As a Film concept artist and illustrator, Adam Brockbank has worked on some of the most successful films and film franchises for over 2 decades.

Following a childhood filled with reading and drawing comics, and a youth studying Fine Art and Painting ( including an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London ), Adam found himself applying this combination of skills to Storyboarding, and eventually to Concept illustration.

Adam has worked on a great number of films, covering almost every genre, but is best known for his work on all 8 of the ‘Harry Potter’ movies, and on 4 of the recent ‘Star Wars’ releases, designing creatures, costumes, props and environments.

‘MeZolith’ is a critically acclaimed graphic novel series Adam has co-created with world renowned storyteller Ben Haggarty, and is available in 7 languages.

IMDB/Adam Brockbank

AFRODEUTSCHE (Henrietta Smith-Rolla), is a British born Ghanaian/Russian/German artist, composer, producer, and DJ based in Manchester. Her polyrhythmic compositions integrate a wide array of musical genres, including Afrofuturistic electro and techno, classical solo piano, and Detroit legacy house. AFRODEUTSCHE’S DJ style is a synthesis of Drexciyan and Underground Resistance-inspired selections, intercut with a variety of forward-thinking UK techno such as Bola and Lego Feet. In 2023 she performed her latest stunning orchestral commission ‘AFRODEUTSCHE Presents Psalms’ for Manchester Internal Festival with the Manchester Camerata conducted by Robert Ames. She also hosts ‘The People’s Party’ a weekly Friday evening show on BBC Radio 6 Music.

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Photo Felipe Pagani

Introducing… Bridie Roman, Senior Producer at Devolver Digital and panellist in our 11.30 talk today about Fantasy Worlds in Game Design at The British Library.

Bridie is a Senior Producer at Devolver Digital working on a variety of games, most recently The Talos Principle 2 and Wizard with a Gun. She is responsible for bringing people together to organise the release of the game, working closely with her developers to ensure that the team feels supported and has everything they need to make a great game. This often involves a lot of time looking at Spreadsheets or JIRA. Prior to joining Devolver Digital she was a Producer at Square Enix External Studios, working on the Just Cause franchise. Once upon a time she reviewed fantasy books for SFX Magazine.

Bridie's fantasy obsession began at age 11 with The Silmarillion and she has continued to love fantasy and fantasy homework ever since. Her favourite author is Robin Hobb, which shows in her 7 copies of Assassin's Apprentice. Other highlights/obsessions are The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson, The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams and re-reading The Malazan Book of the Fallen. In film and TV she enjoys the world building of Avatar the Last Airbender and Frieren.

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Dan Clark is the Founder of MindJam - emotional support, mentoring and guidance using gaming and game design.

Our goal is to build their self esteem, confidence, and ease their anxieties all whilst honing their skills and abilities to help them reach their incredible potential.

MindJam has grown to support over 2000 young people all over the world - we have the very best mentors who understand, emphasise and care about each child they work with - using low demand, 121 child-led sessions to repair lost trust, overcome trauma, and bring positivity and belief in themselves.

The future is becoming increasingly digital and it is a world in which children feel at home. By harnessing the benefits of digital entertainment/creative platforms, we want to support children with aspects of life they find difficult, in an environment they feel comfortable.

BAFTA finalist Mentor of the Year 2021

www.mindjam.org.uk

Deb started her design study as an architecture student at Australia’s University of Queensland in 1991 and going on to complete a stage design degree at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). Starting on The Matrix (1999) as a set designer, she then worked on Anna and the King (1999) in Malaysia and returned to Sydney for Moulin Rouge! (2001). Deborah’s first involvement in large-scale event art direction was the closing ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Mentored by the production designer Brigitte Broch, Deborah worked as Broch’s art director on Real Women Have Curves (2002) in Los Angeles, followed by Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams (2003). The 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, and the opening of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, China, kept her hand in large-scale special events.

Deborah moved to Los Angeles in 2008, and became the production designer of the fourth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, which finished production in 2018. She earned four consecutive Emmy Awards and three Art Directors Guild Awards and a BAFTA for her work on the epic medieval fantasy.

Following time in design development at HBO and Lucasfilm, she has recently designed the Netflix science fiction television series, The Three-Body Problem based on the novel of the same name by Liu Cixin, to be released in late 2024.

IMDB/Deb Riley

In 2010 David co-founded Territory Studio, a specialist studio that draws on expertise in narrative-led creative design to imagine, realise and build new worlds. Leading studio teams in the UK, USA, and mainland Europe, David’s love of storytelling, technology, and his eye for emotive detail have provided the foundation for the studio to grow and establish a reputation for beautifully crafted, design-led graphic narratives spanning all genres and media.

In 2022, David co-founded Territory Group, a ​​global collective of creative businesses that includes Territory Studio and Cantina Collective, unlocking further potential for success and capacity for growth.

