Realtime Roots: Recent Episodes
Peter Bottomley
I'm fascinated by how teams do what they do in the real time space.Whether it be small independent video game teams going it alone or large animation houses hand crafting every frame, each one of these creators has an interesting story to tell and a different approach to production through their tools and processes.Realtime Roots is an excuse to pick their brains and tease out best practices so that we can all use them in our own work to become better creators. Whichever real time medium you might be in I hope you find something you can take away and use in your own creative endeavours.
Benni Hill is the Creative Director at Bonsai Collective developing Luna Abyss.
Benni and I had similar trajectories into the games industry, founding our first studio together over 12 years ago (as of recording in 2024) so this discussion focuses on early trials and tribulations of making a game over 4 years without income, how Benni thinks about Creative Direction, and building a new team in Bonsai Collective.
About Benni Hill
Studio: https://www.bonsai-collective.com/
X: https://x.com/Benni_Hill
About Peter Bottomley
Studio: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley
Ian Forrester is the Senior Firestarter at BBC R&D
Ian specialises in open innovation and identifying new disruptive opportunities through open engagement and collaborations with start-ups, universities and early adopters.
In this episode we talk about the R&D happening outside of the real-time industries on how they're approaching linear content.
My conversations with Ian are always facinating, and although we go deep into subject areas, I'd open by making an ask of you. Try to listen to what Ian is saying about media view the current landscape and how potential advances in these industries could be supported by real-time tools and technology.
About Ian Forrester
Studio: https://cubicgarden.com/
Linktree: https://twitter.com/cubicgarden
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://petebottomley.substack.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pete_bottomley
Originally from a Yorkshire mining community, Martin moved to London and became an animator over 15 years ago. Now a film visualisation supervisor, he has helped create huge action sequences for blockbuster franchises such as Jurassic World, Marvel, Fast & Furious, James Bond, and the DC Universe. His credits also include THE LITTLE MERMAID, ALADDIN, 1917, and THE WHEEL OF TIME. He has recently completed production on his fifth - and most ambitious - solo CGI animated film, PRAZINBURK RIDGE, a 10-minute long sports-slash-war drama created in Unreal Engine using cutting-edge virtual production techniques.
About Martin Bell
Studio: http://www.yescommissioner.com/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/yescommissioner
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://www.whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
In today's episode, we review the shifts realtime industries experienced in 2023.
We talk about how processes changed across the year, the exciting new opportunities along with technology adoptions we've taken on throughout the year.
About Haz Dulull
Website: https://hazimation.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hazfilm/
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
Today's guest is Mo Davoudian, CEO & Creative Director of Brain Zoo Studios.
Mo Davoudian is an Emmy Award-winning Executive Creative Director and CEO of Los Angeles-based Brain Zoo Studios, where he has overseen projects with partners such as Warner Bros., Disney, Marvel, Activision, Electronic Arts, Mattel, Hasbro, Microsoft, Lego, Sony and more.
He’s been producing real-time animated productions for over 20 years and recently created Marvel’s first real-time animated production on Guardians of the Galaxy: Black vortex Series.
Mo's extensive realtime experience has also been on other titles such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Mortal Kombat 11, Skylanders, Disney’s’ Infinity 3, Ultimate Spiderman series, Ratchet & Clank, Lego Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Gears of War, Lord of The Rings, Borderlands 3, Disney’s Doorables and Marvel’s Heroes United animated films.
About Mo Davoudian
Studio: https://www.brainzoostudios.com/
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://www.realtimeroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
Today's guest is Dan Pinchbeck, a founder and Creative Director of the Chinese Room
The studio started it's journey publishing survival horror mods before releasing Dear Esther in 2012 which published to critical acclaim.
Since then, The Chinese Room have released Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and Little Orpheus.
In this discussion we talk about the creative process of working in video games alongside discussing the role of a creative director in a team that's gone from a handful of developers releasing walking sims, to a 120 person team working on 2 unannounced AAA projects.
