Sunday 19 July 2015

A Positive Turn of Events


Copyright 2015 Zak Waipara

Just a quick catch-up on a busy year so far with a presentation on Comics and Transmedia for the monthly Transmedia NZ Meetup (15 April). Had some interesting questions and suggestions posed for the future direction of my Masters project in taking it out to the real world. This was followed by the launch of my comic, Otea: Rock of Ages, at Chromacon (18-19 April) where I renewed old acquaintances and made new ones too. Really enjoyed reading James Davidson's comic series Moa, it has a really timeless feel, as if it has always existed, almost like an historical artifact. My daughter enjoyed reading them as well and we await the next issue. Then, as part of the Auckland Writers Festival, I ran a workshop for 40 intermediate and secondary school students on creating mythical characters (13 May) and gave a presentation as part of the Family Day (17 May). It was great meeting and talking with the audience afterwards.


Copyright 2015 Zak Waipara

Finally I attended an awesome 1 day workshop with Andrew Gordon of Pixar (1 July). He also took some time out to visit the campus and featured as one of the guest speakers at Semi-Permanent 2015 (3-4 July). Being a practitioner undertaking research requires engagement with others, whether with an audience, or your peers or with those in industry. For that reason I find these events really rewarding in providing important touchstones.

Monday 6 July 2015

Postcards from Ubud

The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival is once again gearing up. Here are some recollections of my visit there in 2014:


(c) copyright Zak Waipara 2015

(c) copyright Zak Waipara 2015

(c) copyright Zak Waipara 2015

(c) copyright Zak Waipara 2015

(c) copyright Zak Waipara 2015

(c) copyright Zak Waipara 2015

(c) copyright Zak Waipara 2015

For more info, the whole event is covered in more detail on Storify!