My name is Erin LaBar, and I will be a Video Game Creative Director. I graduated from Shawnee High School in Shawnee, Oklahoma in the class of ‘22 with a 3.7 GPA. In those 4 years, I grew from being unsure of my abilities if I even had the right to call myself an artist, to someone who was a leader, understood self-compassion, and was accepted into their top college with a near-perfect merit scholarship. In high school, I took almost every opportunity possible to advance myself in my hobbies and career. My proudest accomplishment was becoming a percussionist in the SHS marching band and holding leadership as the Percussion Section Leader for two years. The band was not my only passion, I was president of the SHS Gay-Straight Alliance club, the only LGBTQ+ organization in Shawnee, for two years, and also partook in Mock Trial, the Writer’s Block club, Art club, Student Council, and National Honor Society. Although I have many hobbies I’ve pursued, art and storytelling have always been at the forefront of my mind and creative expression of choice. I knew I wanted to be someone that worked on video games and become an independent developer of my own creations since I was very young. My first games were ones like Minecraft (2011), Journey (2012), and Borderlands 2 (2012). Playing those games sparked a fire in me like no other, and I began taking my art skills seriously. In middle school I experimented with different mediums, and in high school I began planning ahead by taking basic credits at a local community college. In doing so I now have more time to focus on my essential classes, and will have less electives that would take away time from an internship in my later years. The Laguna College of Art + Design was my top and only choice of college, and I poured months into creating my 20 piece portfolio to apply. I was accepted and began the Game Arts degree program for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in fall 2022. As a freshman, I am currently learning what I love about my major and finding just how many career choices there are when it comes to making video games. After taking basic 3D modeling courses and attempting to learn basic code, I have so much respect for the creative process of video games. I’m still learning the specific careers that are in my field, but currently my goal is to shoot for the top as a Creative Director. A Creative Director is someone who speaks the first word of a video game to life. They create and inspire, and as someone brimming with ideas for puzzles, characters, worlds, and stories, I am drawn to a career that gives me the ability to oversee my own projects being brought to fruition by a team of developers. Should I choose a more hands-on developing path, I may end up being a concept developer. Those individuals draft out ideas for how aspects of the game like characters, props, environments, etc. should look and function. They are a key step in the artistic development process, and while they may not have as much say as a creative director, they are still able to play around with their own concepts and ideas of how they envision the project given to them. I ended up with these two in mind based on what I’ve learned so far, but I still have so much to discover in this upcoming semester that I want to keep an open mind for whatever sparks the most joy!

As a musician I have heard many moving and intriguing songs, but none have had such an inspiring impact on me as Für Elise. Since a young child, I’ve always been fascinated with music. I participated in choir and played the piano competitively in elementary, began percussion in my middle school concert band, and am currently in my high school's marching and soon to be concert band. Music is a key part in my life, but the pivotal moment that really sparked my passion for it was hearing the song Für Elise. In elementary school, near christmas time, my teacher would play classical music for the class. Normally I’d be absorbed in a book during quiet time, but Beethoven’s classic always drew in my interest more than whatever fairytale I had found. I would find myself tapping along to the beats, trying to understand how someone could play ivory so elegantly and beautifully. It’s what inspired me to start piano, which taught me many musical terms and foundational ideas that began the process of sculpting my young mind to be the musician I am today. It’s ironic, but even in those 7 years of learning, practicing, and playing piano, the song still eludes me to this day, as I never actually learned it. I think somewhere I kept it in the back of my mind as a goal entirely unachievable to me, even though I played rather intricate pieces and scored superior ratings in state contests. Sometimes I wonder what my musical career would be today had I not heard that song. As high school draws closer to ending for me, I wonder how my passion will survive, and then I hear those flowing notes and know that the inspiration from Für Elise will always be a part of me.