I have already aired my excitement over the new Batman film The Dark Knight Rises in yesterday's blog. However, after searching through more of the summer "must see" films on IGN I came across another film I am excited to see; Ted.

Whilst scrolling through the IGN website I stumbled across a page that I wanted to share with you all, even if it is just a check list! IGN has released their list of top summer movies for 2012 and, although many of them have been released (and you can cross them off on your check list), there are still plenty of brilliant CG films being released over the upcoming months.

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.

Some of you may already know, but once a month we like to post a free tutorial on our website. We started creating these so that you could pick up new tips & tricks, tighten up the skills you already have or add a new technique to your toolkit.

It's great to see our escapees leading the way in a new film from Skillset promoting the computer graphics industry.

Our friends over at Ceiga recently started a feature entitled 'Getting into the Industry', as Escape Studios have been training people in VFX for 10 years, they asked if our Recruitment Manager Garreth Gaydon would be kind enough to kick things off and answer a few questions.

Skillset, the industry body which supports skills and training for people and businesses in the UK have put together a nice VFX Core Skills handbook that you may be interested in.

If you are a freelancer or a professional working in post-production, you can save on our courses with funding from Skillset. The level of funding you receive depends on whether you're employed or work as a freelancer, and could see you save as much as 80% on our online self-directed courses.

Lighting and Shading are an integral part of the VFX pipeline and if you want to take your skills to a professional level these tutorials are the best place to start learning. What’s great about these tutorials is that they tackle pretty complicated subjects head-on and they are practical so, although you’ll understand the theory, you’ll also learn how to practically apply this knowledge. The best part is that these tutorials will sit in our resource centre permanently, so you can access them whenever you want and learn whenever it suits you.

Skillset have recently announced a new funding scheme which will allow individuals working in the UK film industry to apply for a bursary towards various types of training.  The scheme is aimed at increasing the high-end visual effects skills within the film industry so individuals who want to get additional training under this new funding can identify a course or a training provider that meets his or her needs and apply for bursary from Skillset.