Womenize! – Inspiring Stories is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Franzisca Tonelli, Assistant Producer & Unity VR Developer at BigRock Institute of Magic Technologies. BigRock is teaching new artists techniques for creating 3D animations, digital illustrations, visual effects, as well as music for film, TV, and video games. Franzisca speaks about the power of spreadsheets and teamwork. Read more about her in this interview:

Hi Franzisca! What do you love most about VR game productions?

Production has been with me for as long as I can remember. Tracking tasks and making sure everything is on the streamline makes me feel as if I am one with the force. But the thing I love most about VR game productions, besides the projects themselves, is working with others – bringing in a bunch of people, getting organised, and getting aligned around a common goal, it’s the recipe for amazing things in my opinion. And also the fact that I feel like a paladin bringing order into chaos with my spreadsheets!

Womenize! – Inspiring Stories is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Marina Hahn, Founder & Managing Director at Black Cave Entertainment. She shares insights on switching industries and starting up an independent games studio. Read more about Marina in this interview:

Hi Marina! Why did you decide to move into a different industry, then return to gaming by founding your own studio?

After my first job in the games industry, I didn’t find the right studio in Germany where I could work on projects that excited me. So I temporarily switched to architectural visualization, where I could work on realistic highpoly scans of people as a project manager. Nevertheless, I always wanted to return to the games industry and with my colleagues at that time and now, I found the right people to realize my dream of having my own company to develop the games that I, or rather all of us, would like to play ourselves. Therefore, our game “inAntrum” has a stylized 3D graphic style with focus on action-adventure and RPG mechanics.

Womenize! – Inspiring Stories is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Gemma Johnson-Brown, Ambassador Director at Women in Games & COO at Dovetail Games. She speaks about the importance of diversity and inclusion in the games industry. Read more about Gemma in this interview:

Hi Gemma! What are your main responsibilities as a Women in Games Board Member?

My role is very varied and a volunteer position – as a co-director I assist with forming the strategic direction of the organisation and supporting our CEO Marie-Claire with Women in Games being a global non-profit global organisation. I lead the individual ambassador initiative, a network of people from around the world who are ambassadors of Women in Games. They speak to our mission in their areas, running events, in schools and workplaces, supporting the community and generally being positive influences and having an impact on the games industry. When I joined the board in 2016, we had around 60 ambassadors, today we are over 780. At the start of 2022, our ambassador coordinator, Mafalda Duarte, joined, and she now manages the day-to-day of the initiative.

I have found that in smaller organisations you tend to have many different responsibilities and tasks that are wide ranging, it can be very hands-on from moderating at the events to meeting with partners and sponsors. This is great for learning quickly and for those that have a can-do mindset. While the organisational structure is small in size (we have a small team of consultants, freelancers, and volunteers), we have big ambitions for the future.