Undergraduate Open Day Thursday 8 Jan 2026

UG Open Day Online Thursday 8 January 2026

Escape Studios is hosting an online undergraduate open day on Thursday 8 January 2026 with Deputy Principal Simon Fenton from 5-6pm GMT.

Escape Studios' Open Days are a chance to find out about our undergraduate degrees in Animation, The Art of Games and Visual Effects.

An Open Day is an opportunity for potential students to find out how they can follow in the footsteps of our award-winning alumni and to find out more about our courses.

Video Tutorial Library at Panopto

Tutorial Videos at Panopto at our Student Portal

Introducing the Escape Studios Video Tutorial Library at Panopto.  Escape Studios' Tutorial Channel at Panopto is now our main hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies. 

How To Use The Graph Editor in Maya

This short video (just a few minutes long) shows how to use Maya's Graph Editor Tool. The Graph Editor is the key tool in Maya for learning 3D animation. For students who have never encountered 3D software before, the Graph Editor is likely to be confusing at first, so it's important to learn how it works.  After a short while, the Graph Editor will become your best friend. 

Video Tutorials for Character & Creature Creation

Lizard Man by Paul Strachan

Escape Studios Head of Creative Technology Michael Davies has curated a list of online resources for our BSc/MSci in Character Creation, our MA in Character & Creature Creation, and our Evening Class in Character & Creature Creation. 

Our new BSc/MSci in Character Creation for Animation builds on our successful MA in Character & Creature Creation.  In both courses, students learn the character creation pipeline from concept to final implementation.  The video tutorials are intended to complement our classroom teaching. 

Animate Monty "Smokin!"

In the short beginner's animation tutorial below we show how to animate a character with no mouth saying a line of dialogue.  But how can you animate dialogue and lipsync - with no lips?  The answer is - it's all in the acting and the performance.  If the body language is working, then the audience will believe that the character is speaking - even if the character itself has no mouth.  In this tutorial we animate "Monty" saying a line of dialogue - "Smokin!" - the line originally delivered by Jim Carrey in the 80s hit movie The Mask. 

Materials, Lighting & Rendering Tutorials at Vimeo

3D VFX at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel 

Our Escape Studios Vimeo Tutorial Channel supports our students with online resources for Materials, Lighting and Rendering.  

Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our central hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

We have tutorials on Materials, Lighting and Rendering in Arnold, Renderman, Unreal Engine, and also how to use Qube, the Escape Studios' Render Farm. 

FX Animation in Maya at Our Vimeo Channel

FX animation by Conall Ferguson

Escape Studios Vimeo Tutorial Channel supports our students with online resources for their studies, including Technical Animation such as nCloth, Muscle Systems, Dynamics, Simulations and Hair.  

 
Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our central hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

Tutorials include how to use nCloth in Maya, as well as the use of muscle systems in Ziva Dynamic, and two cool tutorials in After Effects. 

Vimeo Channel - Character Animation Tutorials

Animation by Sunny Asadi

Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is a hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easier than ever for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

Tutorials begin with the basics, such as the bouncing ball, and progress through to complex character and creature animation.  Start at the beginning, and work your way though.

Animal & Creature Tutorials at Our Vimeo Channel

Dragon animation cycle by Tim Golton

Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our main hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easier than ever for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.   Tutorials include quadruped locomotion - walks, trot and runs, and also how to combine clips.  

Other tutorials show how to animate spiders, birds, dinosaurs and dragons - everything you need to master the art and craft of animal and creature animation. 

How to Use Escape Studios' Online Library

For all our students at Escape Studios - don't forget about the Online Animation Library. The Online Library is where we keep digital copies of our books on animation and film-making.  Of course, we also have hard copies in the traditional animation library (ie actual physical books) on the Third Floor at 190 High Holborn, but the digital copies are arguably more useful as they can be accessed from anywhere at any time.  To find the Online Library, follow this link.

How Feedback Works at Escape Studios

How does feedback work at Escape Studios?  Animation is an iterative process, and student animators learn by systematically correcting their mistakes and improving their technique through regular positive feedback. Feedback can often feel negative, but it's important to remember that everyone at Escape Studios is there to help all our students do their best work. When we push you to do better, it's because we want you to do the best work you possibly can. So how does feedback work? There are a number of ways in which students at Escape Studios can get regular feedback and positive criticism.

