International Meetings

Last night we had our second Slushbusters meeting using Skype. We had a few technical problems at the beginning. My computer was slow to boot up, either from sitting in a cold car all afternoon or some other unknown reason. We're still experimenting with camera placement. Last meeting we affixed the webcam to the computer and pivoted it to show the person speaking. There was more background noise around us last night, so we tried passing the camera around the table. This worked great for sound, but I'm worried that we gave Lisa motion sickness!

Once we got rolling, everyone was more relaxed than the first time. We try hard to take turns speaking, but tend to jump in when someone says something we have an opinion about. This often leads to brainstorming as a group to solve a problem of character behavior or logistics of action. Personally, I think the interrupting and discussing is one of the more valuable aspects of the group meeting, as opposed to email critques using "track changes." It's the combination of both that works best for us.

Time spent on critiques last night was more concise, partly due to better detail in our emailed notes, and partly because we realize it's one am in the Netherlands. Lisa stayed with us for a while after we finished her critiques, but she eventually faded and went to bed while the rest of us finished discussing Steph's and Joan's work.