Escapees Contribute to 2024 BAFTA Nominees

BAFTA Nominated Escapees in 2024

Congratulations to the many Escapees were awarded screen credits on BAFTA-nominated films this year. 

No fewer than 23 Escapees worked on Guardians of The Galaxy 3 - which was nominated in the category of Best Visual Effects.  Other Escapees worked on The Zone of Interest, Barbie, Spider-Man - Across the Spiderverse and Chicken Run - Dawn of The Nugget.  

BAFTA Scholarships Open Until 20 May 2022

BAFTA is taking applications for three UK based post-graduate scholarships in Film, TV, Animation and Games worth up to £12,000 each. The deadline is 20 May 2022.

The BAFTA scholarships are supported by Warner Bros and the Duke of Cambridge, and include a work placement and also free access to BAFTA events. They can also be used to help finance our MA in 3D Animation, and our MA in Storyboarding & Previsualisation.

Escapee Aman Arora 2022 BAFTA Winner

Aman Arora: BAFTA Winner

Congratulations to Escapee Aman Arora and his team of Escapees (see below); Aman won a BAFTA in the category of Best British Short Animation for his work as VFX Supervisor on the short film Do Not Feed The Pigeons.

Do Not Feed The Pigeons is a short film about a group of lonely travellers in a coach station, directed by Antonin Niclass and produced by Jordi Morera. 

Aman Arora studied The Art of VFX at Escape Studios; he graduated in the summer of 2021 with a First Class Honours degree. 

BAFTA Scholarships Open: Apply by May 26

BAFTA is now taking applications for three UK based post-graduate scholarships in film, TV and Games (and animation, of course) worth up to £12,000 each. The deadline is May 26.

The BAFTA scholarships are supported by Warner Bros and the Duke of Cambridge, and include a work placement and also free access to BAFTA events. They can also be used to help finance our MA in 3D Animation, and our MA in Storyboarding & Previsualisation.

BAFTA Scholarship Open: Deadline 27 May

BAFTA is now taking applications for three UK based post-graduate scholarships in film, TV and Games (and animation, of course) worth up to £12,000 each.

The BAFTA scholarships are supported by Warner Bros and the Duke of Cambridge, and include a work placement and also free access to BAFTA events.

BAFTA Guru 14 & 15 September

Mark your calendars, BAFTA Guru Live is taking place on the weekend of Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th September.

We strongly encourage our students to attend at least some of the workshops; tickets are very inexpensive (just £6 for each masterclass) and are aimed at students and rising talent.

Jericho Shortlisted for Student BAFTA Award

Many congratulations to the makers of the short film Jericho, completed early this year by our third year undergraduate students, which has been shortlisted for the student BAFTA awards.

Jericho is a short film about a lonely robot searching for a friend.  The student BAFTA awards take place every year in Los Angeles, hosted by the Los Angeles chapter of BAFTA.

BAFTA Scholarships for Post-Graduate Study

Want to do an MA in animation, games or visual effects - but short on cash? Why not apply for a BAFTA scholarship?

BAFTA has opened applications for its scholarship programmes, worth up to £12,000.

BAFTA Guru Live Sat 15th and 16th September

BAFTA Guru Live is taking place on Saturday 15th and 16th September.

We strongly encourage our students to apply - tickets are very inexpensive (just £6 for each masterclass) and are aimed at students and rising talent.

"Creating Open Worlds" by Ubisoft at BAFTA on Wednesday 9 November

BAFTA is a superb resource for all our students studying in central London. The BAFTA clubhouse is at 195 Piccadilly - a short walk from our MidTown campus on High Holborn. Increasingly BAFTA is supporting not just film and TV but the games industry as well.

On Wednesday 9 November, BAFTA is hosting a games event titled "Creating Open Worlds", hosted by games titan Ubisoft.

This will be an amazing chance for our games students to meet the creative team behind Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Watch Dogs 2 and Steep. Tickets aren't free, but at £7.50 it's cheaper than a movie, and far more rewarding.

Games Showcase at BAFTA - Dishonored 2 - Saturday 22 October at 5.30pm

BAFTA is a great resource for all our students studying in central London. The BAFTA clubhouse is at 195 Piccadilly - a short walk from our Holborn campus.

