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As many of you will know, we are running our first Animation course with our new tutor Alex Williams starting on July 5th, and we still have a couple of places remaining. If you are interested in learning how to become a professional animator, and want to take advantage of Alex’s expert knowledge, then please get in touch to reserve your place. There are only a couple of weeks to go, so make sure to get in touch straight away!

At the Animation and Story Master Class which took place recently, we caught up with Matthew Luhn to get his thoughts on animation. He has worked on some of the biggest animated films produced, including Toy Story and Toy Story 2, Monsters’ Inc., Finding Nemo and Up. Prior to joining Pixar in 1992 Matthew worked on The Simpsons as an animator.

It's proving to be a very busy month for the recruitment team at Escape Studios.   Lots of our students are going straight from our classroom courses into paid work, proving it's an ideal time for Junior Artists to make that break into the post production industry.

We're pleased to announce that we’re running a ‘3D for Visual Effects’ classroom course, which runs for 12 weeks and includes hands-on practical training using the latest industry standard software and techniques.

Escape this Spring!

For those of you considering working in this thriving, dynamic industry, we’re offering a taster into the world of computer graphics with a range of three-day short courses. They’re a great opportunity to get a better understanding of the career opportunities out there while gaining valuable insight into the industry.

As I’m sure some of you would have seen, last week figures were released showing that revenues from UK videogames hit £1.73 billion last year – a whopping 44% higher than what was generated from UK films during the same time. If you consider some of the huge cinema releases we saw last year, it’s no mean feat that it was only UK television that made more money than the video games industry. Impressive stuff, but is it really a surprise? I’ve said before that playing videogames is becoming a family past time – games consoles are now found in the family living room rather than banished to a “geeky” teenager’s bedroom. Gaming has a far reaching appeal, and I doubt that the growth of the gaming industry will cease any time soon. Interest in our games course, particularly since Sony veteran Simon Fenton came on board, has continued to grow. It’s great to see this exciting industry gaining rightful recognition – not just in terms of increased sales, but in the demand for creative talent which boosts the development of video gaming in the UK. Would you rather spend two hours playing Modern Warfare 2 or watching Blackhawk Down?

Congratulations to all the finalists of our CG Whiz competition. We had a great time at the Reveal Event last night, meeting the future stars of the CG industry. As we’ve said before, we were overwhelmed by the sheer number and quality of the entries we’ve received.

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!).

Very recently there has been a release of two games engines that you can use at home.