Let’s talk: Collaboration & Community
I’d like to talk about collaboration. Close, personal, powerful collaboration. The kind of collaboration that leads to enjoyable, exciting, memorable art.
First, a tiny bit of background: I’m Seb. I’m a composer, sound designer and audio dev. I’ve been researching and writing about the collaborative process of game development for quite a while now, from a composer’s perspective. I’m working on some super cool unannounced things and have done a bunch of other stuff.
My research would have been completely impossible without the help of many. I rely on the fact that other people are making interesting stuff, that I get to help bring to life. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty damn cool.
This isn’t an evangelical post about why you should hire me to do your music (but feel free to get in touch if you want to. Respect the hustle). This isn’t even about music. Or sound. This is about you and those you work with (which seems pretty relevant with Develop this week.)
So about a month ago, I was having a damn good burger with Greg Buchanan, taking a break from making a super dumb, super fun narrative quidditch game at the Amazing Sports Game Jam (organised and hosted by Liam De Valmency and Ben Ward of Rocketdesk). This was during the second day of the jam, and we weren’t hitting a wall per se, but work had slowed. We sat and ate and chatted about the game and our ideas, but mostly we talked about other stuff — probably Rick & Morty, the EU referendum (which turned into this) and my crippling caffeine addiction — and when we returned to continue building the ridiculous game we had in mind, I’d be happy to wager that we made more progress than we had all morning.
About a month before that, I was supposed to be having a skype meeting with a dev about a piece of music. It was a nice day out and she worked about a 30 minute train journey away, and there’s a great little coffee place between the station and where she worked. I convinced her to meet me there instead. We had a good cup (or two) of coffee and an incredibly productive meeting, even though a lot of it was spent talking about Uncharted 4, contemporary jazz and my crippling caffeine addiction.
I have a load more stories like that. I do my best to go and meet people face-to-face (though it’s not always possible and the internet has helped with how to combat that, shoutout to the AudioVR slack group). That doesn’t just go for people I’m currently working with, either. I love people that make cool stuff. If you make cool stuff, I want to grab coffee with you and pick your brains about stuff — I’d love to talk to you about games, music, food, and maybe even the cool stuff you make.
Community and collaboration go hand-in-hand. Building and being a part of a vibrant community of creators is one of the most fulfilling things you can do as a creator in any medium. I urge people to start organising meetups with their local dev communities. Get together at a local pub or coffee place. Organise game jams. Maybe do a semi-regular ‘show and tell’ style night. Don’t worry about starting big. If there’s three of you at the first one, that’s cool. Try to get more people to come hang with you next time, but this — like many other aspects of creative work — is a battle of attrition. Build it brick by brick at your own pace.
I get to spend time with people who make incredible things, and sometimes I get to help them make incredible things. I think that’s pretty fucking cool.
Do you make cool stuff? Do you want to hear about my crippling caffeine addiction? Hit me up on twitter @SoundOfSeb. I’m super friendly.
