A while back we told you all about our new ‘Industry Coaching’ scheme which some of our classroom students are fortunate to be part of. For those of you who don’t know, this basically means that some of the major post houses act as mentors for our students throughout the 12 or 18 weeks of classroom study that they embark on when they study with us in London. This means that they get professional feedback and expert industry advice relevant to the field they are going to work in. It’s no surprise to hear that our students are absolutely delighted with it. All of them are they working extra hard to impress but more importantly, they are getting front-line expertise. We caught up with escapee Alexander Kubinyi who told us what the experience was like in his own words.
Good God - Escapees Are Winners!
A while back we featured a blog post about our escapees working on a short film called God View for the East End Film Festival. We are delighted to say that the film picked up best short film in the UK and so massive congratulations to Billy Lumley and all of the escapees that worked on it.
Escape Studios Courseware On The iPad?
We had an enquiry from one of our online students asking if she could view our online courseware on an iPad via the Skyfire app to view flash content... As we have not yet worked on mobile releases of our learning system (busy building fab courses), I thought I would take a look at it as I was kind of intrigued.
So I invest my £2.99 and loaded her up! I was amazed I could get in to our system and play the video content! Sadly my joy soon tempered when I could not make out the text in the 3DS Max interface. #disappointed!
The loading was also a little clunky to be honest, you would select a video to view and it would load a little window in the bottom left hand of the screen and find the video. Not elegant.
Not to be beaten I decided to look at some additional apps. Whilst I am sure there are others I came across iSwifter. It was also cheaper at £1.79 ;-)
So I was again a little disappointed, this time with the speed of scrolling in our system... However - once I played a video it was seamless, no drop outs excellent quality and I was really very happy with the results.
Whilst we do not 'officially support' the iPad or mobile devices, I now know at least I can grab iSwifter and load up a video with my iPad. If you do have an iPad and want to try this out iSwifter do allow you to take a peak so why not grab one of our free tutorials and give it a go?
Have a great weekend everyone.
The BBC Visits Escape Studios
We were absolutely delighted when Iain Mackenzie of the BBC chose to come to Escape Studios to chat to Lee Dankin and Mark Cass about the state of the UK Visual industry, which is currently booming.
Dogboarding. Confused? So Were We.
Something fun for a Friday. I'm sure most of you have seen this by now as it has been shared on lots of social networking sites. For those who haven't, here is a cool short film by the directing duo Daniels - called Dogboarding. It's a quirky, original idea and great fun to watch.
Games Escapee Ross Garfoot Secures Job at Playground Games
Another one of our Games Art Production course escapees has just landed a job. This time it is Ross Garfoot who just secured a job at Playground Games - well done Ross!
"I can't wait to start my VFX Course" explains CG Whiz winner Stu Schwartz
Since I’ve been back at school I’ve been constantly asked about the CG Whiz competition. Are you excited about going to LA and studying with Escape Studios? When will your placement start at The Mill? Are you nervous? Apprehensive? And truth is: I'm totally overwhelmed, but so excited! The more I look at what the course entails, the more eager I get. I’m looking forward to learning new 3D programs that I haven’t used before. And not only that, but delving deep into them. I’m hoping that this will give me a much broader knowledge of VisFx. I’m also really thrilled about the Instructors who I will be learning from directly - they are all incredibly qualified and will be invaluable as mentors to me!
New 18 Week composting course launched
I'm really pleased to announce a new addition to our full-time classroom courses - Compositing Professional. This course builds on the amazing success of our 12 week compositing for production course and adds an additional 6 weeks of advanced training. This extra time will give students the opportunity to develop skills to really set them apart from other juniors looking to enter the industry - covering subjects such as compositing for stereoscopic and the advanced techniques needed to work with high end 3D visual effects. Part of the course includes a dedicated project week where you'll be able to work on your showreel and make sure that it really stands out from the crowd.
Please getting in touch with training team or come along to one of our open days to find out more.
A New VFX Outfit to Watch
Currently wowing audiences everywhere, and hot off the back of its Oscar nominations, Danny Boyle’s latest film 127 Hours is something we’ve been keeping a particular close eye on. Obviously we’re fans of Mr Boyle’s work (personally, I can’t wait to see the Olympic opening ceremony), but in this case we’re more interested in a small team of people working behind the scenes.
Escape Studios on Tour!
Escape Studios is hitting the road this year undertaking a program of talks, presentations and master classes throughout the UK universities and colleges.
Free Webinar - Mentored Training Tour
We've had lots of questions about how our Mentored Training works and we thought it would be great to give people a guided online tour. We'll take you through what you'll learn on the course but more importantly, how you'll learn on this course - demonstrating our unique e-Learning platform.
Online versus classroom
MediaCity UK - Salford Quays, Manchester
I was invited up to take a look around MediaCityUK UK last week. I didn't really know what to expect, I had heard quite a bit about the developments over the past few years but it had always been 'up North' and at the back of my mind.
Portrait of an escapee: How Nick Illingworth Became TD at MPC
When Nik Illingworth came to an Open Day last year, he was brimming with CG enthusiasm. He knew that he wanted a career in VFX but didn't really know how he was going to make it happen. After studying for 12 weeks with us, Nik was up and running. He finished his course, was offered his first job at Frametore and accepted it, then a short while later he decided to come back to us for 6 weeks of final professional training. He's now Effects Technical Director at MPC and still has the same love for the industry that he started off with. Nik's is one of many stories of CG enthusiasts who come to study with us and that's why we wanted to share his case study with you - getting a career in VFX off the ground really is easier than you think.
20 animated submissions for upcoming Oscars
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!).