Online Story & Previs Taster Day May 13th

Iliana Franklin teaches at Escape Studios

We're running a free online taster day in previsualisation & storyboarding on 13th May.

Taster days are an opportunity for prospective students to get a feel for the content of our pioneering MA in Previsualisation & Storyboarding, which returns to our High Holborn campus on 25th September 2020.

Story board & Previs artist Iliana Franklin, whose production credits include The Tale of Despereaux, will teach the class; and the taster is free.

Amedeo Beretta Teaches L7 Online

Amedeo Beretta 

Like all our animation tutors, Amedeo Beretta has moved his teaching online since the start of the Covid-19 Crisis. Amedeo currently teaches our Level 7 students, who are working to complete their integrated Master's Degree in Animation, Games and VFX.

Currently the L7 students are working on two large projects; one a teaser/trailer for an upcoming movie and the second a games project. Both projects still require a good deal of work to take them to completion, and both are now being carried out entirely remotely.

In this blog post, Amedeo explains how he is continuing to run his online classes.

Iliana Franklin Moves Story Teaching Online

Iliana Franklin

Like all of our animation tutors, Iliana Franklin has moved all her teaching online.  Iliana teaches our MA in Storyboarding and Previsualisation, and has been successful in moving the class away from the traditional bricks-and-mortar approach.

In this blog post, Iliana explains how the Story & Previs MA is now running smoothly from online platforms, and how students can best access the available resources.

Escape Studios E-resource Hub Now Live

Escape E-resource hub

The Escape Studios E-resource Hub is now live.  This web page has much of our online content in one place, including information and links to register for our online events, webinars, video resources, links to Escape blogs and links to all of our downloadable guides.

As we continue to do more virtually, it's a useful tool to help us make our content and events more accessible to current and prospective students.

Michael Davies Teaches on Discord & Shotgun

Michael Davies

Like all our animation tutors at Escape Studios, Michael Davies is now teaching his classes purely online.

Using Discord and Shotgun for remote interaction with his students at Escape Studios, Michael continues to manage the ambitious third year Studio Project currently being completed by the third year animation students.

In this blog post, Michael explains what tools he is using to make the move online, and how his students can get the best out of the new working environment. 

Marc Stevenson Moves L4 Teaching Online

Marc Stevenson

Like all our animation tutors, Marc Stevenson has moved his teaching of animation basics to purely online delivery.  To communicate with his students, Marc is using a combination of Google Meet, SyncSketch and Facebook, and has in addition created a new animation tutorial channel at YouTube. 

In this guest post, Marc explains what's involved in teaching the fundamentals of animation from an online platform, and how his first-year animation students can make the best use of the resources available. 

Learn to Animate a Walk at Our Vimeo Channel

Learn to animate a basic walk cycle with "Monty", the green pea, at our Vimeo Channel, available to all our students and Escapees.

The videos have added to our growing series of animation tutorials, hosted at Vimeo, with a tutorial on how to animate a basic walk.

The tutorial uses the free Monty rig, one of the rigs that we recommend for student use in the early stages of learning animation.  Monty was created back in 2007 by Raveen Rajadorai, and is free for download at Highend3D.com.

Tips to Work Remotely From Saint John Walker

Saint John Walker

As we move our classes to online delivery, Our Deputy Dean, Saint John Walker, has written a helpful guest post titled 12 Tips to Working Remotely for Students.

Online learning is our new reality, and fortunately we have many online resources here at Escape Studios to facilitate distance learning.

Saint Offers some advice on how to stay sane in these very strange times, which will impose significant stresses on students and faculty alike.

Online Resources at Escape Studios

Working from home

In these uncertain times it's important to remember that we have many online resources at Escape Studios, lots of ways of supporting our students who are currently working from home.

As long as you have a laptop and a decent broadband connection, our students can continue to work remotely, following tutorials, working on projects and also working in teams on platforms such as Facebook and Slack.

The tutors at Escape Studios offer feedback and support to all our students via email, our online classrooms, bespoke video feedback, and through our Vimeo channel.