About Dan Pinchbeck
Studio: www.thechineseroom.co.uk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/danpinchbeck
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://www.realtimeroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
For more updates, you can subscribe to the Realtime Roots newsletter here.
Lina is a principle animation engineer at NVIDIA working on Omniverse, a real-time simulation and collaboration platform for 3D production pipelines
Lina has over 20 years of experience from working on titles such as “Battlefield”, “Gears of War”, “Paragon”, and “Fortnite.” During her 12 years at Epic Games, she focused on motion and animations of characters.
She led the Unreal Engine Animation System & Tools effort, developed the Facial Animation System (Pose Blending) and the ControlRig. She was also the tech lead for MetaHuman Creator and was also involved in many GDC special events which we chat about in this episode.
About Lina Halper
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linasong/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nikolobin
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://www.realtimeroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
For more updates, you can subscribe to the Realtime Roots newsletter here.
Tim Repa-Davies is the General Counsel & CoSec at Sumo Digital Ltd which is part of the SumoGroup Ltd.
He has an article series online called 'Contract Killers' which is definitely worth reading through.
In today's talk, we break down a studio's journey into 3 sections:
Years 1-4 - Shipping first projects
Years 5-7 - Creating a strategy
Years 8-10 - Preparing for investment and long term projects
About Tim Repa-Davies
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/dontfeartherepa
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dontfeartherepa
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://www.realtimeroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
For more updates, you can subscribe to the Realtime Roots newsletter here.
HaZ is the co-founder of production company HaZimation producing animated feature films, series and video games based on their propriety pipeline utilising Unreal Engine. Currently the company is in post-production of RIFT (animated feature film) as well as several video games and metaverse projects.
In today's episode, we discuss the use of Unreal Engine as both a Pre-production & Post Production tool, creative team dynamics when working across a range of industries, how not overmanaging and letting the developers guide their work fosters the strongest collaborations and then later in the discussion, we talk about the tools Haz uses on a daily basis.
About Haz Dulull
Website: https://hazimation.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hazfilm/
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://www.realtimeroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
For more updates, you can subscribe to the Realtime Roots newsletter here.
Adam is a senior lighting technical director & Lighting Lead at Industrial Light & Magic
His work includes shot lighting and look dev across projects such as Transformers, Star Wars, Jurassic Park & Aladdin.
Throughout our discussion we chat about how Adam thinks about real-time technology from a film, visual effects and lighting perspective.
We talk about the tools and software he uses on a daily basis and also how he approached his career in becoming a lighting technical director.
Later in the discussion, we chat about lighting principles and the mentoring he does both as a senior and teacher.
About Adam O'donnell
Website: https://www.artstation.com/adamocg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-o-donnell
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://www.realtimeroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
For more updates, you can subscribe to the Realtime Roots newsletter here.
Steve is a level and game designer most noticeably known for his work on Dishonored 2, Bioshock Infinite, Alba & more recently Tactical Breach Wizards.
Steve has spent most the last 15 years in the games industry as a level designer and has spoken about his work in various places including his 2017 GDC talk titled "An Approach to Holistic Level Design" which I'd highly recommend digging into.
Steve also has a YouTube channel where he teaches level and game design principles that he believes every designer should know.
About Steve Lee
Website: http://doublefunction.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/essell2
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
For more updates, you can subscribe to the Realtime Roots newsletter here.
Jamie Smith is a Principal Game Designer at Sumo Digital with over 12 years of games industry experience.
His experience has led him to work on Driver: San Francisco, The Crew, Tom Clancy’s The Division, FIFA, Hood Outlaws and more recetnly Call of Duty: Vanguard as a Campaign Systems Designer
Jamie has judged multiple BAFTA games awards along with having experience as a Senior Lecturer in Games Design at Teeside and through all this experience, Jamie articulates his thoughts about Game Design in a really insightful way.
In this episode, we discuss game design concepts such as the 3'cs - cameras, controls & characters, marginal innovation and more recently how Jamie is thinking about subtractive approaches to design in his own work. And we talk about these concepts all through the lens of fostering collaborative cultures in creative teams.
