Escape this Spring!

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.

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?

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.

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!).

Very recently there has been a release of two games engines that you can use at home.

I’m sure you’ve all seen that our website’s undergone a bit of a makeover recently. We’ve added lots more news on our latest courses, free tutorials and information on events including the launch of our fantastic competition CG Whiz.

We’ve got a new set of evening classes at Escape Studios , starting at the end of September. The Compositing Evening Course will allow experienced freelancers and amateur beginners alike to learn all they need to know about compositing in Nuke in twice weekly sessions, helping develop the skills required to becoming a top notch VFX compositor.

We have a dozen places available on our new Skillset VFX course. Funded by Skillset UK’s Film Fund, the places are free for wannabe graphic designers who apply before 21^st August.

I have just started teaching the new Escape Studios' Games Course and thought I would share some book links and internet links that I give to my students at the start of the course. Here we go then...