Charlie & Yip Best Film at Film One Fest

Here at Animation Apprentice we're proud to announce that my short film "Charlie and Yip" has won "Best Animation" at the Film One Fest.

Charlie and Yip is a short film about a kid who takes his pet to school for Show and Tell, which turns out to be a bad idea. It's a really a teaser for my indie feature film project "My Haunted House", which is still in development.

Bonus Week - Performance Capture

We've added a new video tutorial demonstrating the use of motion capture in animation, showing animators how to take a character with motion capture data and clean it up to create polished animation.

Performance Capture, or Motion Capture, (or "MoCap"), is a growing part of the animation industry. It's something our students need to be able to work with effectively, as many animation studios - and especially games studios - rely heavily on MoCap for their animation pipeline.

The tutorial uses the popular and dependable Norman rig, which can be downloaded free here.

How to Block Out a Pantomime Shot

Phone Call Blocking by Mark Masters

How do you block out and plan a pantomime animation - an animated scene without dialogue? The trick with animation is to plan it out thoroughly in advance.

In the case of pantomime animation, we teach a workflow that is reliable and dependable, one which will get your shots approved on time, with minimal aggravation.

The secret of success lies, as ever, in the planning. Plan your work properly and you won't go wrong.

"Meet the Scottish Studios" on July 23rd

The Scottish animation industry is hiring - so it's time find out about job opportunities north of the border.

Animated Women UK are hosting a free online event for recent graduates titled "Meet the Studios", featuring representatives of some of Scotland's most successful animation studios, including Axis, SellOut and Wild Child.  The event takes place online on Thursday July 23rd from 3-5pm.

Oliver Canovas Animator on "Hat Shop"

Oliver Canovas is one of our student animators at Animation Apprentice; he graduated with honours in 2019, having been awarded his MA in 3D Animation.

Oliver recently collaborated with a student film project at Escape Studios, working on the short film "Hat Shop", written and directed by MA student Stevie Stedman.

"Hat Shop" is a short story set in a futuristic robotic world, and was completed entirely under Lockdown, working remotely from home. "Hat Shop" is currently being entered into film festivals.

Oliver did some excellent animation on the film, gaining useful experience on working on group projects, to a defined brief, taking direction and notes, and making changes to his shots. Most studio work is collaborative, so group projects of this kind are important in developing "soft skills" and teamwork.

Mike Makarewicz "Ask Me Anything" Tonight

Mike Makarewicz

We're delighted to welcome Pixar animator Michal Makarewicz for a webinar tonight at 6pm with our animation students.

Mike is a 17 year veteran animator at Pixar Animation Studios, and Co-Founder of the Animation Collaborative in Emeryville, California.

Mike has generously agreed to give up an hour of his time to talk to our students about animation, breaking into the industry, and what it's like to work on a Pixar film. All questions are welcome.