Simone Giampaolo to Escape Studios 7 April

Simone Giampaolo

We're delighted to welcome back Oscar-shortlisted animation director Simone Giampaolo to Escape Studios on Thursday 7 April to give our second year animation students feedback on their film projects.

Simone Giampaolo is a veteran animator and animation director whose short film "Only a Child' was short-listed for an Oscar this year.  Simone is currently Creative Director at Jellyfish Animation in London. 

Simone will help guide our student projects, part of Module PR5001 in which our students create short films in teams.

Simone Giampaolo Oscar Shortlist Q&A

Escape Studios' tutor Simone Giampaolo is hosting a free Q&Q tomorrow Friday 28 January at 7pm GMT about his Oscar-Shortlisted short film "Only a Child", a "visual poem" created by over 20 animation directors.

"Only a Child" is a short film based on the words spoken by the then 12 year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki at the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, in which she made a plea in verse to world leaders for better environmental protection. 

Simone Giampaolo Presents "Only a Child"

On Tuesday 12 October at 12.30pm we are hosting a webinar with animator, director and Escape Studios' tutor Simone Giampaolo about his new short film "Only a Child", which he describes as a "visual poem" created by over 20 animation directors.

"Only a Child" is a short film based on the original words spoken by the then 12 year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki at the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, in which she made a poetic plea from a child's perspective for better environmental protection. 

Simone spent twelve months working with twenty studios to create the award winning film.  In this webinar, Simone will talk about how he made the film, and how he led an international team working remotely to celebrate the environmental youth movement.  

This event is open to our currently enrolled students only; there will be a Q&A to follow.

Simone Giampaolo: How Cartoons are Born

Simone Giampaolo at VIEW conference

Escape Studios animation tutor Simone Giampaolo was at the View Conference in Turin this past week, talking to a packed audience about How Cartoons are Born.

Simone explained the basics of animation, including the Twelve Principles, such as the importance of strong poses and silhouettes. He also explained some of the basics of design; such as the use of circles, triangles and squares to express basic contrasts between animated characters.

Funny Fail Stories on Tuesday 29 October

Funny Fail Stories is coming; book your seats on Tuesday 29 October for tales of failure from the world of animation and VFX.

Hosted by Escape Studios' tutor Simone Giampaolo, and sponsored by Escape Studios, this event takes place at Zigfried Von Underbelly at 11 Hoxton Square, London N1, just a 5 minute walk from Old St Tube station.

Speakers bringing tales of disaster and near-disaster in the animation and VFX industry include Alina Bopele from Studio AKA,  Sabina Janetzka from Cinesite, and Stefano Marrone from Nucco Brain.

The event is also supported by the London chapter of SIGGRAPH.

Tickets are free and you can book them here.

Lipsync Tutorial by Simone Giampaolo

We've uploaded a new tutorial on animating Dialogue & Lipsync to our Vimeo channel.

Like the recent tutorial titled Building and Blocking a Scene, this one is by Aardman director and visiting tutor at Escape Studios, Simone Giampaolo.

In this 8-part video, Simone explains how to approach the challenge of animating dialogue and lipsync, breaking the process down into a simple, dependable workflow.

"Smear Frames" Tutorial by Simone Giampaolo

Daffy Duck "smear" drawing

What is a "Smear Frame"? Smear Frames are a technique developed in early the days of hand-drawn animation, to simulate motion blur in super-snappy animation, in the style of Tex Avery or Chuck Jones, such as in the Daffy Duck example to the left.

Today, the acknowledged master of the smear drawing is animation legend Eric Goldberg (he boarded and animated the "Genie of the Lamp" sequence from Aladdin).

But how do you do a Smear Frame in 3D animation, using Maya character rigs? Escape Studios animation tutor Simone Giampaolo explains how, in this new tutorial at our Vimeo Animation Channel. 

Animate a "Take" with Simone Giampaolo

One of the most common problems encountered by student animators is how to block out a shot from scratch, starting with nothing but a blank screen and a character rig.

After all, in animation you get nothing for free. You start off with a digital puppet, usually in a stiff "T-pose", and have to figure out the rest yourself.

Luckily for our students, Aardman animation director and Escape Studios' animation tutor Simone Giampaolo has recorded a series of videos for us, showing how to take a shot from zero to hero. 

Drawing Club Returns with Simone Giampaolo

Drawing Club is back, with a special guest tutor.

On Tuesday 29th January at 4.30pm Escape Studios welcomes Aardman director Simone Giampaolo, who will be leading Tuesday's class.

Even if you can barely draw a stick figure - come along and get stuck in. Drawing club is for beginners as well as experts, so don't be shy.

Happy New Year from Escape Studios!

WIP Fight Sequence 2019 from Simone Giampaolo on Vimeo.

Happy New Year from Escape Studios and from our newest animation tutor, Simone Giampaolo, who is clearly so awesomely talented that he was able to knock out this animated tribute to 2019 in about 10 minutes, with his left hand, while fixing dinner and also calling his Mum (well, I exaggerate a little).  Simone has recently been teaching animation to our Short Course students and, starting on Monday 7th January, he will be teaching the Advanced Animation and Master's students the secrets of character acting and performance. Happy New Year to all our students; may it bring success and prosperity to us all.

Simone Giampaolo to Teach at Escape Studios

Simone Giampaolo

We're delighted to welcome animation director Simone Giampaolo to Escape Studios, to teach our short course and masters' animation students.

Simone worked at Blue Zoo animation in London for many years as an animator, rising to become animation supervisor and eventually director of some of Blue Zoo's best animation shorts.

Simone is now working as an animation director for Aardman animation in Bristol, but we managed to find a couple of gaps in his schedule to teach our animation students.