Ethan Wilde: Welcome everybody to our our final
Ethan Wilde: talk in this year's Gameview's Speaking series. It's my great pleasure to be joined this evening by my colleague, Mary Clark Miller, from Berkeley City College. Mary has been working
Ethan Wilde: in a dedicated way at Berkeley City College for over a decade in animation and game design, and she is one of the pioneering leaders in our virtual Production Academy. The Rvpa, which is a collaboration between 5 Bay area colleges, including Santa Rosa Junior College.
Ethan Wilde: Mary is now one of the co-leaders of the Rvpa. As we go into our next academic year. Her department at Berkeley City College has a really outstanding distinction of being an official academic epic partner, meaning that epic games. The maker of unreal engine recognized them as a leader in
Ethan Wilde: education around that game engine, and, Mary, thank you for being with us this evening.
Mary: And yeah, happy to be here. Hold on. I'm just
Mary: pause for a second. My video stopped.
Mary: Or is it Oracle?
Mary: There we go.
Mary: Hi! Everybody! You can see me.
Ethan Wilde: Yes, yeah, I'm on my phone. So if there's any technical issues, that's why not.
Ethan Wilde: I know you're always moving and shaking. You're always busy.
Mary: Yeah. So yeah, so I've been over 10 years at Berkeley City College. I've been growing the program there prior to that. I was actually a dean at a 4 year university, and decided that I needed to make a difference, and actually took on an academy at incidental high school for about 7 years, and then over to Berkeley City College.
Mary: Prior to that my industry experience was at Fox Animation Studio, where we we did both feature animation as well as games. And and so somehow, I ended up in the Bay Area
Mary: mainly because we were in Phoenix for a few years, and the heat was, let's just say, not compatible with Irish blood.
Ethan Wilde: So we're all lucky in the Bay Area to have your arrival here, so.
Mary: Yeah, so
Mary: so yeah, so the program that we've been developing for those that might be interested is a combination of game classes like, we cover unreal and but using it in a production format
Mary: and as well as animation classes. And along with some video classes. So it's a really good mix of everything.
Mary: And it's an exciting program that I know that you will actually enjoy being part of, because it gives you a lot of hands-on experience whether you're up at Santa Rosa or whether you're taking classes online.
Mary: And Ethan, if you want to play the video, it'll show the certificates.
Mary: and I'll talk through those. And then
Mary: we will actually hear from some of the students
Mary: at Berkeley City College because they created a Bts. They created a behind the scenes.
Mary: Sorry. No Korean group here, but they created a Bts.
Mary: a project that they put together that they actually got second place worldwide.
Mary: And anyway, let's roll tip.
Ethan Wilde: Amazing. Here we go.
Mary: Okay. So this just shows the colleges that are working on the the Rvpa and the current pathways. It is very quick, but Ethan has all of the information, and it shows you how we share the whole
Mary: program across all of our colleges.
Mary: This particular piece is from Will and Jared, and it's a virtual production piece. Jared, one of the actors here, is in Florida, and Will is in Berkeley.
Mary: So the 2 of them were never in the same room together.
Mary: and that but they use the utilize the their video classes as well as the game classes, to produce this short, and they hope to produce many, many more.
Mary: And yes, they are a little bit fascinated with Star Wars.
Mary: Oh.
Mary: so join virtual production. Santa Rosa, Berkeley City College, Dvc. Ohloney college, and may the force be with you!
Mary: My name is Tank Silam, but I prefer to go by my nickname Rocket.
Mary: Hi! My name is Yunika.
Mary: I am an animation and game design student at BCC. I major at BCC is game design. I'm working on my level one and level 2 certificates for game design. And I'm currently a game design and animation major. At Pcc. I'm also studying virtual production with Rocket and Dorothy through the Rvpa program.
Mary: I obviously provided the Dodo model. I did the white boxing, so, setting up the scenes, and then the rest of the project, I kind of focused more on animation, mocapping and then cleaning up the mocap, as well as some modeling or 3D. Modeling for certain assets like the trailer and the oil rig.
Mary: I was the technical guy for the project. So all of the technical Mumbo Jumbo, I was the one dealing with all of that. I was also the virtual camera operator for the project. I was the director, creative director and video editor. So I did the storyboarding.
Mary: set, dressing script, writing some kinds of dirt
Mary: and the sound design. I didn't let these animals out.
Mary: The whole dodo thing came about from a game I worked on for a game scripting class. The idea was that you are a dodo, and you are brought back from extinction, and you have to wander through the laboratory and try to find your way out.
Mary: I really enjoy, like the visualization aspect of it. So making 3D models, or making all the assets. I also really love the animation portion, be it hand, animating or using mocap and cleaning that up. But for the most part it's just this idea of taking something visual and being able to tell a story with it so. I love, you know.
Mary: setting up a scene, and you know, making all the things that can help bring that scene to life and bring that story to life definitely the technical side. I've always been a technical guy in unreal
Mary: and getting to play around with all this stuff that I've never played around with.
