Adam & Eve Mk II Runner-Up at London Rocks

Many congratulations to Sebastian Kuder, director of "Adam & Eve Mk II", which has won two festival awards at the London Rocks Film Festival.

Adam & Eve Mk II won Best Sci-Fi (Runner Up) and also was awarded Runner-Up in the Category of Best Special Effects.

These are the latest in a long series of festival awards for Adam & Eve Mk II,  a sci-fi re-telling of the Genesis story, which recently won "Best SciFi Short" at the Mid West Horror Film Festival, and was Runner-Up in the category of "Best College Short" at the Brooklyn Sci-Fi Film Festival.

Sebastian Kuder graduated from Escape Studios in the summer of 2019 and is currently working as a PreVis Artist at The Third Floor in London. 

  

Quarantine Chorus Early Bird Grand Award

Many congratulations to Edoardo Sartori, whose short film "Quarantine Chorus" has won the "Early Bird Grand Award" at the Early Bird Student Film Festival in Sofia.

Quarantine Chorus is a short animated film completed by students at Escape Studios about life under Lockdown. 

The film has won a number of awards, including Best Animated Short at the Prix Royal Paris Film Awards, Best Animation at the Berlin Flash Film Festival, and also Best Super Short Film at the Prague Monthly Film Festival.

Sofia Caldeira Layout Artist at Jellyfish Pictures

Many congratulations to Escapee Sofia Caldeira who is working as a Lead Layout Artist at Jellyfish Pictures.

Sofia studied Visual Effects and also Character Creation at Escape Studios, before initially finding work as a 3D Layout Artist at MPC in London. 

Sofia is currently working on a large project for a well-known Los Angeles based animation studio and has been part of the team since  January 2020 

Real-Time Rendering with Blue Zoo on Nov 10

The Escape Studios VFX Festival is back, this time online.  Join us on Tuesday 10 November at 2pm for a webinar with Phil Stewart, "Head of Real-Time" at Blue-Zoo Animation.  

Phil will explain the important of Real-Time rendering at Blue-Zoo. How does the new pipeline affect the production of short films, TV series and commercials? 

Jelly cars Wins "Special Mention" at ANSFF

"Jelly Cars": Special Mention at ANSFF

Escape Studios is proud to congratulate animation tutor Lee Caller whose short film Jelly Cars has won a "Special Mention" Award at the Arte Non Stop Film Festival in Argentina. 

This is the second award for Jelly Cars; earlier this year the short won a "Five Stars" Award at the British International Amateur Film Festival. 

Street Ratz Wins Best Trailer at Vesuvius

"Street Ratz" wins "Best Trailer" in Vesuvius Fest

Many congratulations to the makers of "Street Ratz", which has won Best Trailer at the Vesuvius Film Festival. 

This is the latest award for "Street Ratz", which recently won "Best Trailer" at the Changing Face International Film Festival in Australia, and was also nominated for "Best Trailer" at the Assurdo Film Festival in Milan in July.  

Street Ratz" is a teaser/trailer written and directed by Austin Hill, a graduate student at Escape Studios who studied on our MA in Storyboarding & Previsualisation.

"Evening With..." Aldo Gagliardi Tomorrow

Aldo Gagliardi

We're hosting "An Evening With... " animator Aldo Gagliardi tomorrow Thursday 5th November at 6pm, as we welcome our next special guest at Escape Studios.  

Aldo Gagliardi is Head of Animation at Passion Pictures in London.  His many film credits include Where the Wild Things Are, Arthur Christmas, Avatar, Nanny McPhee, Tale of Despereaux and Gravity.  

Aldo takes us through his personal animation journey, how students can break into the animation industry, and how graduates can find work despite lockdown and Covid-19.  A Q&A will be held at the end. 

Anim, Story & Previs Fair on Nov 30th at Noon

Bear animation by Amanda Costa

We're hosting a Storyboarding, Previsualisation and Animation Fair on Monday 30th November 2020 from 12pm to 1pm. 

The event takes place online via Zoom, and is an opportunity for prospective students to find out about our courses in Animation, as well as Storyboarding & Previsualisation.

To book your free place, register on Zoom.

Offcut Best Short at Arte Non Stop Festival

Many congratulations to the makers of "Offcut", which has won a "Winners Award" at the ArteNonStopFestival in Argentina. 

This is the sixth festival award for "Offcut", which recently won Best Animation at the Beer Town Film Festival in Burton-on-Trent, winning a prize of £500. In July Offcut was selected for the finals for "VFX Film of the Year" in The 2020 Rookies, and in June "Offcut" won two awards: "Best Under 5 Minute Film" at the Flicks Film Festival, and Best DOP (Director of Photography) at the "We Make Films Festival" in London.

