My name is Lauren Hjalmarson, and I am\u00a0the owner of startup media and\u00a0communications company Lion Speak Creative. As a consultant, I work primarily with companies in British Columbia\u2019s film and animation industries from my home city of Kelowna, B.C.<\/p>\n
My academic pursuits and interests have varied from my professional endeavours, yet they can certainly be credited for the foundation on which I now operate. I have a diploma in Theatre Arts<\/a> from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario, and just a few courses left in my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Performance<\/a> at UBC-Okanagan. The selection of classes that I have taken at UBCO has been about 2:1:1: theatre, creative writing, and visual art.<\/p>\n From 2014 – 2015, I had the opportunity to use several of my classes to produce a children\u2019s book. This had been a lifelong dream of mine. I wrote and illustrated a chapter book called Rory and the Coyote<\/em><\/a>, the aesthetic of which was inspired by Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/em>. A small local press called Lake Publishing Society released the book, and I\u2019ll be looking for a larger publisher to do a reprint shortly.<\/p>\n Immediately following Rory<\/em>\u2019s publication, I began a summer contract as a journalist, marketer, and videographer for KelownaNow.com<\/a>. This was my second term of work with the digital agency Csek Creative<\/a> \u2013 KelownaNow\u2019s parent company \u2013 and I now apply the experience I gained there to self-employment work with The Film Factory New Media Creative House<\/a>. The Film Factory functions as a hub for its industry in the Okanagan, and I am proud to manage the company\u2019s day-to-day operations and social media channels as their brand ambassador, marketer, and web video producer.<\/p>\n