On Saturday 22 October at 5.30pm BAFTA is hosting the creative team behind the game Dishonored 2 - an amazing chance for our games students to meet the creative team behind this blockbuster game, and get to know the talent that put it together. Tickets aren't free, but at £7.50 it's cheaper than a movie.

Tech Talks at BAFTA - Starts Tomorrow!

London SIGGRAPH is organising the second annual TECHTALKS, starting tomorrow August 31st. The event is being held in association with VFX powerhouse Double Negative, and is sponsored by Autodesk, makers of Maya, the animation software that is now the dominant platform in our industry.

TechTalks is a two-day conference which focuses on the technical side of our industry. As always, we strongly recommend that our students attend events of this kind. It's always good to know where the industry is heading, and you never know who you might meet.

Escape Studios Interviewed at London Live!

Above is an interview I did on Saturday with London Live, talking about the BAFTA nominees, and also about breaking into the animation and VFX industry. It was a fun interview, and it's always interesting to hear the kind of questions that interviewers want to know about how animation gets made. Claudia-Liza Armah wanted to know about The Lion King, which just goes to show how evergreen that film is, and how well it is still liked and admired - even 23 years on.

At the BAFTAs with the Animation Nominees

Richard Williams (left) and Pete Docter (right)

Saturday night was the BAFTA before-party, held at Kensington Palace this year and a great way to entice all the American nominees to make the trip to rainy London in February. Who wouldn't want to turn up for a party at a royal palace? Above is a photo of two of the nominees: on the left is Richard Williams, whose short film Prologue was nominated for both a BAFTA and an Oscar this year, and on the right is Pixar's Pete Docter, whose feature film Inside Out won the coveted golden statue for Best Animated Film at the BAFTA awards on sunday night.

Richard Williams' "Prologue" Nominated for a BAFTA

A still image from Prologue

Animation guru Richard Williams (who directed The Thief and the Cobbler, and was animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), has had his six-minute animated short Prologue nominated for a BAFTA, in the category of Best Animated Short.

The two other films nominated are Edmond (by Nina Gantz and Emilie Jouffroy), and Manoman (by Simon Cartwright and Kamilla Kristiane Hodol)

The nominees for Best Animated Film are Shaun the Sheep, Minions, and Inside Out.

How to Produce a Movie by David Thompson

David Thompson

Here at Escape Studios we are big fans of BAFTA Guru, the education arm of BAFTA which offers lectures and masterclasses on every possible aspect of Film, TV and Games production.

BAFTA regularly welcomes students and members of the public to hear industry professionals give lectures on the business of making creative media.

One of their best recent presentations was by David Thompson, formerly head of films and single drama at BBC, who talked about how to produce movies and TV shows.

Thompson has over 100 screen credits, including Billy Elliot and Mandela, and is a multiple BAFTA and Golden Globe winner.  We recommend that all our students attend industry events like this whenever possible. You never know who you will meet, and what you will learn about the way the industry actually works.

How Do You Cast a Movie? - BAFTA Explains

You wish! Photo: Wikimedia

How do you cast a movie? The question is just as relevant for animators as it is for live-action film-makers.

If you are hoping to get an animated film project to the big screen (and we want all our students to aim high), then at some point you need to think about casting. And, the bigger the star you can attract, the more likely your movie is to get made, because investors and sales agents will feel more confident that audiences will pay money to see it.

At a recent event at BAFTA in London, part of the BAFTA Guru series of lectures, a panel of industry experts discussed how, exactly, indepedent film-makers can go about casting their film, even if they don't have a big budget to land a big star.

Cinematography at BAFTA with Ben Davis

One of the best things about BAFTA is its focus on regular lectures and seminars on filmmaking, many of which are open to the public.

A recent event at the Picture house Central on London’s Shaftesbury Avenue featured an interview with Cinematographer Ben Davis, whose screen credits include Kick-Ass, Before I Go to Sleep and Guardians of the Galaxy. But why should an animator need to know about cinematography? Because animators are film-makers, and anything that helps you to understand the art of visual story telling will make you better at your craft. And who better to learn from than one of the UK’s best cinematographers?