Axis Animation Panel Thurs 5 Nov at 5.30pm

Escape Studios are hosting an event next week with Glasgow-based Axis Studios on Thursday 5th Nov at 5.30pm.  Axis are a Scottish studio known for the high quality of their work and especially for their Game Trailers. 

Three senior guests from Axis will joins us on 5th November to talk about Teamworking in the animation industry. The event is open to all our current students at Escape Studios. 

How do studios maintain a spirit of teamwork despite Covid-19, and remote working?  How do new starters get inducted into a new production role when working from home. 

UCAS Deadline 15 January 2021

UCAS - time to apply

It's that time of year again; time to start thinking about your UCAS application. If you're thinking of applying to Escape Studios to study the Art of 3D Animation, Games or Visual effects, it's time to think about UCAS. 

The relevant UCAS deadline is January 15th 2020, but it's always a good idea to apply early.   We are welcoming applications for the fifth intake of our new integrated BA/MArt in Animation, Games and VFX - launched in September 2016.

No1 Reason Why Animators Don't Get Hired

What is the No 1 reason why animation graduates don't find work in the industry? It's not what you think. It's not because their demo reel isn't good enough, it's not because they fluffed the interview. The real reason why animation graduates don't find work in the industry is because...watch the short video above to find out.

"Seeker" Wins Best VFX at Flicks Fest

Many congratulations to Escapee Rassoul Edji, whose short film "Seeker" has won "Best VFX" at the Flicks Film Festival in London.

This is the latest of a series of wins for Seeker, which won Best Low Budget Film at the Assurdo Film Festival in Milan in August, "Best Short" at Lisbon Film Fest, and "Best Cinematography" at the European Film Festival.  The film was also selected as a finalist in this year's Rookies competition, and was nominated for Best Director at the Prague Film Festival.

AN5002 Starts on Monday 2nd November

Sabre tooth tiger by Paloma Zhu

Next week on Monday 2nd November our 2nd year undergraduate animators start a new module: AN5002: Advanced Computer Animation.

In this module, worth 30 credits, students get to grips with animating animals and creatures.

The module starts on Monday 2nd November and lasts six weeks. It finishes on Friday 11th December  shortly before Christmas.

In AN5002 students develop their skills in animal and creature animation, including quadruped locomotion and performance.

Work Fitness Week Mock Interviews

Mock Interviews are something we take very seriously at Escape Studios. Last week we invited our students to register for a series of mock interviews with some of our industry partners and mentors, who kindly offered their time to give our students an idea of what a job interview is actually like.  Learning how to survive an interview is an important part of preparing our students for a career in industry.  Of course, the key to success in the animation, games and VFX industries is primarily about having a great demo reel, easy to find and well-presented.  Once a studio is interested in your demo reel, the next stage is the interview.   In the short video above I explain why we do mock interviews, and what they are for. 

Over Under Best Sci-Fi at Flicks Festival

Many congratulations to the makers of "Over Under" , which has won "Best Sci-Fi" at the Flicks Monthly Film Festival.

"Over Under" is a short film created by our 2020 graduating class of animators. 

At over seven minutes, "Over Under" is our most ambitious animated film project so far.  Directed by Lucy Harris and produced by Aidan Lonergan, "Over Under" includes some very stylish production design and confident character animation. 

Winning Festival Awards at Film Freeway

Entering your film into festival competition can be a daunting process. In the past two years we have had considerable festival success at Escape Studios, with around two dozen films being entered into competitions, winning awards and prizes. The main platform we use is Film Freeway, the leading way for film-makers to enter short films into international competitions. In the short video above, I explain how the system works.

Free Panel Talk with ILM 22 Oct at 5.30pm

Tomorrow Thursday October 22 at 5:30pm VFX powerhouse ILM are coming to Escape Studios (via Zoom of course). 

ILM are hosting a special panel just for our students at Escape Studios.  Do you want to become more employable as an artist in a major studio? If so, sign up for the panel discussion tomorrow.

The panel with ILM focuses on the importance of communication skills and how they form a vital part of the production process.  

How to Animate Lipsync

Above is a short video on how to animate lipsync, showing how to keep the process as simple as possible.  The idea is to break things down into easy sections so as to make sure that your work starts off simple and gradually grows in complexity as you layer in the detail. At its simplest, good lipsync is just about opening and closing the mouth on the vowels, and closing it on the consonants. But, developing a system to keep it simple and at the same time get a sophisticated result, is all part of mastering the art and craft of animation.

The Best Book to Learn Animation

The Animator's Survival Kit  is the core textbook we recommend to all our student animators at Escape Studios. The ASK is now the standard textbook for animators and easily the most comprehensive book available for learning animation.  We have two copies in the library at 190 High Holborn, and it can also be bought as an eBook download for the iPad. It's even better as an eBook since you can watch the videos as well, to illustrate the examples.  Watch the video above to find out why it's so useful.