BRIGHT SPARK APPRENTICE CHLOE KACPERSKI WEEK 1: JOINING THE TEAM
I’ve officially put on my Spick & Spanners hat and joined the team to help Wallace and Gromit on their next big adventure!
I’ve had the amazing opportunity to become an intern for Fictioneers, the incredible team behind the upcoming Wallace and Gromit augmented adventure: The Big Fix Up! I’m going to be documenting my experience behind the scenes here on this blog:
Week 1
My first week was A LOT, lots of meetings, lots of new people, lots of new technology, and lots of new terminology. Whilst being introduced to the team was quite daunting, the biggest challenge for my first day was waking up on time for the early morning meeting! I’ve had to kick my summer sleep habits out the window as there are many early morning meetings, but the team has proven to me that the early bird does in fact catch the worm.
As someone studying stop motion animation, a very physical, hands on approach to animation, my technological knowledge especially towards game design is practically nonexistent… This somehow makes my intern experience even more magical! Seeing how quickly the team deal with bugs and adapt to feedback really opened my eyes to how efficiently and quick paced the work is carried out in industry. They’re so organised, whilst still being willing to make time to explain their process to us interns!
Meeting the team on Monday I was surprised at the number of people working on the project. For such groundbreaking technology the team (around thirty members) felt so small! I was also amazed to see how closely knit the whole team is. Even with the circumstances of the coronavirus limiting physical meetings, the team is so in touch with each other, and not just within their own department from the design team to publicity team, everyone knows everyone! Not only does this create such a close and friendly work environment but makes my internship even more exciting, as I get an insight into every behind the scenes aspect of creating an interactive app!
Not only do us interns see the behind the scenes of the story but also all the app in its current state, as the main role as an intern is to test out the experience. Having used the app for a few days I’ve been getting to grips with the game mechanics and even found a few bugs. At the end of the week we take our feedback to the design team, to discuss our findings and work out the appropriate actions for each bug/suggestion. Since the first week was mostly getting to grips with the app we didn’t have a lot to feed back, but next week we’ve been invited to the product café and bug triage meetings to see how bugs and feedback are discussed and resolved. Hopefully by then Dan and I will have found a few more bugs and suggestions to bring up.
If I had to describe my first week in two words, I would definitely say organised chaos! The level of planning that goes into creating an interactive AR app will be no surprise to anyone, with so many meetings, spreadsheets, tables and planning boards galore! With such a huge amount still to be done before the app release later this year the staff are working extremely hard. But to my shock they’re all super relaxed about their work, or at least appear to be on the surface, and are just so willing and excited to give us interns all the details of what they’re getting up to!
I’m loving the internship so far, even with the early mornings, testing the app and meeting the team has been a joy and I can’t wait to get even more involved in the upcoming weeks!
I’ll update you all on my intern adventure next week so stay tuned
· Bright Spark Apprentice Chloe