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Roots Podcast

    • #21 Lina Halper on her roots in developing animation tools that have impacted some of the largest teams in the industry

    Lina is a principle animation engineer at NVIDIA working on Omniverse, a real-time simulation and collaboration platform for 3D production pipelines

    Lina has over 20 years of experience from working on titles such as “Battlefield”, “Gears of War”, “Paragon”, and “Fortnite.” During her 12 years at Epic Games, she focused on motion and animations of characters.

    She led the Unreal Engine Animation System & Tools effort, developed the Facial Animation System (Pose Blending) and the ControlRig. She was also the tech lead for MetaHuman Creator and was also involved in many GDC special events which we chat about in this episode. 

    About Lina Halper
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linasong/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/nikolobin

    About Peter Bottomley
    Website: https://www.realtimeroots.com/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley

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    #2 Gemma Foster – Operations Director of Dlala on her roots in creating operating infrastructure in a growing team

    In this week’s episode, we deep dive into all things money and operations with Gemma Foster, the operations director at Dlala studios.

    It’s a very practical podcast with a lot of great process tips about how to operate a growing team whilst keeping track of costs.

    We touch upon how to approach legal and other contractual situations that can arise when you’re small and have limited budgets.

    Towards the end, we also chat through the difficulties Dlala went through in surviving the loss of a $3million Disney deal.

    If you have anything to do with the finance, operations, legal or production in your team, this is a must listen.

    About Dlala
    Website: https://www.dlalastudios.com/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/dlalastudios

    About Peter Bottomley
    Website: https://whitepaperroots.com/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
    Newsletter: https://peterbottomley.substack.com

    Chapters
    00:50 Gemma’s operations at Dlala
    20:20 How to handle accounts with different currencies
    25:15 How to approach legal agreements
    31:55 What documents to start as a small teams
    37:45 Inserting culture into your documentation
    41:00 Surviving the loss of a $3,000,000 deal
    49:00 Reinvesting in your studio
    51:40 Identify what your long term goals are
    53:30 Delegating large amounts of work during maternity leave
    55:50 Delegating in multi-disciplined role
    1:04:25 Projecting to execute on vision

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    #1 Aj Grand-Scrutton – CEO of Dlala on his roots in building & growing a studio working on licensed IP

    Aj has a wealth of knowledge about running a business in the creative industries. Alongside his team, he’s grown Dlala studios to more than 25 people who work with large entertainment companies around the world to create video games.

    In this episode, Aj chats through the trials and challenges of starting a team independently and provides practical tips on how to overcome stressful situations that can arise.

    About Dlala

    Website: https://www.dlalastudios.com/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/dlalastudios

    About Peter Bottomley

    Website: https://whitepaperroots.com/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pete_Bottomley
    Tip jar: https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley

    Top 3 resources from the episode:

    1. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
    2. That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix by the first CEO and co-founder Marc Randolph
    3. The Imagineering Pyramid: Using Disney Theme Park Design Principles to Develop and Promote Your Creative Ideas

    Chapters
    0:53 – Defining a Dlala game from day 1
    4:48 – Finding the right development partner
    11:22 – How to lock the direction you want to move in & work with your team
    15:40 –  Dealing with creative disagreements
    19:15 – Losing your temper
    34:27 – Delegating work
    38:00 – Differentiation between Game Director and Lead Design and communicating the vision to the larger team
    44:50 –  Figuring out the team structure
    50:25 – Having patience when communicating your ideas
    59:10 – Setting strong pillars
    1:01:39 – Using OKRs
    1:05:15 – Resources
    1:10:22 – How to contact Aj

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    Thank you for support the show, just by listening your are supporting in a huge way.

    If you’d like to donate to the show, whether it be to cover transcription expenses, guest hosting, hardware, or just to say thanks, the best way is through this link: https://ko-fi.com/peterbottomley