Having started a VFX course here at Escape Studios, I’m keeping a diary to share with you on how the course is going. Here's my update from week 11!

Followers of the Escape Blog may remember that last week, we wrote about a few up and coming films due to hit the screen in early 2013. One that caught our eye in particular, was the Tommy Wirkola directed adaptation of the brothers Grimm fairy tale ‘Hansel & Gretel’.

We were quite pleased this week then, as you’d imagine, when another trailer for the movie, (that, by the way, is aptly titled 'Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters') was released as part of a final promotion push by Paramount, before the film’s belated release on the 25^th of January.

The film stars Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, and picks up the plot 15 years after the gingerbread house-kidnap trauma, when Hansel and Gretel are fully fledged bounty hunters. Prepare yourself for an array of outrageous weapons, some serious explosions and all enhanced of course by some state of the art 3D!

Having started a VFX course here at Escape Studios, I’m keeping a diary to share with you on how the course is going. Here's my update from week ten!

Remember autumn? The pavements littered with fallen leaves? Consider yourself in the shoes of Spanish artist Lorenzo Duran Silva, in his eyes these fallen autumn leaves are thousands of potential canvases.

Inspired by once watching a caterpillar eating  a leaf, Silva takes fallen leaves, washes, dries and presses them before etching intricate pieces of art onto them, creating some outstanding images.

The process can take anything from a week to two months to complete, and this artist has spent 4 years making these creations, boy has he mastered his craft! Be sure to check out this site and see some truly compelling works of art.

We are all familiar with the high octane, VFX loaded, cinematic creations of Ridley Scott - Blade Runner, Gladiator, Alien and Prometheus just skim the surface when discussing this directors back catalogue.

We have welcomed a great many students to our studio over the years, and those students all share something in common. That is, a passion for creativity and to start a career in visual effects. Students come from far and wide to attend our training facility, and emerge with skills that are truly mind blowing for 12 weeks of training. Each and every student invests extraordinary dedication to their work, and through that we are treated to some fantastic results.

We’re back, and with that we’re preparing some exciting events, bringing you the very best in VFX education. Kicking things off as we mean to continue we're holding a live interview and career talk, and look forward to an exciting 2013 filled with creativity and VFX know-how. We look forward to sharing the latest goings-on within the industry. But most of all, we look forward to seeing what you lovely people are creating or will create with the right training behind you.

One of our long standing customers and friend, Managing Director of Glassworks London, Hector McLeod, has taken on a rather 'pedestrian' themed project over the past few months, and not in the usual sense of the word.

Having started a VFX course here at Escape Studios, I’m keeping a diary to share with you how the course is going so far. And here's an update on week seven.

So we shall pick up from where we left off in my previous blog, Reflections (and Refractions) from CVMP 2012 part one.