Five Questions from Quarantine: Christine Cattano
Christine Cattano, Global Head of VR at Framestore New York, acknowledges the quick degeneration of her WFH set-up and chooses the four people with whom she'd happily be quarantined.
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What's your self-isolation set-up at the moment?
'Isolation' sounds like a distant, vacation dream… I’m currently holed up with my husband, two boys (three-years- and nine-months-old) in our home in Port Washington, Long Island. Set-up week one was something out of an Apple commercial: I had a desk in the spare room with my laptop and second screen, iPad for video calls/news feeds, with my Peloton behind me, which I optimistically intended to use on breaks.
That situation has degenerated quickly as my childcare disappeared. Said room is now a campground for my toddler, Peloton has been used once, and I have been working everywhere from a chair in my bedroom to a beach tent in my backyard. The goal is to go with whatever entertains/contains my children while my husband and I try to juggle getting work done. On the nicer days it’s crucial to get some sunlight and fresh air.
It's lockdown; aside from your family, which four people, past or present, would you most like to be quarantined with?
Henry Cavill. Being practical, Fred Rogers, for my kids; I’m terrified their brain cells are slowly disintegrating without school/childcare. Martha Stewart; she cooks! She cleans! She organises! DaVinci maybe? I dunno… do I have to feed these people? Anyone else will probably wear out their welcome.
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We need entertainment, what's your favourite short film?
After watching them 3,427 times, I can highly recommend the Forky Asks a Question shorts on Disney+.
You've completed Netflix. And Amazon Prime. And Disney+. It's onto the hard stuff; board games. What do you pick?
Since no one in my family is cool or capable enough of playing Star Wars Trivial Pursuit with me, it’s Mrs. Peacock, in the Conservatory, with the lead pipe. #clue4life What about video games? Sadly it’s not the time for me to nostalgically replay FF7, but I also have a few VR headsets at home, so we’ve had a lot of fun laughing at each other playing VR games...
On a serious note, how do you think this situation will impact you individually, and the industry as a whole?
It’s so hard to speculate because it really depends on how long the current situation lasts. The longer it continues, the more profound the impact to our collective psychology and behaviors will be.
I do a lot of work with immersive technology like AR/VR/etc., so on one side of the spectrum it will be interesting to see if this helps break down some barriers for further adoption (provided there is hardware to buy!), but on the other hand, many of our projects involve some aspect of location-based entertainment (LBE) and not only do we not know when we’ll be out in public again, but when and if we’ll feel comfortable gathering and sharing in the same way we did pre-Covid.
I do have to limit my news intake to certain times of day (morning) and a certain amount of articles (the black hole of despair is very tempting), but I’m staying positive so far because I’m able to work from home, and (knock on wood) my family is healthy and I am seeing them all much more than ever before. So, silver linings…
While people are out there hoarding toilet paper and guns, and the news is horrifying, it’s times like these where we realize we love stories of heroes more than we love stories of villains. One only needs to scan social media for a few minutes to find hope and positivity in the amazing stories of healthcare workers and average people doing things, big and small, to help people through this.
Now if I can only manage to get off conference calls for a few hours…
