Multimedia man
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The creative industries in London employ over 500,000 people. London graduate Steeve Pattoo discusses his studies and his work placement with Sony.
Paradise wasn't the palm trees, turquoise water, and crystal-dusted beaches for Steeve Pattoo, he grew up with such scenery in Mauritius.
“We lived right next to a dormant volcano for most of the year, but it felt confined,” he explains. “I was fascinated by computers and wanted to meet more people who shared my passion.”
Sitting on the grass next to the River Thames as streams of classical music fl oat out from Trinity College of Music, situated close to the University of Greenwich campus, Steeve explained that his family did not buy a computer until he was 16.
With no one to learn from at his school he taught himself coding, “I was left on my own really,” he says. Steeve is now reaching the end of a BSc in Computing and Games Development at Greenwich.
During his time in the city, he has found London preferable to ‘paradise,' because it offers the means to realise his dreams.
The degree taught Steeve games development and production, including skills in animation, virtual reality and audio-visual production techniques.
In his first year he designed a well-received asteroid game using Flash, and in his final year he developed a new way of using avatars to create graphic user names. Steeve was impressed by the teaching at Greenwich and got to know many of his lecturers.
He also found the city itself a great learning tool. “London might be crowded,” he says, “but because there is so much going on here, it is easy to get the material you want. It's also a great place to meet like-minded people and gives you the freedom to be yourself.”
Since London is one of the three gaming capitals in the world, Steeve also had the opportunity to make links with industry leaders. His work placement year was spent with Sony doing special projects.
“The university has ties to lots of digital businesses,” he explains. “They contacted Sony and sent my CV.” Steeve was selected out of 30 candidates.
“It was the first time I'd worked in a big corporation dealing with games and it was strangely nice.” He edited videos, interviewed famous game designers, and worked on coding.
“It was when the Playstation 3 had just come out, so it was an exciting time. If something wasn't working they would hand it to me and I'd fix it. The experience gave me lots of confidence.”
Steeve is now in the middle of organising his exhibit at the university's end of year multimedia show, Pixel08, for which he designed the website.
After his degree he would like to return to Sony or work for a digital company, but he is sure about one thing, staying in London. As he says, “this place is inspiring.”
Posted: Tuesday 9 February 2010