Blog

This year, Escape Studios is ten years old, and it’s a pretty big deal for us. It’s also a big deal for all of the students who we’ve trained over the years and are now dotted throughout the world of VFX. So, from now on, every week, we’re going to be launching a story from our escapee Wall of Fame which will showcase all of the escapees who have gone on to work on the biggest and boldest films, TV shows, commercials and games over the years. It’s a chance for them to step up and take a bow, albeit a virtual one.

Our friends at Hoxton Redsox recently completed a very fun job for one of their clients, Fox. This is the viral video for the upcoming release of Ridley Scott’s latest feature, Prometheus. Happy Birthday David was designed and directed by Johnny Hardstaff and shows the unboxing of Weyland Industries robot David 8, played by Michael Fassbender. A great addition to a range of teasers produced for the lead up to this film, we recommend you all take a look.

Responsible for producing a visually captivating film that unfolds the story of the re-construction of the World Trade Centre, VFX house Piranha were faced with the monstrous task of rendering data of epic proportions. For Piranha the solution came in the form of a BOXX workstation.

Every year Sci-Fi London runs a competition inviting Sci-Fi fans and filmmakers to take part in a 48hrs film challenge. Armed with a title, a line of dialogue, a scientific theme and a specified prop, competing teams have two days to develop and make a 5 minute short film. The winning film is premiered during the London Sci-Fi Film Festival, and also benefits from a promotional platform through The Guardian newspaper website, as well as a development deal with independent UK production company, Vertigo Films.

Last night, Thursday 29^th March, was the Art of 3D Visualisation event at the Barbican Centre, and we’re delighted to report it was a great success. To start with, the setting was spectacular. The Barbican is an inspiring setting for architectural design. The event kicked off in the conservatory terrace, a hidden treasure in the heart of the Barbican and a lavish space with a back drop of decorative tropical plants. This time was spent wisely, arming ourselves with a cold drink the proceedings moved to Cinema 3 where we and our guests were treated to four presentations from five fantastic speakers.

A couple of weeks ago we announced a reunion of the first Escape Pod from 2005, and last Friday we got them together. Pictured above are the Podi on their return to Escape, from whence they were jettisoned seven years ago.

The team at Avere have what looks like an impressive storage solution on their hands, and it’s great to see them taking the extra steps to make it the best it can be. Very recently they recorded a performance benchmark that could put the competition to shame - 1.56 Million IOPS with less than three standard equipment racks. It was 2.5 to be exact.

James Sindle first studied design at Kingston University, before training in CG here at Escape studios. Upon completion of his course James joined The Mill in 2007, he quickly then became a senior 3D operator leading multiple award winning commercials, before branching off last year with Lee Pavey, Dan Stanhope Marum and Giles Cheetham to form their own power house, the Electric Theatre Collective.

So many of our escapees succeed in getting jobs once they've finished a course with us, and it’s so good to hear that lots of them are very talented young women. As a result, we thought some congratulations were in order, starting with Evgenia Golubeva who accepted the role of Director at Animated Storyboards, a fantastic position and one which we want to wish her every success in!

When we caught up with Maxwell Smith about his new position as a Matchmove Artist at Framestore, he wanted to make it clear that he owed a lot of his success to his tutors Gideon Corby and Dan Shutt. They were ‘his greatest influence’ while he studied here at Escape Studios and according to him are ‘Masters of their craft’. Max proved to be a very talented artist and once he completed his VFX Production course, he actually came to work with us as a studio assistant.