Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Talk Nerdy, the film


Hello guys and dolls!

Lindsay here, your plucky adventurer. I realize I haven't written to you fabulous people in quite some time. Apologies for that. When one is employed in creating all the things, one has a tendency to get caught up in everything. Luckily for me, I have a Misha to help set things to right. I also have the added benefit of taking a seminar in effective leadership and community projects; this seminar gives me rocket-boosters to whichever thing I've gotten my wee fingers in at the time and really refocuses my attention to one step at a time as opposed to my usual scatterbrained WANT TO DO ALL THE THINGS PERFECTLY RIGHT NOW. Don't lie, you know you've been there, too. <.<

I want to share with you guys what, exactly, has been taking up my free time and CPU. Many of you may know my professionl background is in the interactive entertainment (a.k.a. the video game industry.) This life-long passion for video games stems from a love of human interaction and the possibility video games have for becoming tools to help us interact with a world very quickly becoming impacted everywhere by technology. 

Growing up, I loved gaming for hours and hours. Summer vacation was the best. I could wake up, turn on my N64 and eat cereal and play Podracer, Mario Kart, Rogue Squadron or Golden Eye all day long. I even did an entire weekend solid of Day of Defeat, my first LAN party. And don't get me going on my dark, dark The Sims months. Those poor people... As I aged, I became increasingly aware of just how singular I was among other females my age who grew up doing things like sports or... cheerleading... /shudder. In my quest to find someone, anyone else like me, I discovered there wasn't much in terms of a someone I could look up to. There were "geeky" icons, to be sure, but not one of them was an adamant gamer. I would have to really dig to find any role models in the late '90's and the early 2000's.

I am lucky enough to have experienced some amazing things in this industry and have met incredibly talented men who share the same passion I do for games. And yet, in 2013, I still find it difficult to find influential women and their contributions to the industry highlighted. Anywhere. 

I want to change that. I am making a 20 minute documentary highlighting women in the gaming industry. I want to find female executives, coders, designers, programmers, artists, writers, talent and media personalities from across the globe and spotlight their passion for gaming and how they got to where there are now within the industry. I want to create an entire slew of women role models for the girls out there growing up, like I did, engrossed in technology and be able to have resources for future industry professionals.

I want to inspire everyone with this project, because it inspires me. And that's the long and short of it. 

I have some great resources at my fingertips, however, this project is geared to involve those of you out there who feel similarly inspired. Bay Area people who want to help, please send me a PM. If you have a suggestion on who would be great to interview, I will be grateful for your time in writing to me. If you know of anyone who would be willing to help get this shown at E3 in Los Angeles in June (hell, or shown anywhere) let me know. 

So that's my life right now. Kinda crazy, kinda big and scary and full of Doubt Monsters who like to come in and tell me I'm not good enough and no one wants to help with this film and gnaw on my brain at night (we have fun, Doubt Monsters and me.) I am being courageously self-expressed, however, and going balls out for this project. And I'll be giving updates weekly in my newsy show on my YouTube channel, so please be sure you subscribe there if you haven't (YouTube.com/geektroncodex). 

Are you interested in helping with the documentary? Do you have an excellent blog about geeky/ game-y/technology goodness and want me to share it around? Let me know! The way I see it: we're all one global community, why not celebrate each other, help one another and all be Bros? Dude bro. 

Hang loose,
Lindsay

4 comments:

  1. http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/eight-women-eight-responses-and-one-dead-island-ri/1100-4527/

    A sort of unrelated story, but also a group of women in the industry who might be worth reaching out to.

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  2. Wow, great article. Thank you so much for sharing!!

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  3. Lindsay great concept, you may wish to include the following women in your doc: Kiki Wolfkill, executive producer, and Bonnie Ross, GM, both from 343 Industries (Halo 4), Amy Hennig, director and writer, Naughty Dog (Uncharted), Siobhan Reddy, executive producter, MediaMolecule (LittleBigPlanet), Mary DeMarle, writer, Square Enix (Deus X, also a veteran having formerly been with Ubi-Soft where she co-wrote Myst III, IV, V and Splinter Cell), Karen Traviss, writer, Epic Games (Gears of War 3), Kellee Santiago, designer/developer, ThatGameCompany (Flow, Flower, and Journey), and Sylvia Feketekuty, writer, Bioware/EA (Mass Effect 3) Nearly all of these women have LinkedIn profiles, Wikipedia entries, and/or published interviews available online (as usual Google 'em)

    Also maybe check these sites:
    WIGI http://www.womeningamesinternational.org
    Women in Games Jobs http://www.womeningamesjobs.com

    Best of luck and let me know if I can contribute further ;)

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  4. Here's another at Bioware: : Ann LeMay http://blog.bioware.com/2013/03/08/happy-international-womens-day/

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