Simple problems arising from screenwork: how do you address them?
I walked into Grant’s room a few days ago to see if he was interested in getting lunch and answering some questions I had for him based on his project. I greeted him with a simple “hey, how are things?” He definitively responded with despair, staring at his laptop and only glancing at my quickly, and said “The world is falling apart.”
I stood in his bedroom, concerned with what was troubling him, when his roommate wondered out of his room curious as to what we were talking about. As I acknowledged his roommate, Grant pleaded for us in an exhaustive voice to give him some time alone so he could focus on what he was working on.
Grant later met with me to apologize for what he deemed to be rude behavior on his part. He then explained to me what had happened was he was trying to organize the files for their project, and while moving one file, he seemingly deleted and lost them all. At the time I had entered, Grant and his group members were panicking and frantically trying to recover the files they had lost, which they fortunately accomplished.
Although most of my research has focused on the creative side of video game design, this situation reminds me of my earlier work centered on screenwork. The emphasis on the digital side of things that comes along with screenwork is fantastic for the opportunities it offers that would never previously be possible. However, it creates dangerous situations like this where a simple click of a button can undo weeks of hard work.
A broken internet connection, a power outage, or even a slow computer can easily create a problematic situation where you cannot get your work done, and are thus at a standstill with your screenwork, resulting in you being forced to wait for things to return to normal, or being sent home away from your work.
Take for example a scene Dominic Boyer recollects from his time working with German journalists. He recalls that “The news department was primarily responsible for monitoring news agency feeds for breaking news and for producing a news report every fifteen minutes for twenty-four hours a day”, resulting in the news department having to constantly be glued to their screens in order to break a story with a moment’s notice.
And as I stated before, it does make one wonder what do they do in the case of one of the emergencies I mentioned before. With a never ending focus on screenwork, with no lulls in the day, it would appear as if there is not time for any malfunctions to occur.
This has resulted in a new, curious situation that I wish to address in my research: how do you do screenwork if you have no screen? Does this create a scenario where instead of focusing on the screenwork (the majority of the job), you instead turn to the more creative side of things and simply brainstorm ideas of what to do to better your work when you do have access to a screen? Can animators still draw, or are they completely reliant on the computers for their visuals? And, in the case of described by Grant’s situation earlier, how do you make sure your work is truly safe and backed up on these screens?
