Frederic Du Chau Visits Escape Studios 23 Jan 2023

Frederic Du Chau

Escape Studios is delighted to welcome Hollywood director Frederic Du Chau will visit our central London campus on Monday January 23rd, to meet our second year animation students, and introduce them to the principles underlying a successful Hollywood pitch. 

What is involved in a great pitch? How do aspiring artists and content creators pitch ideas to studios and production houses?  

Frederic Du Chau has directed many Hollywood films including "Quest For Camelot", "Racing Stripes" and "Underdog".  All of these projects began with a successful pitch. 

Frederic is also the author of the graphic novel "Ameluna", which has recently been released.

Pitching Animation

Pitching is a vital part of the production process.  It's all very well to have a great idea for a film, series or game, but to bring it to life, you need the skills to sell it. Good pitching skills are the artists' best friend - if you can sell your ideas, you can make sure your projects are possible, and secure financing and investment from enthusiastic investors, agents and distributors.

Our students need to learn the nuts and bolts of how to create great animation content, and also how to make a convincing case for it.  In short - how to pitch it.

Frederick Du Chau

As well directing film, Frederic is also the author of the graphic novel "Ameluna", which has just recently been released. 

The Art of The Pitch
One of the challenges of creating any piece of animation is this: why should anyone want to watch it? Is it compelling and interesting?  Animators are performers, and we must give a performance to keep the audience engaged.

Pitching at Escape Studios

Planet Mars - began with a pitch

Pitching projects is a vital skill at Escape Studios, because our group projects are typically decided by majority vote, and the artist who pitched the original idea usually goes on to direct the project. Group project work is one of the five pillars of what we call the Escape Method, which includes intensive classroom teaching, online support with video tutorials, industry engagement, critical feedback, and group project work.

PR5001 Studio Project – 45 Credits
The 2nd year of undergraduate animation study at Escape Studios culminates in the PR5001 Studio Project, where students collaborate to work together to a brief, designed as closely as possible to simulate working on a live client project. The Studio Project runs for 12 weeks.

The Studio Project is broken up into two projects, giving students the chance to practice their film-making skills twice in a short space of time. This allows our animators to learn from their mistakes and polish their skills. Many of these 2nd year projects, including Planet Mars and The Golden Acorn, have gone on to win prizes at International festivals. And every successful project begins with a great pitch.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To find out more about our new BA/MArt, now recruiting for September 2023, follow this link.   To apply, visit the official page here.