Interaction and Synergy of the Creative Industries

The Creative Industries consist of different sectors that all deal with a specific type of creative creating. According to the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2016), those sectors are:

• Advertising and marketing
• Architecture
• Crafts
• Product design, graphic design and fashion design
• Film, TV, video, radio and photography
• IT, software, video games and computer services
• Publishing and translation
• Museums, galleries and libraries
• Music, performing arts, visual arts and cultural education

Nowadays, most Creative Industry sectors don’t just work for themselves, there has been lots of cooperation, because the sectors merge into one another or they can be more effective, time- and money wise when adding their “powers” to create a better output together. This type of team work is called synergy. Especially with the development in technology, synergy is almost as important as the creative aspect of the different sectors.
Over the past 10 years, the gaming sector in the UK has grown a lot. Apart from having 2261 active game companies (ukie, n/a) , the most financially successful and fastest selling media product, Grand Theft Auto V, was mostly created in Edinburgh. But without synergy, this project would have probably never become such a success. GTA 5 was one of the first video games, that uses real life actors to animate their in-game characters. To realize this, a synergy between the gaming sector, the film/video sector and the software/IT sector took place. Rockstar had to get the voice actors to put on motion capture suits to capture their emotions and movements, which a software would digitalize. With the help of IT specialists, animators could use the content to put animations of the actors into the game.

Steven Ogg portraying Trevor Philips in GTA 5

On the other hand, gaming can help in the filming industry, when it comes to portraying and animating unreal or difficult to display characters. For example, in last year’s Star Wars: the last Jedi, the Crystal Fox from the planet Crait was manually created as a robot by IT specialists but got then scanned and turned into a software by software specialists, that got then turned into CGI to animate it into the film scenes. Here’s a short clip that shows the process of creating the Vulptex.

Another important synergy, especially when talking about the making money and gaining popularity aspect would be the synergy of the gaming, film and sometimes (book) publishing sector when it comes to advertising campaigns. Stranger Things is a 2016 Netflix series that is set in 1980’s America. To raise popularity and recall on nostalgia, BonusXP released a Stranger things game for smart phones. The graphics were in 80’s typical 8-bit style and was meant to make the player think he was playing on a Gameboy (again). The goal of the game would be to find 8 video tapes that would unlock the trailer for the Second Season of the Netflix Series (Chan, 2018).

Synergy in general is very important, especially for all creators in the modern day Creative Industry sector. As many people have their own small businesses or do freelancing, it is important to offer as many skills as possible to stand out to the many competitors. In the past, a journalist would work for a set company, hold Interviews in their office space. There would be a photographer to take pictures, maybe another person to set up the lighting or a camera. Nowadays, the journalist often meets the Interviewee in a café or a rented office room, must set up video or lighting themselves and take pictures. Important soft skills that almost every person in the Creative Industries needs is the ability to work computers/the Internet, good communication skills, to work on a project in a team, the ability to stay focused and keep deadlines, to publish content in time. The most important soft skill is a general creative mind and the ability to create interesting content. A few important hard skills would be to work more specific types of software, for example to do animations or edit videos. Using photoshop can be useful as well, to edit pictures or to create adverts. The ability to use lights correctly or to take professional pictures can be important and useful as well. Transferrable skills are essential, because the more skills you have, the more money you can save. With that, it is even easier to switch between sectors as well. For example, if you are a freelancer journalist, you could also be a photographer. You don’t have to rely on one job source, you can do several different jobs and get your money from different employers.

Sources

Chan, C. (2018, January 31). Make of Use. Retrieved from Make of Use website: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/free-mobile-games-no-ads/

Department for Culture, Media and Sport. (2016, January). Retrieved from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/523024/Creative_Industries_Economic_Estimates_January_2016_Updated_201605.pdf

Meetthevoiceactors. (2016, August 31). Meet the voice Actors. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPDQ3ixMicQ

ukie. (n/a). ukie. Retrieved from ukie-website: https://ukie.org.uk/research