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.

Fancy taking a peak behind the VFX scenes at Framestore's cinema? Framestore are one of the biggest post houses operating on Soho (London's VFX Hub...) today. They've worked on everything from The Golden Compass to Avatar to the Skyfall titles). We're conducting our last Open Day of the year there next Wednesday and we're rather excited about it!

Having the opportunity to learn over the web has been hugely beneficial for many aspiring CG artists. The perfect solution to fit around busy schedules, it has allowed students worldwide to take advantage of the comprehensive VFX and Compositing training we offer. But of course, the success of this tuition is very much down to our fantastic Escape tutors.

Taking the leap from Storyboard Artist to Compositor is no easy feat at the best of time. Well what if I was to tell you that recent escapee, Carlos de la Sotilla, managed it in less than 2 years.

“Big things have small beginnings”, was an idea acknowledged in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, released earlier this year. And for us, this statement couldn’t be more true. Taking the art of visual effects as a prime example, the spectacular CG you see on screens today was born from the most basic of concepts, and the people who created those effects invested significant time and energy to become the talented artists they are today. Every creative talent has to start out somewhere, and with the right levels of care and determination, it can evolve into something magnificent.

There have been some exciting changes at Escape Studios recently, and with that we are very pleased to welcome our new Relationship Manager, Anita Gribble. In this role Anita will have two main responsibilities. One is to work closely with post houses up and down the country to continue building on the industry coaching scheme we currently have for our full-time students. As well as this she will be helping to maintain our relationship with recruiters at a variety of post houses to further benefit our students.

With just one more week to go we thought we'd give you another reminder about the webinar taking place next week with our wise Head of 3D, Mark Spevick.

Success stories about our escapees are always a pleasure to write up. What's even better though is the opportunity to write another, on the same person, just a year later! Mark Pascoe recently answered some questions for us, explaining his journey from studying Sports Science at University to working on the VFX for an Emmy nominated TV Show for the Discovery channel.

Carmine Agnone, a lifelong Tim Burton fan and escapee, finished his course with us in April 2011 to work on shots for Burtons new film Dark Shadows only months later - a real dream come true! Since then, he’s worked on many projects and built extensively on his wealth of career knowledge.

When you consider the people who work in animation and VFX, many are guilty of picturing the stereotype in their minds; a bunch of geeky men working in a cramped computer room to produce the stunning images we see on screen. And I write to you now, with a sigh of relief, knowing that this is actually not the case. The Visual Effects Society (VES) has uploaded a video to their website which shows the NAB 2012 panel, consisting of five women, sharing their views, opinions and experiences working in the industry. The panel includes: questions from Randi Altman with answers from Jenny Fulle, Gabby Gourrier, Joni Jacobson, Jody Madden and Sarah McGrail.