Would you pay for your own training to get ahead of the competition and secure a better job? Well that’s one of the hot topics in our new Creative Futures Report which launches today.
Online Mentored Student Spotlight: Miska Janhunen
Finland native, Miska Janhunen had been working for his family’s visual design firm as a Webmaster for some time, but he harboured a dream of working in VFX. For years he has been trying to find time and flexibility to study CG. “Because of my location and current situation in life, it felt more or less ‘mission impossible’. Then, in the autumn of 2010, I found Escape Studios’ Online Mentored VFX course and all the pieces fell into place.”
DNeg Snaps up Two VFX Professional Escapees
When I see students go from first day newbies to fully-fledged VFX artists I can’t help but feel that they absolutely deserve it. After weeks of rigorous training learning how to create believable CG, the moment comes when they start looking for a job. And that’s exactly what happened to Pasquale Riefoli and Maria Busco who have both secured jobs at Double Negative!
Zappar: A Total Geek Fest!
I thought it was going to be one of those 'office' moments when a colleague pulled some papers out of his bag and said "you must see this"... He is important, so I paid good attention...!
Escapee Showcase: Ben Revens
As promised here's another escapee reel. This time from Ben Revens, one of our recent VFX graduates. This is a great reel with good examples of work from two of our most popular courses. The violin and tank shots were produced during our 12-week Visual Effects Production course. The more elaborate and advanced staircases shot was produced during our 6-weeks Visual Effects Professional extension which Ben took straight after his VFX Production course.
CWJobs Speaks To Escape Studios About Becoming A VFX Artist
A few weeks back, CWJobs spoke to our Recruitment Manager, Garreth Gaydon about the best way of getting a job in the VFX industry when you're first starting out. The feature which you can read in full here discusses the high demand for jobs in the VFX industry and the kinds of first jobs that will enable you to get your foot in the door and make it as a VFX artist. It’s a tricky industry to enter because it is both highly creative yet technically very demanding which requires a serious amount of skill and creative ability.
Annecy Animation Film Festival
Every June I look forward to heading off to Annecy, not for the sight seeing (although it is a very beautiful place) but for the Film Festival of course. Sadly however, I didn’t attend this year.
Industry Coaching Diary of Compositing Escapee Clement Roland
Some of you may have seen a series posts from students' 'coaching diaries' on our blog recently. For those of you who don't know, some of our students studying our classroom courses are being coached by the industry's biggest post houses; The Mill, Double Negative and Framestore. This week, compositing student Clement Roland shares his experience with us.
Free Tutorial - Demolish a Brick Wall With nCloth In Maya
If you're reading this blog, then chances are you're like most of us here at Escape Studios and love blowing things up and putting them back together again. So this month's free tutorial should be right up your street because we're going to teach you how to demolish a brick wall using nCloth.
Shoot! New footage For Our VFX Course
A few weeks back I took my class to the Natural History Museum so that we could generate some new footage which they could camera track with. It was lots of fun as they not only got to film live-action footage, they knew exactly what they would have to work with when getting back to the classroom. For me, keeping things fresh is important - and so filming new footage for the students to work with is a must. As you can see from the video, we're all pretty excited to be out of the classroom!
Motion Capture For the Masses
Here is an amazing use of Xbox Kinect or PlayStation EyeToy: desktop motion capture!
Is 3D Always The Best Approach?
Here is a question for you: just because we can make somthing in 3D, is it always the best approach?
Escape Studios Online Mentored Student Spotlight - Ricardo Viana
Current Escape Studios’ VFX Online Mentored student, Ricardo Viana is approaching the end of his course and looking forward to developing his showreel and meeting with our recruitment team. In addition to his coursework, he has a very busy schedule to maintain, but that has not stopped him from pursuing his dream.
The Core Skills of VFX
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Trailer Causes A Stir!
Activision released the trailer for its new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 game last week and to say it got people talking would be an understatement. As you might expect, it shows war up close and personal. The visuals are nothing short of brilliant, which is one of the reasons why it’s causing such a stir.
Visual Effects Society Slams Hollywood
Some of you may have never heard of the Visual Effects Society (VES) - see the previous link or last paragraph if you have not.
Our Friends at The Mill take part in Fireflies Charity Cycle Race
It's almost time for the Lions Advertising Festival in Cannes and production companies and agencies alike will soon flock to this beautiful town in the south of France to network and talk about the work they have been doing during the previous year. It's also a great excuse for three days out of the office drinking wine in the sun.
Were You Fooled by CG?
Cadbury is getting a bit of a rep for ads that really catch the eye. First there was the gorilla playing along to Phil Collins; now its dancing clothes ad has left many of us wondering how it was made.
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.
Digital Domain IPO?
We have talked recently about how well the UK is doing in VFX so it's nice to see some noise happening in the US also. Digital Domain saw its revenue from visual effects climb to $101.9 million last year - up 70% from 2009, according to its filing. Whilst DD have already had one attempt at going public in 2007, they seem convinced that now is possibly the right time.