Thesis by Adrian Birkeland

The purpose of sharing my bachelor thesis on Firestarter comes from the simple fact that after I got it graded this June (2018) it sat in a .pdf format doing nothing. I know from personal experience that writing a university paper as a creative person can be challenging and I found it hard to not have easy access to written content in the academical format to reference while writing.

I wrote this paper during a period where I was also trying to create the third iteration of my concept art portfolio as I knew after I graduated I would have to find a job. The groundwork was laid for me to be able to use my portfolio as a part of the practical part of my paper but I still felt like it was a big thing on my to-do list. My hope is that you the reader can reference my paper for solutions. Look at my reference list and see how I came out with a university style paper that was all about the things I love: Concept art, star wars, and movies!

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The formatting and language of the paper follow academical English and the formatting guide set forth by my university: Nord University in Norway. For a lot of the sections, I would have been thrilled to double down and analyze the art techniques in depth but there was no room for that in the paper. The paper had to be an academic insight into how concept artists impact the process of taking an idea to blockbuster.

The paper has had the interviewed experts names and information blacked out and replaced. I have not asked for their permissions to use their names in an online article.

They are all working industry professionals. To meet the requirement of the academical English needed in the paper I have instead of quoting sources used them as referenced fact sources. Most everything said in this paper was said better by the original source and the reference list is included as a separate download for copyright reasons.

If I were to reference someone’s paper I would like to know what grade the paper earned. I had an excellent sensor and following his advice earned me a B grade where A was the best possible. By the time I was done, I quite enjoyed the process and there was quite a lot I could have done differently to make it a better paper. I would primarily double down on looking at and understanding the long-term definition of what a “Blockbuster” movie was before it became a defined business strategy and then I would also look into the earnings of studios such as Warner brothers in terms of the viability of the strategy. My primary interest was in the production of the concept art and not the theory aspect of my university paper.