For the past three years, we have held a ‘CG Whiz’ competition, and one of the winners from last year just recently claimed part of his award by beginning a 12 week VFX course here at Escape Studios. We wanted to offer a little insight into what this opportunity means for Daniel, but, before we jump in, here’s a low down on the competition itself.

Film4’s innovative new project ‘Scene Stealers’, is one that waters the seed of creative license, and thus, one that is screaming out to our free thinking, boundary smashing escapees. The project is an opportunity to get your work onto a global platform and represent the world of Visual Effects.

CG Whiz is over for another year, and it’s been a brilliant competition, with an incredible level of talent on show in both categories. It's now time for what you have all been waiting for, the announcement of the winners. But before I do so, I wanted to take time to give you some information on what our judges were looking for.

The entries for CG Whiz 2011 are in and the judges are now hard at work reviewing this year’s crop of talent. We’ve had over 200 showreels entries, making 2011 the biggest CG Whiz yet!

If you’ve been thinking of entering CG Whiz 2011, but haven’t submitted your showreel yet, then there is still time. But you’ll have to be quick – the competition closes on Saturday. The standard of this year’s entries is incredibly high, but you shouldn’t let that put you off. Our judges are looking for your potential and creativity, not just good technique. If you think you’ve got what it takes -whatever your talent or specialism- then head to our Facebook page and follow the instructions to upload your reel.

The whole point of CG Whiz is to give talented aspiring artists the kind of exposure necessary to kick-start their career, and there’s no better example of that than the first ever CG Whiz winner, Adam Droy. Following his 2009 success, Adam completed a twelve-week training course with Escape Studios, and now works as a 3D Artist at CG Whiz sponsors The Mill, at its UK studio in Soho, London.

We’re delighted to announce that CG Whiz 2011 is now open! We’re accepting entries from today for the competition, with the winner receiving a 12 week classroom course at Escape Studios and a 12 week placement with The Mill in either its London or LA offices. This is a once in a life time opportunity that could kick start the career of one talented young artist. If you don’t believe us, see what past winners Stu Schwartz and Adam Droy say about what winning has meant for them.

We just caught up with Stu Schwartz—last year’s CG Whiz winner.  Here’s what he had to say about the experience and knowledge he’s gained and, of course, a few tips for this year’s submissions:

I learned a lot this last summer at Escape Studios as a student and intern but one of the most important things I want to make sure students and aspiring artists know is that I found out how important networking can be.  The more you get out there and meet people, the more opportunities will present themselves.  Escape is located right near the heart of countless studios and is always putting on events and connecting with other studios and industry professionals.  It's been a great environment for meeting other artists and potential employers.  So keep that in mind as you move forward in your careers.

As you know we have spent the past month judging the 170-odd entries we received for this year’s CG Whiz awards.  I have to say the standard of entries was incredibly high, and our judges had an extra-tough job singling out those who showed the sheer talent and potential they were looking for.

As this year’s CG Whiz competition finally closes, we’re delighted to announce we had 170 entries through the door (smashing last year’s entry tally) and the quality of reels blew us away. There’s definitely a lot of talented CG artists out there and we know just how much this competition can help up and coming artists get their foot in the door.