In addition to winning Motion and D&AD Awards, Territory Studio’s work for Blade Runner 2049 was nominated for the annual Beazley Designs of the Year 2018. Territory work has been featured in the Creative Review Annual, and awarded consecutive Clio Awards in 2022 and 2023. In recognition of his creative approach and achievements, David was named as one of Creative Review’s Creative Leaders 50.

Territory Studios

James is a senior writer/narrative designer at Failbetter Games, creators of the long-running Fallen London universe set in a deep, dark and marvellous Victorian phantasmagorica.

He's worked across many of their titles, including the 14 year old browser game, Fallen London, alongside narrative rougelikes Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, and the recent visual novel, Mask of the Rose.

James has a background in Medieval Studies, which has served as rich source for inspiration for writing the fantastical, and formed the origin point of many storylines in Failbetter's titles. Born in Liverpool, James has lived in Scotland and London and now resides in Brighton with an occasional cat.

Failbetter Games

Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian British author whose work pushes the boundaries of form, language, and ideas. Her novel Butterfly Fish, and short story collections, Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch, have won and been nominated for multiple awards. Her journalism has been featured in The New York Times, The Observer, The Guardian and The Huffington Post. She is a Contributing Editor for The White Review. She co-presented the BBC's Turn Up For The Books podcast alongside Simon Savidge and Bastille frontman, Dan Smith. Her work has been optioned for the screen. She has also judged various literary prizes including the Dylan Thomas Prize, The Gordon Burn Prize as well as the BBC National Short Story Award. She was a judge for the 2023 Women's Prize For Fiction. Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, she was awarded an MBE For Services to Literature in 2021. She is the director and founder of Black to the Future festival.

Black to the Future

Dr Jane Barnwell is Reader in Moving Image at the University of Westminster. Graduating from Leeds University and The Northern Film School she began her career at the BBC, before working freelance in production. Jane has authored articles in a range of forms and genres including popular magazines, periodicals and websites. Her books include Production Design for Screen; Visual Storytelling in Film and TV (2017), Production Design: Architects of the screen (2004), The Fundamentals of Film Making (2008) and Production Design & the Cinematic Home (2022). She is currently working on an edited collection The Designer’s Story, an exciting collaboration with authors drawn from practice, research and education. Jane is the co-founder of the recently formed Production Design Research and Education Network.

LinkedIn/Jane Barnwell

Katie Spencer is a six-time Academy Award nominee, recognized for her work on a wide range of films, including Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, Sherlock Holmes, Anna Karenina, Beauty and the Beast and Darkest Hour. She has also been nominated for seven BAFTA Awards, winning for Atonement.

Spencer was born in Yorkshire, England and studied stage management at Central School of Speech and Drama in London. After several years working in the West End and other area theatres, including the Royal Court, Almeida and Donmar Warehouse, she transitioned to work as a freelancer for the BBC. Retraining first as a production buyer, then as a set decorator, she worked on such projects as Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Anne Brontë’s The Tennant of Wildfell Hall.

It was at the BBC that Spencer first met and worked with production designer Sarah Greenwood, a unique and close collaboration and that has continued for over 20 years. They have worked on many successful films together, ranging from period pieces like Pride & Prejudice and Atonement to action movies Sherlock Holmes and Hanna, innovative pieces like Anna Karenina, the musicals Beauty and the Beast and Cyrano, through to their latest collaboration, Barbie.

Spencer also serves on the Executive Committee for Production Design at the Academy of Motion Pictures (AMPAS). In 2025, AMPAS will be hosting an exhibition in Los Angeles, showcasing the work and unique collaboration between Spencer and Greenwood.

IMDB/Katie Spencer

Lucia Pietroiusti is a curator working at the intersection of art, ecology and systems, usually outside of the gallery space. She is Head of Ecologies at Serpentine, London, where she was the founder of the General Ecology project (2018-ongoing). She is also the curator of the Golden-Lion winning opera-performance Sun & Sea by Rugile Barzdziukaite, Vaiva Grainyte and Lina Lapelyte (2019 Venice Biennale and 2020-2024 international tour). Current and recent projects include the research and festival series, The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish (with Filipa Ramos, since 2018) and Persones Persons, the 8th Biennale Gherdeïna (May-September 2022, with Filipa Ramos) and Back to Earth (Serpentine, 2020-ongoing). Recent and forthcoming publications include The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish (with Filipa Ramos, forthcoming), More-than-Human (with Andrés Jaque and Marina Otero Verzier, 2020); Microhabitable (with Fernando García-Dory, 2020-22) and PLANTSEX (2019).

LinkedIn/Lucia Pietroiusti

As the Head of Games at BAFTA, Luke leads the arts charity’s mission as the foremost global cultural organisation in games, supporting and championing creative talent, advocating for progressive change and celebrating excellence in the craft of making games. As well as the prestigious BAFTA Games Awards, BAFTA provides a year-round programme of events and activities recognising and supporting games professionals, produces world-leading online games content and runs headline new talent initiatives such as BAFTA Breakthrough and the national Young Game Designers competition.