About Jamie Smith
Website: https://www.jamiesmith.dev/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/smithst0ck
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
For more updates, you can subscribe to the Realtime Roots newsletter here.
Des is the founder and CEO of Altered Gene, a remote games studio currently working on two unannounced titles for PC. Des has over 24 years experience starting in the games industry 1998 and has since won 2 Develop Awards and a BAFTA award. Des is also the GamesAid vice-chair, a board member UKIE and a founding member of POC in Play.
We discuss omni-channel games and experiences and what current shifts the games industry is making. We tackle everything from process in storytelling down to financing and funding the projects.
About Des Gayle
Website: http://alteredgene.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kid_Desimo
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
For more updates, you can subscribe to the Realtime Roots newsletter here.
Today I'm speaking to Dan Da Rocha, a game creator who made QUBE, recently re-envisioned for its 10 year anniversary release.
Dan has worked in the industry for over 12 years and has been named on the Forbes under 30 in 2019 as well as being an avid industry speaker whilst growing a strong network of collaborators.
Dan currently runs Jaw Drop Games and has 2 projects being developed; Deathground, a dinosaur survival-horror game, and Gun Jam, a rhythm FPS game.
Jaw Drop has over 40 team members and Dan talks us through his career of high highs and some low lows along with important inflection points both through successes and failures that have helped develop and foster strong team culture.
Dan recently had one of his companies acquired by Curve digital and how teams may think about M&As with their own work.
About Dan Da Rocha
Website: https://www.dandarocha.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanDaRocha
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
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If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
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Hannah's work has ranged from AAA production at Ubisoft reflections to smaller, independent titles at Coatsink with many side projects and team collaborations along the journey.
In this discussion, we talk about her approach to seniority and how Hannah's developed her approach to feedback over the years.
We dive into what she looks for in studios and elements of company culture she believes all teams should have.
Throughout her time in industry she's transitioned across multiple 3D roles and constantly looks to improve her techniques and processes whether it be through the latest technology or refining her traditional art skills.
The conversation covers a lot of great ground ranging from technical discussion, to mentoring & to thoughts about the current games industry so I hope you get a lot of value out of this conversation with Hannah Watts.
About Hannah Watts
Website: https://hannahwatts.artstation.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IrradiatedCat
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for supporting the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
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Today I speak to Peter Harries, a senior Game Designer on Wardogs at Bulkhead.
Peter is credited on 8 game titles across his 10 career in the games industry.
Peter's roles have seen him starting in a AAA game development environment before transitioning to smaller, independent games and then back up to AAA projects before coming to Bulkhead who are a 100 person independent developer in the UK.
We discuss the role of a senior designer as Peter reflects on skills he's developed over the years and how you can approach mentoring and communicating your ideas to a team.
We then get into some great books on managing your time and process along with talking about some of his key design principles such as the 'water cooler moment' and how he thinks about onboarding players to an experience.
About Peter Harries
Website: https://peterharries.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterHarries
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for supporting the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
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We're doing something slightly different today and chatting about real-time tools.
Digital security is an important topic that I wanted to dig into for my own knowledge which I also hope benefits a lot of other creative studios who maybe don't have it on their list of priorities due to pending milestones and deadlines.
We tried to keep the information concise and succinct to give you as much information as we could, but please also consider listening in chunks.
You don't have to do everything at once, but even doing the steps 1 at a time will help protect your studio in a digital world.
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
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This week I spoke to Jon McKellan - the founder, writer & director at No Code.
No Code are best known for Observation & Stories Untold and Jon's background among other projects was the UI / VHS / DLC guy on Alien Isolation.
He's a BAFTA award winning developer & No Code have been awarded one of the best places to work awards twice over among many others.
We discuss No Code's trajectory from mobile games startup into the weirder, more narrative driven content they're now known for.
No code are a scrappy, measure twice cut once developer which allows them to force into creation the scope and quality of games well above what you'd expect from a small team.
