Escape this Spring!
Want to know what it’s like to work in a thriving, dynamic industry? Escape Studios is offering a taster into the world of computer graphics with its new three-day short courses that highlight the exciting career opportunities on offer to students and provide valuable insight into the industry.
Escape Studios is offering four new taster courses: Introduction to 3D using Maya (the leading 3D imaging software), Introduction to Computer Animation, Introduction to Visual Effects and Introduction to Games, which all contain abbreviated content from Escape Studio’s full-time courses. Over three days, students will learn the basics of 3D effects creation and gain a better understanding of what’s involved in visual effects, character animation and games art with guidance from world-class tutors. The courses are aimed at giving people a chance to get a feel for what a computer graphics job is like and understand what discipline they might want to pursue in the industry.
All four short courses cost £399, which is refunded should the student decide to sign up to an Escape Studio classroom course. Full courses are typically 12 weeks long and have been designed to cover all the basics and provide someone new to the industry with the required skills to begin their career. Escape Studios offer a range of courses including visual effects, animation, games and more. For more information please contact the training team.
Are you a woman trying to break into the film industry? If so, this training course could be just what you’re looking for.
Thanks to funding support from Skillset, Birds Eye View is offering a range of 3D and VFX training, including a 3D Graphics and VFX course specifically for women, which will be delivered by us here at Escape Studios. The training takes place on Sat 6th & Sun 7th March and is designed to give a practical, introduction from anyone wanting an insight into 3D for visual effects and post-production.
This hands-on session will take you through the basic creation of 3D models, the process of camera tracking these into live-action footage and the skills required in lighting and texturing, in order to achieve photo realistic results – it’s a great opportunity for any woman looking to boost their skills, confidence and experience in film.
If you’re interested, download an application column on the right hand column of this web page. All you have to do is submit your application and CV to the following address office@birds-eye-view.co.uk and Birds Eye View will let you know if you’ve been successful.
We look forward to seeing some of you there in a couple of weeks.
Birds Eye View Film Festival runs from 4-12 March at the ICA and the BFI. See at full 2010 programme at: www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/2010/festival
For those of you considering working in this thriving, dynamic industry, we’re offering a taster into the world of computer graphics with a range of three-day short courses. They’re a great opportunity to get a better understanding of the career opportunities out there while gaining valuable insight into the industry.
The four new taster courses available are: Introduction to 3D using Maya (the leading 3D imaging software), Introduction to Computer Animation, Introduction to Visual Effects and Introduction to Games. They all contain abbreviated content from Escape Studios’ full-time courses and will give you the chance to learn the basics of 3D effects creation while gaining a better understanding of what’s involved in visual effects, character animation and games art with guidance from world-class tutors.
All four short courses cost £399 each, which will be refunded if you sign up to one of our classroom courses – these are typically 12 weeks long and are designed to arm you with the required skills to start your career. We offer a range of courses, so for more information check out the site or speak to our training team.
Here’s a selection of what our game course students have created. As I mentioned before, I’m really proud of what the guys have come up with, and I would love to show you every single students work, were it not for amount of space it would take up on the blog. So here, as a compromise, is a selection:
I think you’ll agree there’s some good work here. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some more images soon. It would be great to hear your feedback as well, so any comments much appreciated.
As I’m sure some of you would have seen, last week figures were released showing that revenues from UK videogames hit £1.73 billion last year – a whopping 44% higher than what was generated from UK films during the same time.
If you consider some of the huge cinema releases we saw last year, it’s no mean feat that it was only UK television that made more money than the video games industry.
Impressive stuff, but is it really a surprise?
I’ve said before that playing videogames is becoming a family past time – games consoles are now found in the family living room rather than banished to a “geeky” teenager’s bedroom. Gaming has a far reaching appeal, and I doubt that the growth of the gaming industry will cease any time soon. Interest in our games course, particularly since Sony veteran Simon Fenton came on board, has continued to grow. It’s great to see this exciting industry gaining rightful recognition – not just in terms of increased sales, but in the demand for creative talent which boosts the development of video gaming in the UK.
Would you rather spend two hours playing Modern Warfare 2 or watching Blackhawk Down?
