The MirrorMe app was born out of a Crossover lab that Jeremiah attended earlier in the year. I now had the privilege of attending a similar Lab along with experts from science, film/ TV production and games.

The crossover science lab was a week of daily brain storming and idea generations exercises to come up with creative ideas based on our skills; designing platforms that can bring science closer to people using games or traditional media.

It was a fascinating experience for me to get a glimpse into how the film industry and the science industry work. All the attendees were experts in their field and chatting to them over dinner and during workshops was very exciting; I think there is a great opportunity for us to combine our skills to produce some truly unique ideas.

The first three  days of the lab we were led by Frank Boyd and the team of mentors to try and establish what we were aiming to achieve as well as understanding each other’s perspectives. The main categories were film, TV, Digital media, Games,  science and psychology; because we were all from very different disciplines, it was important for us to establish a common ground and understanding of each other’s language.

We were constantly put into different groups and doing varied actives to come up with some unique (and some truly mad) ideas. Everyone was in good spirits and no ideas were seen as bad ideas. It was a very fun experience for me and I really enjoyed the creativity and energy that was flowing around the room.  We were given challenges over Dinner and Lunch to work on in teams of 3 to 4, and were always doing pitches for the ideas. Frank and the mentors were brilliant and supportive of the group, constantly giving us great feedback on each of the ideas.

On the fourth and fifth days of the lab, we had to narrow down 50 ideas to just 6 which we all wanted to work on. We then split into 6 teams and with just over one day to work on the idea and prepare a full presentation on Friday afternoon.

I was fortunate to be on a team with Peter Dale from RareDay, Peter Bently from UCL, Pete from Tunatech (yes there were a lot of Pete(r)s in our group) and Rob Davis from Playniac. Our idea involved using augmented reality and geographic data from the UK. It was an incredible, exciting idea, and being the only artist in the group, I was responsible for producing the powerpoint presentation.

On Friday afternoon, the 6 teams had to do presentations in front of a panel from Channel 4, BBC, National Geographic, NHS, Screen Yorkshire and the Wellcome trust (as well as the mentors and the other groups)

Our presentation went really well and the panel gave us some great feedback on how we could improve it and it seemed like a very solid idea that got everyone excited. Hopefully the idea will move forward so I get to work on another exciting project emerging from a Crossover Lab!

The Crossover lab was a truly unique and amazing experience for me, the enthusiasm and energy from everyone was unbelievable. The Ideas coming out of the sessions were extremely creative; it just goes to show that when working with a group of creative people, you can come up with ideas  beyond what an individual could. We were constantly buzzing with excitement due to the creativity and discussions throughout the week.

A huge thank you to all the mentors: Mark Atkin, Heather Croall, John Kent, Margaret Robertson, Patrick Uden ,Emma Cheshire and last but not least, Frank Boyd the lab director.

It was a privilege and honour for me to spend a week with industry experts and share their unique insights; I couldn’t have gained this experience anywhere else.  It was a sad moment when I had to leave the Lab and say goodbye to everyone, but we are all keeping in contact and there seems to be a couple of ideas that are being pursued by the teams. I will keep my fingers crossed for all of them and update you when there is any exciting news!

See more photos from the event.

There was also a talk by mylifestories with two young students. My life stories provides young people a place where they can write about themselves and any stories they would like to share with people. They can add their own short stop frame  animations , photos etc online. It was great to see young people being creative and intuitive using this technology.

The most exciting part of the conference for me was when the audience had a sneak preview of our latest facebook application. The audience’s reaction was great; there was a lot of giggling and laughter when they saw what the application can do. This is a great indicator that we are on the right path and at Ideonic , we are making something unique and different which everybody can enjoy.

GameHorizon Conference 09

 The North’s premier games development conference returned this year with some more insights into the future of the games industry. Technology wise, Andrew Oliver of Blitz Games demonstrated their developments into stereoscopic gaming with a Ninja themed platform game; unfortunately it requires you to wear polarised glasses but worry not 3D TVs should be available in a couple of years.

We were treated to demos of APB from Realtime Worlds and Guillaume de Fondaumiere of Quantic Dream demonstrated the amazing looking Heavy Rain for the PS3. So a lot of great insights into traditional gaming but  the key focus of the conference was the advancements in online/download markets including Facebook and the iPhone – online/download is really allowing smaller developers to break into the games market.

What Comes Next?

Channel 4 Education’s summer conference opening with a fantastic keynote from Zenna Atkins, who you would almost not believe was the Chair of OFSTED. Zenna had an excellent insight into the challenges faced by the UK education system and the need for teachers and people in education to just be brave and innovate. 

Shaun Bailey, Mary Sharpe and Yvonne Roberts gave a great panel, demonstrating the need for more creative and digital solutions to help level the educational playing field especially for those from low income families.

Matt Locke & Alice Tayloralso demonstrated the great projects they have been working on over the past year including BattleFront and Routes. A great conference and no doubt we’ll see some more great projects from Channel 4 next year.

Showcomotion

I returned to the Showcomotion conference for the second year after realising it is about so much more than just TV. Showcomotion is a children’s media conference bringing together people from all sections of children’s media (TV, web, games, etc) and giving them a platform to share ideas. Peter Salmon the newly appointed head of BBC North opened the conference, talking about his passion for the North and excitement about the BBC move to Salford. The conference then continued for 2 days of exciting talks and rather than reinvent the wheel you can check out some great blog posts about on the Showcomotion website.

I believe that is all the conference I will be attending this Summer, so it’s back to the office to begin work on an exciting new project… more news soon.

Northern Film & Media are the partners for 4ip in the North East and are supporting the development of ideas in the region. Over the 2nd, 3rd and 4th we took part in a special 4ip crossover lab, designed to get the best traditional and new media companies in the region collaborating and creating innovative ideas for the fund. 20 people participate from all streams of media including film production, web design and games and following three days of intense idea generation and pitching activities, everybody began generating amazing ideas.

We’re looking forward to collaborating with some of the companies we met on the scheme and also submitting some great projects to the 4ip scheme… watch this space.