We also discuss Jon's role as a creative director and how the position has evolved as the team went from 2 to 25 over a 7 year period and about how being open to critical feedback from the team is a key to creating the work they do.
About Jon McKellan
Website: http://www.nocodestudio.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jon_NoCode
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)
Today I'm chatting to Ryan Garry, the founder of Unlimited Motion.
Ryan works on a wide range of projects including performance capture, virtual production, 3D scanning & visual effects.
Recently his work has been featured on the BBC show Strictley Come Dancing where he presented virtual dancers in real-time to dance alongside a real performance, live on national television with millions of viewers.
We also explore what new capture techniques and approaching to creating interactive experiences. Ryan then breaks down the new technologies and interesting projects on the horizon.
We discuss some of my favourite directors throughout such as Jon Favreau & David Fincher so please do enjoy this episode with Ryan Garry.
About Ryan Garry
Website: https://www.unlimitedmotion.ltd/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyiGarry
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)
Barry Meade is a Co-founder & Director at Fireproof Games.
In an industry where we can sometimes fall into the trap of believing the more followers and likes you get are the key to your projects success, Barry simplifies it down to key perspective:
Great games are made my great teams. That's it.
From starting as an art outsourcing company for the first 4 years and almost going out of business in the first year, Barry alongside the rest of his founding team have built Fireproof games into a company of over 20 people.
In a market where they didn't have enough money to make a console game, they focused on the more risky approach in mobile gaming. What started as an experiment over a 6 month period, led to The Room; a BAFTA award-winning 3D puzzler released in 2012 that went on to sell more than 2 million copies by May of the following year.
Since then, Fireproof has released 6 titles from the Guildford based studio.
Our conversation focuses very much on the player's of the titles, and why the player's are ultimately what matter.
I had a great time speaking to Barry and his insight caused me to reflect on some incorrect beliefs I might have held so I hope you're able to take a lot of value away from this conversation.
Please do enjoy this episode with Barry Meade.
About Barry Meade
Website: https://www.fireproofgames.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Fireproof_Barry
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)
Joe Brammer is the Studio Head of Bulkhead, a game development studio with projects such as Wardogs, Promod, Battalion 1944 and The Turing Test under their belts.
A lot of us can relate to the moment you have to step into a new role as a team grows, in Joe's case, this was a leadership position from being a 5 person startup and the trial by fire that came with it.
Joe's candid nature and openness about the development at Bulkhead whilst growing a team that's over 100 people is inspiring to listen to.
We dive into discussions around how to hire external leads whilst imparting your culture, dealing with community criticism and how it's not always easy to find a way to deal with it, and conversations around burnout.
Their current initiatives include project flex which is a remote first philosophy and a 4 day work week.
Bulkhead's values include honesty, being fearless, having curiosity & passion whilst being decisive. This show's in the conversation ahead so I hope you enjoy my conversation with Joe Brammer.
About Joe Brammer
Website: https://www.bulkhead.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Brammertron
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)
Rachael Rose a producer at Bithell Games where she works on titles such as the solitaire conspiracy & Archsmith.
Rachael's roots are in production but go even further back to studying architecture for 7 years before making the leap into the games industry.
Although she's mostly produced titles in the video game industry, we identify the comparison with other real-time industries where Rachael worked at Cubic Motion on multiple commercial titles.
In this episode, how to balance multiple projects at once, working your way from QA to production, tools and tips Rachael uses to manage game projects and how Bithell Games is approaching hiring 7 people, almost doubling the team and the impact that may have on culture.
About Rachael Rose
Website: https://www.bithellgames.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rae_ami
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)
John Tearle is the co-founder and CEO of Flix Interactive.
John's grow a team from founding to over 100 people. Flix have supported the release of some large AAA titles such as Sea of Theaves, Zombie Army 4, Crackdown 3, Worms Rumble & more recently the first person shooter, Hell Let Loose.
John thinks a lot about his team and how he can best support them. In this conversation we discuss how to support career development and maintain a strong team, trust and respect within a team along with a lot of discussion around finance, funding, how 'no' can be the start of a negotiation and when it gets to contract negotiations, some key tips to look out for.
