Animation Short Course Starts 27 March 2023

Animation by Sunny Asada

Our 12 week animation course starts on 27 March 2023. The course is aimed at anyone who wants to learn the art and craft of 3D Animation, and aims to take students to a professional level of skill, making them studio-ready talent.

Taught by veteran animation tutor Lee Caller, our animation is designed to help our students find employment in the expanding animation and VFX industry.

Escape Method
We teach the Escape Method - a unique blend of intensive in-class teaching supported by hundreds of online video tutorials, industry mentoring, and a dedicated Facebook Classroom in which our students are encouraged to give and receive feedback, simulating a real studio environment.

Animation Demo Reel
Our students achieve high standards in both character and creature animation. To see our latest demo reel, check out the video above. The reel showcases a variety of character and creature work, suitable for applications to a variety of different animation houses.

Autodesk Maya

Learn 3D Animation
The 12 week animation course is aimed at anyone who wants to learn the art and craft of 3D Animation in Maya - now the industry standard software. You might be a 2D animator wanting to break into 3D, or a graduate who didn’t get the right skills at university – or someone with no experience of animation who wants to make a career change. We teach all our students from scratch, and our goal is to make you job-ready by the end of the course.

Escape Method
We take you through all the essential principles of animation from the very beginning – bouncing a ball – through to sophisticated character and creature animation. We start with the basics of motion and locomotion, building up to pantomime, character performance, and also tackling animals and creatures. The 12 week course runs alongside our new MA in animation, with both groups of students being taught together.

Head of animation Alex Williams

Employability
London has a strong focus on visual effects work and we want our students to be able to tackle the challenges and opportunities in our local market. By the end of the course you should have a polished video portfolio in the shape of an online demo reel to help you find work in this growing but competitive industry. To see some of our recent student demo reels, follow this link.

Course Design
The animation program has been tweaked refined over many years, constantly being adapted to suit the needs of industry, and following extensive industry consultation.

When does it start and finish?
The course starts on 27th March 2023 and lasts for 12 weeks.

Central London Campus
The 3D Animation course is taught at our Central London Campus at 190 High Holborn, WC1. 

Lee Caller teaches a class at Escape Studios

Lead Tutor: Lee Caller

The lead tutor for the 12 week course is Lee Caller, a multiple-award-winning animator with a master's degree in animation and a superb sense of comic timing and storytelling.

Other tutors include myself, and some of the many talented animators who work at Escape Studios.

Most recently we have welcomed Aardman animation director Simone Giampaolo to the animation team. Every animator has their own unique workflow and areas of specialism, so having a variety of tutors helps our students get a broad range of approaches to animation.

Final Brief

The course builds up to a final industry brief, which includes a character performance shot and also a demo reel. To read more about the final industry brief, read this blog post.

Career opportunities

Animation by Eilin Berrio Pena

Our students go on to work in many areas of the industry including 3D animation for films, TV, games, and visual effects. After the classroom course is over we offer three months of online mentoring, so that our students can continue to refine and polish their skills. We take aftercare very seriously – since it can take time to put together a job-ready demo reel, we make sure our students get the time and practice that they need to refine their work to make them job-ready.

Success Stories
To see some of our Escape Studios animation success stories, follow this link. We're proud of our track record of helping our students break into industry, such as Escapee Chan Sagoo, who recently finished working as an animator on Lion King.

Student Work
To see some of the excellent work done by students at Escape Studios, check out our YouTube Channel, and watch our demo reel below:





Where can you sign up?
Follow this link to the official site.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our new BA/MArt starting in September 2023, follow this link.