Mike is a multi-disciplinary designer working in the film and video game industry.
Mike designs worlds for the entertainment industry, creating concepts for film, TV and video games. Among other projects, Mike has designed for films such as Blade Runner 2049, HBO's Game of Thrones, as well as for video games such as the best-selling Call of Duty series Sony's award-winning Horizon: Zero Dawn and the upcoming Dune and more.
Mike's works have been published in the Spectrum series as well as in Expose 3: The Finest Digital Art in the Known Universe. Mike contributes to magazines such as Popular Mechanics and 3D World and is regular lecturer at events such as Industry Workshops in London as well as Portugal's Trojan Horse was a Unicorn.
Mike's major interest is in the psychology of storytelling and how an understanding of mythology and contemporary psychology is crucial to understanding how great stories work.
Mike currently works as a design consultant in the film industry - advising on scripts as well as creating production designs for upcoming unannounced projects.
The Power of Metaphor
Making a mainstream film that is culturally resonant, critically acclaimed and financially successful is a rare achievement, yet some filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan and David Fincher consistently tell stories that tick all of those boxes.
Under the surface of their most celebrated films lies a hidden architecture that operates on an unconscious level; This talk is designed to illuminate the techniques that great storytellers use to engage a global audience on a deep and meaningful level through psychological metaphor.