About John Tearle
Website: https://www.flixinteractive.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonnytdesigns
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)
Today’s guest is Jonathan Burroughs, a co-founder of Variable State.
I really enjoyed this conversation, Variable State are a peer of ours in the games industry and create narrative driven experiences heavy with great animation and strong voice acting.
We open with talking about what the video game industry looked like in 2014 with the emergence of walking sims and transition into discussing the impact of long development cycles when you’re a small team.
We then dive into how Variable State thinks about having a voice and confidence in the work they create, working with constraints and bootstrapping as a small team in the early stages of development.
About Jonathan Buroughs
Website: https://www.variablestate.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HilltopClose
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)
Today’s guest is Andrew Crawshaw, the found of Thunk’d.
Thunk’d design evening sized games and this was a great opportunity to pick Andrew’s brains about the processes he has in place when designing these shorter, more narrative driven titles.
With his 20 year history in the games industry, he's shipped titles at The Chinese Room such as Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. Andrew’s recent release under Thunkd’d is called The Magnificent Truffle pigs
We dive into many aspects of game development in a small team such as what the messy middle looks like during development, how to design into your constraints and bootstrapping your own projects.
We also discuss how having a small side project can help protect your mental health when working on small projects with limited budgets.
About Andrew Crawshaw
Website: https://linktr.ee/andrewcrawshaw
Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewcrawshaw
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)
In this week's episode, we deep dive into all things money and operations with Gemma Foster, the operations director at Dlala studios.
It's a very practical podcast with a lot of great process tips about how to operate a growing team whilst keeping track of costs.
We touch upon how to approach legal and other contractual situations that can arise when you’re small and have limited budgets.
Towards the end, we also chat through the difficulties Dlala went through in surviving the loss of a $3million Disney deal.
If you have anything to do with the finance, operations, legal or production in your team, this is a must listen.
About Dlala
Website: https://www.dlalastudios.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dlalastudios
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
Newsletter: https://peterbottomley.substack.com
Chapters
00:50 Gemma's operations at Dlala
20:20 How to handle accounts with different currencies
25:15 How to approach legal agreements
31:55 What documents to start as a small teams
37:45 Inserting culture into your documentation
41:00 Surviving the loss of a $3,000,000 deal
49:00 Reinvesting in your studio
51:40 Identify what your long term goals are
53:30 Delegating large amounts of work during maternity leave
55:50 Delegating in multi-disciplined role
1:04:25 Projecting to execute on vision
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Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)
#1 Aj Grand-Scrutton - CEO of Dlala on his roots in building & growing a studio working on licensed IP
Aj has a wealth of knowledge about running a business in the creative industries. Alongside his team, he's grown Dlala studios to more than 25 people who work with large entertainment companies around the world to create video games.
In this episode, Aj chats through the trials and challenges of starting a team independently and provides practical tips on how to overcome stressful situations that can arise.
About Dlala
Website: https://www.dlalastudios.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dlalastudios
About Peter Bottomley
Website: https://whitepaperroots.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
Newsletter: https://peterbottomley.substack.com
Top 3 resources from the episode:
- The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
- That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix by the first CEO and co-founder Marc Randolph
- The Imagineering Pyramid: Using Disney Theme Park Design Principles to Develop and Promote Your Creative Ideas
Chapters
0:53 - Defining a Dlala game from day 1
4:48 - Finding the right development partner
11:22 - How to lock the direction you want to move in & work with your team
15:40 - Dealing with creative disagreements
19:15 - Losing your temper
34:27 - Delegating work
38:00 - Differentiation between Game Director and Lead Design and communicating the vision to the larger team
44:50 - Figuring out the team structure
50:25 - Having patience when communicating your ideas
59:10 - Setting strong pillars
1:01:39 - Using OKRs
1:05:15 - Resources
1:10:22 - How to contact Aj
You can also subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.
If you'd like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, you can find a link below.
Support the show (https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley)