Our global studios get creative at ‘Learning At Work Week’ #2

As Learning at Work Week comes to a close, we’re looking back on the activities, workshops and roundtable discussions hosted by our talented staff and friends of The Mill. At the event, Head of Culture and Studio Operations, Lauren Parmar, comments: “As we emerge from the pandemic and embrace more progressive and flexible ways of working, we aim to create an environment for everyone to participate in our creative community. Whether that be from the comfort of their own home or at one of our welcoming studios, learning at Work Week has been the perfect example of this, and it’s been great to get together in person to inspire each other whilst still creating an equitable experience for those dialling in from home.

”There is a restless spirit of innovation that lives at the heart of The Mill, which is infectious. As a team, we must continue to come together to challenge each other, share our skills and ideas, celebrate our successes and learn from those who are forging new paths to inspire the next generation of creative talent.”

This week’s sessions covered deep fakes, deskercise and everything in between. Read on to discover what our global studios got up to:

Our team were guided through hand-building with clay, taught how to make pinch pots, and decorate them with their wildest desires. They were provided with the opportunities to make a selection of dishes, ring holders, candlestick holders and many more lavish items. This was the perfect class for our teams to let their creative juices flow and have some relaxing downtime.

Mobile Sculpting is a Thing! with Glen Southern

The digital sculpting world is dominated by ZBrush, Blender, and 3DCoat, and we even have a wide variety of VR sculpting solutions with Adobe Medium and Adone Modeler coming to the market very soon. There’s another option that many people forget about, and that is sculpting on a mobile device like an Ipad or Android tablet. They are a couple of leaders in the field, with Nomad sculpt taking the top slow, followed by Maxons Forger App. The hardware is accelerating at a tremendous pace, and Apple’s new M1 chip in their Ipad Pros enables artists to do amazing things that were once only seen in high-end PCs and Macs. Glen took us through what is possible right there on an iPad Pro in this session.

Balenciaga Fall ’21 – Discover The Real-Time Cinematic Love Story

As a follow-up to Balenciaga’s ‘Afterworld: Age of Tomorrow’ video game, The Mill was commissioned to create an in-engine cinematic set within the same world, directed, filmed and rendered using Epic’s Unreal Engine. CG Artists, Kristian Bonne Jensen, Artist and Nick Slade took us behind the scenes at how The Mill’s team approached this epic feat, using motion-captured actors and 3D scanned real-life fashion models to showcase Balenciaga’s Fall 2021 collection.

Journey of a Bid

Executive Producer Ari Davis and Creative Director John Leonti walked us through the journey of a bid as it comes in all the way to when it gets awarded and after.

Show & Tell: Mill Experience

Our very own Mill Experience team sat down to discuss some of the latest VR and AR campaigns coming out of The Mill. With an insight into the creative processes and minds, our audience was left inspired and craving more.

Designing Fictions for Real Futures with Monika Bielskyte

Science Fiction wields powerful influence over real-world scientific/technological research, socio-political development, and the way we imagine, design, build and live in our cities. While future fiction can open our imaginations about future possibilities, they often limit our understanding of most prescient issues and reduce our sense of agency. In this talk, Monika Bielskyte explored new horizons of inclusive, contextual & participatory storyworld designs she’d been working towards with @protopiafutures collaborative research & creation platform as an antidote to neocolonial, harmful future stereotypes and its binary visions of Dystopia vs Utopia.

Pizza Making Party with ECD Michael Gregory

We made our own pizzas and learned the art of the perfect crust with Executive Creative Director Michael Gregory. Look at the result below; it’s *chef’s kiss* amazing.

Seamless Transitions with Gilles and Cecilie

Gilles and Cecilie shared their multi-disciplinary way of working with The Mill. From illustrating to building props by hand for stop-motion. Our teams were taken through the essentials of storytelling in production and how exploring the transitions between digital and physical surfaces impact each other.

Burberry ‘Open Spaces’ – Learning How to Fly & Creating a Photorealistic Hyena

Hosted by some of The Mill’s most exemplary, Alex Lovejoy, Will Laban, Tony Atherton & Adam Droy provided a VFX breakdown double whammy as they explored how the team on Burberry Open Spaces learnt; to fly and the team on Amazon created a photorealistic Hyena! This was an inspirational panel for all future creators.

Adult CPR Certification

The LA office gained some life-saving skills in their 1-hour long workshop on CPR. The group also got officially CPR certified, go team!

Deep Fake with Myster Giraffe

We caught up with Carl from Myster Giraffe to discuss his viral Deep Fake videos, the tech behind it all, and the permanence in pop culture. With a rich understanding of current trends and everything futuristic, Carl provided the team with an authentic experience.