Danny's Work Experience of Experienceness!

We asked Danny if he wouldn't mind sharing what he got up to during his week of work experience here at the Molecule and he very kindly obliged! Grab a cuppa, put your feet up and get ready to hear all about Danny's Work Experience of Experienceness!

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My journey started on a day after I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited! When I arrived to the building, out popped the Community Manager, Jenny. When I saw the big pink carpet it hit me that I was at Media Molecule! 

Mm is full of vibrant colors and decor that make the office welcoming. Walking down the pink carpet, Jenny showed me the section where they put their awards, and even let me hold a BAFTA (you can see through it like a mask). Walking through the office, I saw the room where they record sounds, the craft room, meeting rooms and more! 

As Jenny introduced me around the studio I saw lots of people I recognized and some new faces. Looking at their screens to see what they were working on in Dreams was incredible! 

After I got settled in, I helped out Costa with some production stuff. Media Molecule is one of the most organized companies I have ever seen. I helped Jenny by put fanart on the wall and I am really proud of how it came out:

Later in the day Tom Kiss offered to show me what he was working on and gave me some tips on my noob web development skills and sent me some code that fixed the bugs on my Media Molecule Trivia Quiz!

Afterwards, Jenny launched a Dreams screenshot created by Emilie and we monitored the reactions on social media, which was fun. My first day was incredible!

On Day 2, I saw the one and only Alex Evans who showed me what he was working on and gave me an incredible demo. 

Later, the awesome Peter Field stopped by and gave me a Dreams demo on a dev kit. I was caught off guard by some things that I didn’t even know were possible in Dreams. Thank you again Peter for showing me how dynamic Dreams can be and the insane creations you and everyone else are making!

During lunch time, I got to chat with Liam, one of the programmers at Mm as well as Kareem. Lunch time is special at Media Molecule as everyone gathers together and socializes at the same table while eating delicious food by Kath and Eion.    At the end of the day, Johnee invited me to go play some football with some of the other Molecules. Boy, was that a workout!

On my third day of work, the first person I saw at work was Maja. She was creating some really cool stuff for the story level she was working on, so I stopped by her desk to chat about her work. Really lovely stuff!

For the next couple hours I played a load of Dreams, exploring every nook and cranny. I learned how to play the game quickly and now it feels natural! That I got to see and work with something that I’ve been so excited for was so exciting and surreal!

After playing Dreams, I saw Martin Taylor. He was super excited to show me his work and it was something I’m sure the community will be pumped to see. LittleBigPlanet players will feel right at home!  

At lunch, the wonderful audio people Bogdan and Tom offered to show me the music and sound creation tools in Dreams. I went into Bogdan’s studio, and 30 minutes later…Oh my gosh. The music and sound creation tools are epic! I was smiling so hard (and laughing so loudly) as Bodgan showed me a whole other world. I couldn’t explain what the audio team is making even if I had to, people will just have to see it to believe it. 

Post sound and music enlightenment, the one and only Steve (Steve big guns) popped by my desk to say hi! We decided to have an arm wrestling match to show off his big guns plus we posted sticky notes around with funny phrases he says such as “h4h”, “p4p” and “#1”. It was awesome finally getting to meet you Steve!

Thursday was a very busy day indeed! I asked Ed (audio) if I could make some sound effects for an object in a story level and he said yes! We grabbed some random stuff to make sounds with and went back to the studio to record. We got the effects down, altered them and put them into the game. Hope everyone will notice the sound effects I made when the game goes live!

On my last day, I knew it was going to be one I wouldn’t forget. Simon (graphics programmer) showed me basic stuff with graphics coding. As a computer science major it was pretty cool to see an expert code and see the tools developers use and learn neat tricks as well.

Afterwards, I was given the infamous programming test to see if I had the knowledge to become a programming Molecule. Boy was that a tricky test! Simon was nice enough to review my work.

Today was a very special day for sure, as it was Alex Evan’s birthday! I had gotten Alex a shirt with his face on it and his twitter bio on the back. Kath made amazing chocolate-fudge cakes and I slowly rolled the cakes out behind Alex. It was so funny as everyone was walking behind me and since Alex had his headphones on he didn’t suspect a thing! 

I had some time to say hi to the IT folks Jay and Kirk today and holy cow their IT pit is awesome! It was really cool getting to see what they do seeing as I work in IT at my university. 

In the afternoon, Siobhan (Director) and Luci (Producer) were kind enough to take my resume and give me a mock interview. They gave me a lot of advice for my resume as well. It hit me later on that I was interviewed by the studio director and a producer at Media Molecule!

That was pretty much it! I’ll never forget the trip and I am happy that I got to go to Media Molecule at least once in my life. To everyone there, thank you, thank you, thank YOU! I can’t wait until everyone sees the amazing game you are creating, which is a dream come true.