Twitter: @lukethehebble / @BAFTAGames

Robbie is Chief Executive at Bioss International, a Senior Fellow at Cambridge University, the Centre for Resilience and Sustainable Development and Chairs DemocracyNext, an NGO supporting Sortition based Citizen Assemblies around the world. He is on the International Advisory Board of Past International which promotes and preserves Africa’s paleontological heritage promotes research and education about shared origins, diversity and stewardship.

He works at the intersection of the Governance of human institutions and complex adaptive systems especially now in relation to AI and is part of the Exponential.do members group, where he co-hosts the human embodiment channel.

He sits on the BSI's National Standing Committee on AI, which is SC42 (for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans, that is no accident!), where he contributed to ISO recommendations on Board Governance and AI and is contributing to a paper for the IEEE on AI and Power. He is the founder of AI Goosebumps Club, thought experiments about AI, including whether we would ever want Paranoid AI! Shades of Marvin indeed.

Earlier in his career he founded The Digital Village with the late great Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where the teams made Starship Titanic and h2g2.com, “the Earth Edition” of the Guide. He Executive Produced the movie for Disney, a labour of love, even if not every fans cup of tea, he gets that!

Even earlier he made Environmental Documentaries - including Can Polar Bears Tread Water? about what was then called The Greenhouse Effect.

LinkedIn Robbie Stamp

Sarah Greenwood is a six time Academy Award nominated Production Designer, earning her most recent acknowledgement for her work on Joe Wright’s Darkest hour and Bill Condons 'Beauty and the Beast’ both nominated in the same year! Sarah received her previous Oscar nominations for her work with Joe Wright on his acclaimed films Pride and Prejudice and Atonement (for which she won a BAFTA) and Anna Karenina, for which she also won the Art Directors Guild Award, The European Film Award, The Evening Standard Award and the Hollywood Production Designer of the year Award (for the second time) and was nominated for a BAFTA.( her seventh ) Her other Oscar nomination was for her work with Guy Ritchie on Sherlock Holmes. Sarah has also collaborated many times with Joe Wright on the films Cyrano, Hanna and The Soloist, and the television miniseries Nature Boy, Bodily Harm and The Last King (Charles II )

Sarah has just finished work on BARBIE with Greta Gerwig and ‘ Back to Black’ with Sam Taylor Johnson about Amy Winehouse.

She has worked closely for many years with Katie Spencer, her long time collaborator and Set Decorator.

She lives in London and is an Honorary Fellow of the University Arts London.

IMDB/Sarah Greenwood

Sophia is currently on placement at Rare Ltd as a Technical Art Intern, contributing to the development of their new IP, Everwild, while pursuing her studies in Computer Science at the University of Bath.

A two-time finalist of the BAFTA Young Game Designer Competition, Sophia has a keen interest in anime and stylized work within animation and game design across both 2D and 3D art styles.

LinkedIn/Sophia Shepherd

Prof. Vali Lalioti is a pioneering designer, computer scientist and academic who helped build the first VR systems in Germany in the late 1990s before setting up a cross-cultural VR research centre in post-apartheid South Africa that explored new areas such as VR and storytelling in Township cultures. She won the Royal Television Society Judges award for her work developing the first Augmented Reality productions at the BBC and has taught innovation around the world. Her Innovation Consultancy has developed diverse projects from AR Medical books to Operatic VR and she is currently Professor in Creative XR and Robotics at the Creative Computing Institute at the University of Arts London.

UAL: Creative Computing Institute

Will was born and raised in London and Bangkok and trained as a Theatre Designer before turning to film and TV, working on numerous commercials and music videos which took him all over the world.

A move into features over ten years ago including World War Z, Edge of Tomorrow, several Star Wars films and HETV as a Concept Designer lead Will onto “No Time To Die” gaining an ADG award win and development for DisneyPlus’ streaming service series “Star Wars: Kenobi”, and more recently as Senior Concept Designer for “Andor”.

As Production Designer, Will recently completed designing “Ant Man & Wasp: QUANTUMANIA” for Director Peyton Reed and Marvel Studios.

Will has been in development Production Designing a new project with Taika Waititi and Lucasfilm Ltd.

As well as developing world building live and scripted ideas, Will is also developing mixed reality/XR artworks & projects with Producer Jo Paton Htay as HTAYDESIGN.

IMDB/Will Htay

Alfie Wilkinson began his gaming career at 14 by winning the BAFTA Young Game Designers competition with his retro platformer, Egglien. After releasing the game on Steam, it caught the attention of Penguin Pop Games and is now available on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. Egglien is showcased in the Science Museum’s Power Up! Exhibition in London and Manchester, alongside other BAFTA Young Game Designers winners and iconic games from the last 50 years.

Alfie continues to support BAFTA Young Game Designers and has co-presented the BAFTA for Best Game Design in 2023 and attended numerous events to speak about his journey. Most recently, Alfie has been on panels at the BAFTA Young Game Designers Showcase in London and Develop.

LinkedIn/Alfie Wilkinson