CMII WHITE PAPERS
A group of Georgia State faculty, representing four colleges and more than a dozen allied fields, worked to conceptualize the Creative Media Industries Institute at its founding. View the original CMII proposal, which lays out the core vision that organizes our interdisciplinary effort today.
Supplementing their regular programs of research and creative activity, CMII faculty have collaborated on several media industry workforce studies. The goal has been to gauge Georgia industry needs so curricular programs in higher education (and especially at Georgia State) address emerging workforce needs.
The first of these projects developed by Kay Beck and Elizabeth Strickler documented industry workforce issues in the film and television production industries. That study, commissioned by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, laid some of the foundation for the start of the Georgia Film Academy. It recommended immersive training experiences closely connected to union certified work for preparation of film and TV crews to support expanding activity in what has become a $9 billion economic impact sector. View the Beck/Strickler study.
The most recent workforce study focuses on the game design and development sector. Jay O’Toole (a CMII affiliate whose main appointment is in the Robinson College of Business), Andrew Greenberg (executive director of the Georgia Games Developers Association) and Strickler organized research with the support of the Georgia Film Academy. That study, which is set to release in November 2017, discovered a strong sense of regional industry optimism relating to future hiring and growth potential. A key finding is that games companies want to hire new employees who are capable both in the main design software (Unity, UnReal Engine and affiliated packages like Maya) and soft skills needed to undertake collaborative team and project work characteristic of the main companies.
CMII doctoral fellows are also at work to produce white papers on topics connected to their research and relevant to industry. Papers that will release later in fall 2017 include those by Cynthia Berger, Cameron Kunzelman, Jason Derby, Jennifer Olive and Shiraj Pokharel:
CAMERON KUNZELMAN / November 2017 / Digital Distribution Platforms for VideoGames
JENNIFER OLIVE / November 2017 / What are Empathy Games?
JASON DERBY / December 2017 / An Overview of Scholarly Debates on the Surveillance Society