We’re getting pretty excited here at Escape Studios and looking forward to July 12th, when 3D Creative Director at The Mill, Jordi Bares, will be taking part in our special VFX Open Day.
The Hidden Beauty of Pollination
Those of you who, like me, enjoy beautiful photography are in for a real treat with this one. Louie Schwartzberg has spent a life time filming flower pollination in its most minute details and his work is of breathtaking beauty.
Would You Pay For Your Own Training to Get Ahead?
Would you pay for your own training to get ahead of the competition and secure a better job? Well that’s one of the hot topics in our new Creative Futures Report which launches today.
Online Mentored Student Spotlight: Miska Janhunen
Finland native, Miska Janhunen had been working for his family’s visual design firm as a Webmaster for some time, but he harboured a dream of working in VFX. For years he has been trying to find time and flexibility to study CG. “Because of my location and current situation in life, it felt more or less ‘mission impossible’. Then, in the autumn of 2010, I found Escape Studios’ Online Mentored VFX course and all the pieces fell into place.”
DNeg Snaps up Two VFX Professional Escapees
When I see students go from first day newbies to fully-fledged VFX artists I can’t help but feel that they absolutely deserve it. After weeks of rigorous training learning how to create believable CG, the moment comes when they start looking for a job. And that’s exactly what happened to Pasquale Riefoli and Maria Busco who have both secured jobs at Double Negative!
L.A. Noire in 7 Years!
So how long does it take to make a console game? Of course it varies from project to project but Team Bondi are no strangers to long haul development.
Join us at this Year's Pixar RenderMan User Group Meeting
We are delighted to announce that Pixar and Escape Studios in association with the VES will be hosting the London RenderMan User Group meeting on Thursday, July 21st at 6:30 pm. In a break with the usual tradition, the first of this year's RenderMan User Groups is actually taking place in London, ahead of the Siggraph RenderMan UGM.
Zappar: A Total Geek Fest!
I thought it was going to be one of those 'office' moments when a colleague pulled some papers out of his bag and said "you must see this"... He is important, so I paid good attention...!
Escapee Showcase: Ben Revens
As promised here's another escapee reel. This time from Ben Revens, one of our recent VFX graduates. This is a great reel with good examples of work from two of our most popular courses. The violin and tank shots were produced during our 12-week Visual Effects Production course. The more elaborate and advanced staircases shot was produced during our 6-weeks Visual Effects Professional extension which Ben took straight after his VFX Production course.
CWJobs Speaks To Escape Studios About Becoming A VFX Artist
A few weeks back, CWJobs spoke to our Recruitment Manager, Garreth Gaydon about the best way of getting a job in the VFX industry when you're first starting out. The feature which you can read in full here discusses the high demand for jobs in the VFX industry and the kinds of first jobs that will enable you to get your foot in the door and make it as a VFX artist. It’s a tricky industry to enter because it is both highly creative yet technically very demanding which requires a serious amount of skill and creative ability.
An Interesting Google Chrome Experiment With WebGL
The Ro.me site created in association with Google is doing the rounds at Escape Studios at the moment. In fact, you might even have read the story that Miles posted a few days ago.
Annecy Animation Film Festival
Every June I look forward to heading off to Annecy, not for the sight seeing (although it is a very beautiful place) but for the Film Festival of course. Sadly however, I didn’t attend this year.
Escapee Showcase: Roger Serrabassa Vilar
We're very proud of the work we do here at Escape Studios but we probably don't show enough of our students' work. Over the coming months we're going to be featuring much more student work on our website but in the meantime I wanted to start showing some of the reels from our most recent graduates.
CMVP: European Conference on Visual Media Production
CVMP, the European Conference on Visual Media Production, taking place on the 16th & 17th of November 2011 at the BFI Southbank, London, is putting out a final call for papers.
Industry Coaching Diary of Compositing Escapee Clement Roland
Some of you may have seen a series posts from students' 'coaching diaries' on our blog recently. For those of you who don't know, some of our students studying our classroom courses are being coached by the industry's biggest post houses; The Mill, Double Negative and Framestore. This week, compositing student Clement Roland shares his experience with us.
Free Tutorial - Demolish a Brick Wall With nCloth In Maya
If you're reading this blog, then chances are you're like most of us here at Escape Studios and love blowing things up and putting them back together again. So this month's free tutorial should be right up your street because we're going to teach you how to demolish a brick wall using nCloth.
Shoot! New footage For Our VFX Course
A few weeks back I took my class to the Natural History Museum so that we could generate some new footage which they could camera track with. It was lots of fun as they not only got to film live-action footage, they knew exactly what they would have to work with when getting back to the classroom. For me, keeping things fresh is important - and so filming new footage for the students to work with is a must. As you can see from the video, we're all pretty excited to be out of the classroom!
Why Are Young People Made to Choose Between Math Or Art?
When I was picking my GCSE's and A levels I had to pick between two routes, Maths or Art. This I believe, is still the case, but I'd like to ask why?!
Games Course Escapee Holly Pickering Gets Job At Travellers Tales
We have got some good news to share today about one of our Games Course escapees. Holly Pickering - who finished our Games Art Course a little while back - will be joining Adam Esat (another escapee) at Travellers Tales working on AAA titles as a Character Modeller.
Do Universities Need To Teach Basic Job Skills?
An announcement by Edge, the education charity, caught my eye this week. It said that universities should now be required to teach employment skills as part of degree courses. According to its latest study, employers now believe too many graduates are unfit for the workplace.