The Skillset Visual Effects Course is now underway and the work which the guys have produced after just six weeks is incredible!
The Skillset Film Skills Fund invested in our visual effects training, by offering 100% funding for 12 lucky participants. In addition to being fully funded, the selected 12 are also paid the minimum wage throughout their attendance on the course
The Skillset Visual Effects course offers a rich mix of intensive practical training and industry work experience, providing participants with the skills and confidence for career success. Participants receive comprehensive training in the use of Maya and Nuke and learn all of the camera tracking, lighting and compositing skills needed to create visual effects shots to a professional standard.
If you’ve any questions about this course or any other training opportunities, drop Joe Kelly our Training Co-ordinator a line. Alternatively, stay up to date with the latest courses and exclusive offers by signing up to our newsletter.
Congratulations to all the finalists of our CG Whiz competition. We had a great time at the Reveal Event last night, meeting the future stars of the CG industry. As we’ve said before, we were overwhelmed by the sheer number and quality of the entries we’ve received.
It’s clear that there’s a lot of talent out there, but there could only be one winner – Adam Droy (spikeycactus)!
Adam excelled across the board. His showreel highlighted his creative flair whilst demonstrating a sound understanding of the techniques involved. We’re very much looking forward to Adam studying with us at Escape next year, and wish him the best of luck during his work placement at The Mill.
The two runners up should also be commended, having fought off stiff competition from over 130 entrants.
Ronan McMeel’s (MrMeel) showreel earned him the runners up position, impressing the judges with his creativity and incorporating a storyline throughout his work.
Marco Baratto (smileandwave1987) also wowed the judges with a technically sound showreel – inspired by the “HP Hand” commercial.
Ronan and Marco – we hope you enjoy Escape Studios’ online courses and exclusive tour of The Mill.
For those of you that missed out this year, or didn’t get around to entering, don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled for information on next year’s competition. You’ll hear about it here first.
Here at Escape Studios, we pride ourselves on our close links with the industry. One of the ways we maintain these links is by having tutors who have done the jobs they teach. This means that our tutors are some of the best CGers in the business, and they’re an incredibly creative bunch.
One of these creative geniuses is Nick Savy, our Characters Course and Creatures Course tutor. Nick’s turned his hand to almost every part of the industry, from video games (working for the likes of Sega) to tv and film, where his work includes time spent on Batman Begins, Doom and the first Harry Potter. With this repertoire it’s no surprise that Nick is always creating, whether it’s in the classrooms with students or doodling in meetings. We think his sketches are pretty impressive, so we thought we’d share them with you (when he lets us). Who knows, maybe they’ll inspire some of you to share with us some of your sketches?
Let us know what you think, and if you’re inspired, show us what you’ve done.
Not sure how many of you have been following this story, but a whopping 20 feature films have been submitted for the Animated Feature film category for the upcoming Oscars. This is great news for the industry as it means we’re well on track to getting five nominees qualifying for the category at the awards next February (we normally only have 3!).
The list goes a long way to show what a great year the industry has had, with hits such as “UP” (which might also be nominated for Best Picture), “Fantastic Mr Fox” and “Coraline”.
We’ve seen the impact this has had on our course sign-ups too – we’ve definitely been struck by animation fever, and it looks like I am going to be kept very busy in the coming months. But it’s not too late to sign up for one of our animation course if you’re still interested.
If you want to find out more about what’s in our Animation Course, then feel free to drop me a line.
Check out the full list of films being considered at Wearemoviegeeks.com and let us know what you think. For my money, UP has to be the front runner – but which film do you think the academy will select?
Thanks to everyone who attended my “Becoming a World-Class Animator” webinar last night – it was great to get a chance to speak to all of you! We’re going to make the presentation available in the Escape Studios Free Resources section of our website soon – so make sure that you keep an eye out for it.
If you didn’t catch this week’s webinar don’t worry, we are running another two sessions before Christmas. You can sign up for them here:
Wednesday 18th November – Sign up now
Wednesday 2nd December – Sign up now
If you were in yesterday’s webinar, we’d love to know what you thought. Posts your comments here and do let us know what other topics you’d like us to cover in future webinars.
