As part of their classroom course with us, our students (who we affectionately refer to as escapees), get a chance to visit working studios to get a taste of what they will be faced with when they start working in the VFX industry. We took our first bunch of escapees to New Deal studios last week, and rather than giving you my thoughts on how the visit went, I asked Greg Pilon - who is taking our Compositing for Production course - to give us a quick summary of his visit.
Escape Studios LA Celebrates the Season
It’s hard to believe we’ve been holding classes for six weeks already. To celebrate that and the holidays, we had a little gathering of friends, students and colleagues. We appreciate all the hard work that’s gone into getting things off the ground and with the pending holiday season, that’s cause to celebrate. Cheers to all and thanks—it’s truly been a team effort.
Classes Off to a Booming Start in LA
In Rick’s compositing course, our students have already made great strides. They are currently working on Keying and Rotoscoping - finishing up the section of the course which deals with the core skills for a junior. Next, the students will start to work in ‘real world’ scenarios, which will help them to become problem solvers. They’ve completed work on the NUKE interface and are now focusing on the art of compositing, and the techniques to approaching problems. After the break they will be working on color correction, 3D in NUKE and CG compositing. They're all very excited to start shooting their own footage and putting together multi-pass composites.
Education Budgets To Take Another Hit?
The ongoing saga of educational budget cuts has me continue to question what lies ahead for students. Although it is a national concern, the issue really hits home right here in California. Programs are closing, professors are relocating to other states to teach, faculty positions are left unfilled and class sizes continue to grow. Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education shares his concern, “What we are seeing is the abandonment of the state’s commitment to make California’s education available to all its citizens.”
More Rube Goldberg Fun
Boing Boing has an article about two grad students from Pratt spending 30 hours to build a device that takes your photo in 30 seconds. How long, do you think, before this idea will be stolen for a commercial? See my recent post. What fascinates us about doing very simple things in a complicated way?
Opportunities for CG Artists With Digital Jobs On the Rise
I think it is safe to say that many of us have been affected by the decline of the economy and downfall of the US job market the past few years. However, times are changing. I wanted to share my recent discovery of this article highlighting the demand for new grads to go digital.
Our Classrooms have Class
Is it weird to be excited about the classrooms at our new academy? The designs for the space are getting finalized and it’s going to be an amazing space both to teach and to learn in. We’re going to have beautiful, brand new, hands-on classrooms as well as a large presentation room for workshops, lectures and master classes. There is even a patio area for informal meetings and render breaks.
Los Angeles, We’re Here and Getting Our Campus Up and Running
We’ve made our way to Los Angeles and are finding our way around now. The city is fantastic and the people are interesting and exciting. We have a new campus in the process of being built out and are truly excited to show our new students the finished product.
Our Students' Work Stands on its Own Two Feet
I was poking around our new US website and hit on some newly posted student work. I thought I’d seen everything on the site because I’m on it every day but there were at least three new uploads that had been posted overnight.
Escape Studios Announces the start of its CG Whiz Annual Talent Competition
Calling all aspiring artists and CG wannabes! Here’s your opportunity to build your dream career. Today we launched CG Whiz 2010 our annual search for the hottest amateur computer graphics talent. We’re offering over $24,000 worth of prizes for the winners, thanks to our co-sponsors, The Mill, CG Society and 3D Artist.
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