Mary: I'm most interested in learning the tools needed to really tell the story in visually interesting ways. I like storyboarding and figuring out ways to convert the script into something that will make an impression on people. I'd also love to continue to learn what it takes to be a creative director.
Mary: a career goal. I would love to at some point see my name on an animated feature film.
Mary: you know. If possible. It'd be great to also try to get into Pixar as either a character animator or just, you know, just regular animator. Well, in terms of goals and expectations. For myself, I keep them fairly fairly light. I just want to be part of a production that pays me good money. And then at some point, I'm in those credits. I see my name scrolling past the list. Then I know I made it.
Mary: Career goals include directing feature, animated films, music, videos, TV spots. You know, anything that really would be fun to art direct, for
Mary: this is such a great learning experience. You know. I haven't really done anything fully virtual production that involved using a virtual camera and being able to move it around in a space like that. I've definitely made a few, you know, short films for classes
Mary: that was just fully done in unreal, but this was really cool to be able to take the mocap at the same time, as you know, walking around a space. So that was a really cool and super fun experience. And it's getting me excited to, you know, hopefully do more of the virtual production parts of a project in the future
Mary: any last comments. It was really fun to work on this. I totally want to do more stuff similar. It was a bit of a challenge for me, coming from a 2D. Background to adapt to 3D. Workflows. But I feel like, through what I've learned at BCC. And what I learned doing projects like this one. I feel a little more better prepared for future projects. So I'm looking forward to continuing on my education and eventually finding my way into my desired career path.
Mary: Okay, so there's our website for the
Mary: our Vpa. For the and if you have any questions, please ask Ethan
Mary: and he can forward them directly to me.
Mary: Or you can email me at mclarkmiller@peralta.edu, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Mary: We do have different competitions that we get informed of the Htc. Vive. Folks are actually running a new competition right now, and we're always looking for work to show off for the the virtual production. Oh, excuse me, Academy, and
Mary: Let Ethan know if you want me to put any of your work forward for the unreal student showcase.
Ethan Wilde: Amazing, Mary, this is so great. I'm really grateful to you for sharing
Ethan Wilde: such amazing work from your students and the behind the scenes was really, really captivating. It was great to see how everybody works together in your program on all of this cool stuff.
Ethan Wilde: Can you say just a word or 2 about the intro introduction to virtual production course, and where students might from Santa Rosa might next find a way to take that class online.
Mary: The intro to virtual production class really sort of drops you into what is needed in order to produce something for virtual production from shooting motion capture to working with green screen to working in on real as a production tool.
Mary: And that class is for this fall is offered at Laney online and then at Berkeley City College. It will be offered in the spring, also online.
Mary: and it gives you the opportunity to take the class online. We have various tools that allow you to actually do motion capture and not just using your web camera
Mary: and and other means to.
Mary: Sorry. Oh, maybe over there, and other means to actually get your productions actually finished up.
Mary: So.
Ethan Wilde: Amazing.
Mary: I think so. Yeah.
Ethan Wilde: It looks like a lot of fun. And
Ethan Wilde: again, I will share
Ethan Wilde: Mary's email address that she that she mentioned here with folks who watch this recording. And so if you want to reach out to her about the amazing programs at BCC,
Ethan Wilde: everybody at Santa Rosa can enroll in Berkeley City College online courses through the California virtual campus.
Ethan Wilde: And there's support at our school for helping you get through that enrollment process if anybody needs it.
Mary: Yeah, it's hmm.
Mary: okay, it's yeah. It's actually pretty easy to use the Cvc exchange, because you're already signed up as a community college student
Mary: and the classes. You will look for virtual production just in the search, and you'll see it at Laney in Fall and Vcc.
Mary: In the spring.
Ethan Wilde: Amazing.
Ethan Wilde: Well, Mary, I don't want to keep you long tonight, and we don't really have any live questions from folks right now. So again. I want to express my gratitude for you, taking time out of your super busy schedule to share this behind the scenes. Reel with us. That was a lot of fun to see that, and to hear from your students, and I hope that we will get some interested Santa Rosa students working with you and your instructors through online classes at BCC.
Mary: Yeah, and and just like a plug for the internship program through the Academy. We have, we're trying to grow an internship program to allow students the opportunity to work together to
Mary: provides how to work as teams in an online environment and sometimes in person.
Mary: So
Ethan Wilde: That is an amazing opportunity, and that's a paid opportunity, which is.
Mary: Paid. Yes, yes, I believe all interns should be paid.
Ethan Wilde: Agreed. That is the way it should be absolutely.
Mary: Okay.
Mary: Alright. Well, thank you, Ethan. Yep.
Ethan Wilde: Yeah. Thank you. Mary.
Mary: And we're parking. So I'm looking left and right. I'm trying to make sure I don't.
Ethan Wilde: It's okay.
Ethan Wilde: sure. I'll let you go to the rest of your evening and all the other stuff you have to deal with. And again a lot of gratitude.
Mary: Oh!
Ethan Wilde: See us tomorrow in our Vpa. Meeting.
Mary: Okay, I'll see you then.
Ethan Wilde: Bye-bye.
Mary: Alright. Okay. Bye.