SAE masters alumna Stina Erlingsdóttir has enjoyed a lifelong passion for film and photography.
Creativity has been at the forefront of her career and it was this love that led her to join our masters course to further her ambitions.
Since completing her studies, Stina has gone on to work with Supercluster, a global collective of production companies whose mission is to foster collaboration between its various members. Stina’s work is directly linked to the research she undertook as part of her studies while she has also had extensive experience of working on film sets and producing.
In our interview, our alumna shares more about her course experiences and current role within the creative industries…
What led you to the world of film?
It wasn’t something that I always wanted to do. In fact, during junior college, I studied physics and maths and was looking at engineering work. However, the school I was at had a theatre group so I was either in the band or in the production. I had so much fun making music, I realised I wanted to do creative projects.
After college, a lot of my friends were going off to do engineering or become doctors but I went travelling and ended up in Amsterdam.
It wasn’t until the pandemic that everything shut down and a friend of mine did the Audio Engineering course at SAE. I’d already been obsessed with photography and film, he knew I’d be interested in this and I loved my course. I studied my BA at Amsterdam, then my masters remotely via the UK institution.
How did you find the Masters?
The masters was perfect for me in terms of the flexibility to study remotely. There was lots of scope about what you wanted your thesis to be about and great support from tutors.
The main thing about it that I loved was how it enabled me to continue my freelance film production work. I was working through my masters and it gave me a great balance, the teachers were really good at understanding that you need to continue working as part of your career. I think it’s hard to find a programme that will allow you to do this.
What did you focus on?
In my BA, I focused on film production, then with my MA, I explored production too but my thesis was on creative project management within remote and hybrid settings. I knew that this was something I wanted to do too. As much as I loved film, I wanted to step into project management in other fields including museums, theatre, and the gaming industry. There were other sectors that were interesting and ran parallel to film – so I focused my studies on creative project management.
Post-pandemic, there were so many creative companies struggling to manage their hybrid or remote creative teams. They didn’t know how to set up a remote team that could still be effective so that was what my masters focused on.
Today’s workforce demand more from their employers, they know they can do their jobs remotely and can spend more time at home and with their family instead of commuting.
I created a project management structure that would facilitate the needs of the remote employee alongside the needs of employers.
How did you present this?
Most project management systems have very specific structures in terms of how they approach planning or meetings. So I created my own system inspired by project management tools that I picked up via Pixar. There is a book about it written by executives from the company.
I created this structure where I gave tips and tools on managing teams remotely. For example, looking at how to approach feedback, poor performance, and how to structure a team to ensure they would be able to work productively together.
How did you approach life after the Master’s? You now work at Supercluster?
During both programmes of study, I was a full time student and worked throughout most of my masters studies. Working whilst I was studying has always been a priority for me. To get anywhere within the creative industries, experience counts. After my BA, I started working at different companies in production on films.
It was really fun but really challenging. I also started working at a VR company, working with developers in this realm. I was in project management, this was the first time I was working with software developers and 3d artists. This was very fun, but also broadened my experience too.
I also applied for the role at Supercluster, this was a dream job for me, I got this three months prior to graduating.
Now I’m Supercluster’s Creative Operations Manager. Supercluster is a collection of production companies globally that collaborate in various ways. My job is to facilitate that. There is a collaboration around projects, pitches, it’s specifically a remote job where everyone is working across time zones and territories – it’s exactly what my thesis was about. I’ve been there for six months and love it.
What is your day to day like?
There’s no typical day. I work mostly autonomously. My work includes managing finances, meetings and general admin work. But one of my favourite parts involve connecting with new production companies and getting to introduce them to our current partners. With a growing number of partners I see more and bigger creative projects within the cluster being taken on.
We’re going to the Cannes Lions Festival in June. We always do a big event there so I’m behind a lot of the planning for this. This year, in addition to our annual party, we will be hosting a speaking event as well.
A big part of my job is to be available to partners when they need information. I make sure everyone knows what’s going on, there’s a lot of communicating, making things happen and pushing things forward. Our partners will have ideas about expansion or PR and it’s down to me to follow them through.
Visit superclusterglobal.com to find out more.
Study a Masters at SAE
SAE’s 1-year full-time MA/MSc Professional Practice in Creative Media Industries postgraduate degree can help you launch a new career or take you in a bold creative direction.
Whatever your creative industries sector – music business, audio production, marketing, film production, games, animation or web development – you’ll have the opportunity to critically reflect on areas of interest through creative media projects of your choosing.
