Two Top Speakers Attend Recent Creative and Digital Industries’ Conference at the Jellicoe Theatre

The college’s Creative and Digital Industries held the directorates autumn conference on Wednesday, 20 November, in the Jellicoe Theatre, with two esteemed guest speakers, Fiona Bavinton and Abi Lemon.

Opening the afternoon event, Stuart Palmer, Director for Creative and Digital Industries, introduced the area where the Creative and Digital industries are taking the helm and are now earning the vast majority of the £87bn sector of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP – or a country’s profit). 

Fiona Bavinton presented on the theme of ‘From Myths to Models to Making: My Journey with AI’ with a journey that spans storytelling, filmmaking, software engineering, and the cutting edge of machine learning using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Fiona showed staff from the Creative and Digital Industries two videos – the first used AI tech. and was made with Compos Mentis Productions – entitled ‘Error 404: (Page Not Found)’. She spoke of the paradigm shift to new methods of production. Fiona later showed how she had created a ‘metal’ song ‘Blood Like Rain’ sub-genre with a video using AI also – using scary skeletons in an apocalyptic scene – and with AI. Fiona spoke of producing the film from the comfort of her living room, with her cat sitting next to her– in just two days. She then took questions relating to her talk.

The films are available on YouTube, but you can see them in the showcase on this page: https://empower.virtualstorylab.com/. Scroll down and there is also my AI podcast. Here is a link to the Substack that has articles that might be of interest (including one on how Error 404 was made): https://fbavinton.substack.com/

Blood Like Rain is the first single from the new virtual band Don't Ask the Chatbot, which is now available on ITunes, Spotify etc: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/dontaskthechatbot/dark-ages. 

The following speaker, Abi Lemon, spoke about the challenges of working in the creative industry with ADHD and ways to help work well with and support the college’s ADHD colleagues, students and teams. She found her own way of support and eventually studying for a Masters degree later in life. She talked about having experience in a range of industries leading to her current career as an ADHD Coach for Creative Leaders and Entrepreneurs.

Stuart Palmer, speaking on behalf of his directorate, said: “The interface between creative and technology is the sweet spot every national government are striving to reach. In the Creative and Digital Industries at Bournemouth and Poole College we help commercial businesses and public sector organisations recruit and train skilled employees. Building sustainable partnership with industry for the benefit of all is at the heart of what we do. We believe our society and economy need everyone.  It was wonderful to have such high calibre experts sharing their exceptional knowledge and skills.”