Gen Up

This is not really a blog where I talk about what I did recently.  If it were, this post would be about 6 months late.

Last September, after graduating from my Master’s degree in Design and Digital Media from Edinburgh College of Art, I was fortunate to spend 5 weeks on TRC Media‘s Gen Up Scotland training programme for ‘emerging digital talent’.  Having heard that the programme has just re-opened for applications, I decided to take the opportunity to write about my experience and give potential applicants an idea of what they might expect.

There we are: the beautiful, talented class of Autumn 2011.  Designers, developers, animators, illustrators, a comedian and a sound guy.  In previous intakes I believe there were also writers and journalists.  The point is that Gen Up is not discipline specific.  It isn’t going to transform you into Scotland’s number one digital *insert job title here*.  Instead it focusses on developing your understanding of the media, building a network of contacts in your chosen field and beyond, and equipping you with key skills to improve your employment prospects.

So what do you actually do? Gen Up comprises of talks, workshops, immersion days and an internship.  Some days you will hear from up to 5 experts in their field about what they do – CEOs, Creative Directors, Producers…, from sectors including TV, Games, Digital, Design, Development and more (these tend to be tailored to suit your cohort);  people who are willing to give up their (extremely valuable) time and answer all of your questions.  These really are extraordinary opportunities to get unprecedented access to senior figures.  Other days you will take part in day-long workshops under the guidance of an industry professional.  These hands-on days cover topics including presenting, interview skills, pitching, creative brainstorming and internet research.

The immersion days at BBC Scotland and Channel4 provide an opportunity discover how large media organisations work and you’ll even get an opportunity to contribute your ideas for potential output.  You get to meet people from all over the organisations, some of whom choose to talk to you about their work, whilst others set you tasks or ask for to critique their output.

You also get to undertake a week-long internship at a specially selected organisation, matched to your skills and ambitions.  I was incredibly lucky to spend a week at the digital arm of Tern Television, working on their stunning Digital Adaptations project.  Others from our group spent time at Raise the Roof, Leith, Axis Animation, the BBC, the Comedy Unit, Realise and Proper Games.  The internship is a great chance for you to prove your skill, enthusiasm and dedication; several of our cohort were invited to extend their stays.

Gen Up is an amazing programme, ran by a really supportive team at TRC (Marie-Claire, the amazing programme coordinator will become your hero) and you will emerge with excellent contacts, a stronger CV, awesome things to talk about at interview and oodles of confidence.  Apply here, and be sure to make the most of every last minute.

I Love Mathematics

There, I said it.  I recently read this Comment Is Free article by Matt Parker about why we need maths.  We hear all the time about why we should love maths and why it’s important.  We’re reminded that without maths we wouldn’t have computer games, ipads, laser-quest or the delights of Professor Brian Cox’s regular TV appearances.  I applaud any attempts to raise the public profile of mathematics and to encourage people, particularly young people, to invest their time and effort in exploring it, but I can’t help feeling that this bombardment of things we wouldn’t have without maths does the subject a massive disservice.  Sure, these products and (almost?) all others were developed using physical applications of mathematics, but a passion for the subject is less likely to flourish through an admiration or appreciation for its consequences than it is through an understanding of mathematics at its most pure, its most beautiful and its most fun.

I remember studying a maths module during my degree, in which we learnt about Einstein notation.  Albert Einstein (you may have heard of him) was using maths that had been around for years, when he decided to start writing things in a new way.  His new method was so elegant and condensed that it drastically simplified calculations and made patterns much easier to spot.  Such an elegant solution, I was simultaneously asking myself two very contradictory questions: 1) why on earth had nobody thought of it before? 2) how on earth did anyone come up with it?  Safe to say, it blew my mind.

Maths is almost entirely made up – whilst it is easy to conceive how the basics of numbers, addition and subtraction came into being, concepts of integration, percentages, trigonometry and many, many more are entirely unintuitive techniques, that at their conceptions were as original and imaginative as any novel, poem, lyric or artwork.  And yet these made-up mathematical theories can be irrevocably proven to be correct in relation to other made-up mathematical theories.  And together they just so happen to describe exactly how a large chunk of the world works. I struggle to think of any other field in which there is such scope for imagination alongside an absolute, gratifying truth.  And what’s more it can be used for a whole load of good.

I’m currently reading the brilliant Marcus Du Sautoy’s The Music of the Primes, a book about the ongoing struggle of mathematicians through the centuries to discover the secret pattern of prime numbers.  I’d be lying if I said that there wasn’t a teeeeeeeeeeny, weeeeeeeeny, tiny little miniscule egotistical part of me that thinks, just for a fraction of a fraction of a second, that maybe, in a moment of unrivalled inspiration, I might come up with the solution myself!  But that’s what maths is all about – seeing new ways of looking at things, coming up with your own, make-believe tools in the hope that they might just reveal the answer to something very real.  I implore you to do it right now.  Go do some maths.  It’s fun!  And if you really need another incentive, how does $1 million dollars sound?

Write something, anything.

If you want to be a half-decent writer, you really have to write something, sometime, right?  Well here I am, trying.  Trying is good.

The internet tells me that my first task is to find my voice.  If anything I think I know my voice all too well.  I conceive a thought and before it has had time to develop, even internally, I’ve understood its intention and moved on to something else.  A (weirdly telepathic) brain scan would reveal at best a string of abstract keywords attached to vague, often mixed, emotions.  My biggest challenge as I see it is to slow down my internal dialogue to a pace at which it can be decoded and transported to my fingertips.  That and to learn once and for all how to use a comma.

Silence