barry Purves - Passions and a passport

Barry Purves' filmography includes King Kong, Postman Pat, Engie Benjy, Mars Attacks

and Rupert the Bear. The thing that struck me straight away about his talk was his obvious passion for his art. He showed a short section from the musical The Sound of Music, the part where the Von Trapp children put on a puppet show for the Baron. Mr. Purves explained that Julie Andrews' character is using the puppet sequence to convey feelings she cannot in person. After that part of the film, the Baron's feelings towards Maria changes as he realises that she is more than just a nanny. He went on to expl

ain that a great deal of films contain this method of conveying messages and feelings through inanimate objects also quoting Oscar Wilde; "give a man a mask, and he will tell you

the truth."

A short film that was screened was called John and Karen. The idea behind the short film was simply a couple who had had an argument the night before and John (characterised as a polar bear) had come to see Karen (a tiny penguin) to apologise for his behaviou

r. The colours, silences and emotions portrayed within the film all add up to create a lovely atmosphere. John is a large, awkward polar bear with tiny hands who struggles to convey his emotions. The complete opposite is Karen, a tiny but strong penguin who carries the story (as well as the biscuits but not quite as successfully!) even the biscuits take on a huge significant part.

We were also shows a short CGI film called Overtime by French student Damien Ferrie. It becomes obvious why the frogs in the film look almost identical to Kermit, and it's because the film itself is a is a tribute to Jim Henson that was made in 2008. The music is eerie and beautiful and compliments the storyline well, puppets 'animate' their dead (?) puppeteer/creator essentially reversing the roles, showing the close relationship between the creator and the created. The lighting is very low key, and this coupled with the artificial movement, and the rods that you see on real puppets creates a very convincing story. Finally, look out for the big chicken; it took me three times to spot it, but it is there!

After lunch I went to the talk given by Harriot Buckley which was about putting together a great showreel and CV when looking for work. I found it interesting, and quite helpful but a lot of what was said was common sense.

Day two - Teaching: What's it really like? Andrew Richards came in to talk to us about teaching, and how he got into it. Explaining that he studied art and ceramics for two years as a higher national diploma. Before entering the world of teaching, Mr. Richards started his own business as a potter in Edinburgh. After five years he closed his business and travelled to Albania and India where he helped to open self-sustaining potteries.

Although I have an interest in training as a teacher, it isn't my first career choice, and Mr. Richards is a secondary school teacher. He explained that to be a primary school teacher (which is where I'd like to teach, if I was to go down that route) that it's a different qualification entirely to how he trained. Although the talk was entertaining it didn't really offer any useful advice.

Day two - Social media - How to and why to Steve Graves from the marketing department came in to talk about the importance of social media in the creative industry and how it would effect future jobs. It does without saying that sites like Facebook, twitter, vimeo, youtube, tumblr and many more are being used more and more, celebrities and companies are also using these sites to keep in touch with their fans and consumers. This is because these sites are more accessible than posters or adverts in newspapers and can be more relevant to everyone. Steve explained that in the future people will be paid to post and monitor responses (positive and negative) on social media sites. The talk was interesting and engaging.

Day three - Getting into film and TV Sue Jeffries from Skillset came in to talk about being a part of the film and TV industry. For me, this was the most useful talk of the whole week, given that I am thinking about camera work, certainly working behind the scenes. Sue asked us to think about where we would want to work, why we wanted to be in that department, what we would want to do in that department and what are we good at? Then she opened up the questions to the floor and gave people the opportunity to question her. She explained that work experience, shadowing, gaining contacts within the industry and learning to market ourselves as a worthwhile investment were all important if we wanted to get into the industry.

All in all creative futures has been helpful but I think it would have been more beneficial to have demos and workshops with people in the industry instead of just listening to speakers. Maybe even offer real commission from companies.

Now, to look forward to Paris next week. I'll be making a vlog while I'm away so watch this space for the link!!