Stuart Sumida to London on Wed 12th December

Paleontologist and animal locomotion expert Stuart Sumida is in London next week, and will be giving at talk at Escape Studios at 190 High Holborn on Wednesday 12th December at 4.30pm.

Stuart occupies a rare cross-over space between science and entertainment, having advised countless Hollywood studios on the development of movies such as "The Lion King" and "Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron".

What's this all about?
This event is a chance to meet one of the leading animal anatomy experts - a must for anyone learning animal and creature animation. The talk is titled "The Five Most Important Anatomical Rules for Animators and VFX Artists".

Where and when
The talk takes place on Wednesday 12th December at Escape Studios in London, 190 High Holborn, WC1, in rooms 2.8 & 2.9 (that's on the 2nd floor) at 4.30 pm. The event is free; you can sign up at no charge to the EventBrite page. There will also be free pizza before the talk!

About Stuart Sumida
Paleontologist and animal locomotion expert Stuart Sumida has been to London before; in 2017 Escape Studios hosted over 60 artists from Framestore for a masterclass in animal anatomy.  Stuart's specialist area for animators and VFX artists is about how to make more believable and authentic animals and creatures in film.  Stuart's visit is a reminder of how technical the business of animating animals and creatures has become - science and animation now overlap more than ever before.

Consulting on films
I was lucky enough to work with Stuart on two feature films; on Lion King, where he led the animators on accurate animal anatomy, and on Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmaron, where he did extensive talks on horse anatomy, locomotion and gaits.

On both movies it was very important that the animators become experts in how the animals moved; only by fully absorbing the fundamentals of locomotion and gait could we move beyond basic principles of motion into acting and performance. 

In November 2015 I caught up with one of Stuart's talks about animal and creature locomotion. You can read my notes from the talk here.

Book online
To book your place, follow this link. The event is free.

---Alex

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