Beyond The Glass - Disney Animation Florida

Directed by Dane T. and recently uploaded to YouTube, Beyond The Glass: The WDW Animation Building is a new feature length documentary on the Orlando branch of the Walt Disney Animation Studios (known as Walt Disney Feature Animation at the time).  For me personally it's a trip down memory lane, as I started my animation career at Disney MGM Studios on "RollerCoaster Rabbit" back in the lat 1980s.  

How to Make a Short Animated Documentary

How do you make a short animated documentary film? Our second year undergraduate animators at Escape Studios are currently working in teams on their second studio project - a short animal or creature documentary. Making a documentary is the same process as making any short film. There are many elements to consider, from concept to script through storyboard, design, 3D layout, cinematography, animation, lighting and final render. So, how do our students go about successfully making a animated documentary short?

Introducing "Working With Dinosaurs"

Many congratulations to our second year animators on their short film "Working with Dinosaurs". Working with Dinosaurs is a mockumentary short film completed by our second year undergraduate animation students at Escape Studios, working alongside industry mentors from Framestore animation studio.  Directed by Daniel Dutton and Harry Pearson, Produced by Velvet Brandon, Storyboards and Art Direction by Sarah Andrews, Effects Animation by Adam Scrivener, CG supervision by Piotr Noworyta. Well done to our students on their excellent work, and many thanks to Framestore for their patience and support.

Student Showcase - Planet Mars

Many congratulations to our second year undergraduate animation students who have just put the finishing touches on their second group project, a documentary short titled "Planet Mars".  Directed by animation undergraduate student Sebastian Kuder, Planet Mars was completed as part of the second year of animation studies at Escape Studios. To find out what really happened to life on Mars, a planet now entirely devoid of life, watch this short film.

Making of Finding Nemo

Above is an excellent documentary on the making of the Pixar animated classic - Finding Nemo (soon to have a sequel - Finding Dory). YouTube is great source of material on the making of animated films, and watching documentaries like this is the perfect way for our students to educate themselves on how such films get put together. Of course, "making of" films like this also have a marketing function for the studios themselves, to promote the movies, so you can expect a certain amount of marketing and PR. But that's a small price to pay for a genuine and useful insight into how animated films get put together at a top studio like Pixar.  Curious to understand the animation pipeline? Look no further.

Walt - The Man Behind The Myth

Walt - The Man Behind The Myth is a 90 minute documentary about the life of the legendary animator who is, more than any single individual, responsible for the medium that we work in today.  Why watch the documentary? Because it's important to know the history of our medium; we all stand on the shoulders of giants and no-one in our industry was bigger than Disney.  Watching documentaries like this one helps all of us to improve our own work, by taking inspiration from the pioneers of animation, such as Walt Disney and the incredibly talented team that he put together.