Calling All Character Designers! Time to Enter the Character Design Challenge!

Character Design Challenge!

Calling All Character Designers! Why not polish your design skills by entering the monthly Character Design Challenge? It's a bit like the Eleven Second Club, but for character designers. The group already has an astonishing twenty five thousand members - and growing fast.  So what is it all about, and how does it work?

The Thief and The Cobbler at Annecy

On stage at Annecy - Le Voleur et Le Cordonnier

Here at Animation Apprentice we encourage all our students to visit the international Animation Festival at Annecy at least once.  It's the world's biggest animation festival - everyone who is anyone in animation shows up, and there are more screenings, workshops and events than you could possibly attend in a whole year.  Friday 19 June was the last day of the MIFA marketplace at Annecy, and also a rare chance to see The Thief and The Cobbler (en Francais: “Le voleur et le cordonnier”) original director’s cut – presented by the director himself.  Dad got a standing ovation when he came on stage, and he dedicated the screening to the memory of Ken Harris, one of Chuck Jones’ top animators on the Looney Tunes series and the man responsible for much of the animation of The Thief himself.

Job Alert - Sheridan College Seek Animation Professor - MA Required!

Sheridan College are hiring!

Sheridan College in Toronto are looking for a professor of animation. The job is a well-paid post at one of the world's most prestigious animation schools. So what's stopping you applying? Most likely, it's because you don't have an MA in your chosen field. To teach in higher education, you need an MA. But where to get one? That's where Animation Apprentice comes in. This September we launch The World's First Online MA in Animation.  You can study from home part-time - all without ever leaving your desk.

Backburner - The Poor Man's Render Farm

Render by Gilles Tran - Wikimedia Commons 

Rendering, as my old tutor at Escape Studios used to say, "is where everything starts to go wrong". Here at Animation Apprentice we encourage our students to present finished, polished work for their demo reels, properly lit, textured and rendered out. But this poses problems - render times can be long and, as deadlines loom, any technical failure can be fatal to a timely submission.  So, in the absence of a high-end render farm, how do students render their work on time? The answer is Backburner - the poor man's render farm.

Get Ready for Our Summer Class on 6 July!

What kind of preparation should students do before starting with us in our summer classroom at Animation Apprentice on July 6th?  Below is a brief checklist of stuff to get you started. It's not comprehensive, and you don't have to do all of it, but tick off a few of the things on this list and you will be a making a great start on your animation career.

Free Dragons! Introducing...the Shaththnan Rig!

Shaththan Rig. Here Be Dragons!

Here at Animation Apprentice we're always on the lookout for great creature rigs that are capable of producing a full range of facial expressions so that our students can study creature animation and get an excellent performance.  One rig that has been giving good results is the Shaththan Rig, created by the very talented Revanth Ravi, and now available - free for student use - at Creative Crash.

BAFTA Hosts Film-Making Masterclasses in London on 11 July

On Saturday 11 July,  the BAFTA HQ in London at 195 Piccadilly will open its doors to emerging filmmakers for a day of masterclasses and panels with some of the UK’s major film industry organisations. The classes are hosted by industry experts, aimed at helping emerging filmmakers improve their creative and business skills. Best of all, each lecture/masterclass costs just £6 - cheaper than the price of a movie ticket.

See You at Annecy!

Annecy evening screening. Photo: Wikipedia

Next week we're off to Annecy to the world's biggest and best animation festival. Annecy is to animation as Cannes is to Film. We'll be there to see some of the best work done by animators around the globe, and to find out the latest news in our industry. Annecy is not just a competition, it also hosts MIFA - the world's biggest animation marketplace.  So, should animators go to Annecy? Heck yes.

Rocketsig - Our Students' Latest Commercial Project

Our students at Animation Apprentice have just completed their latest freelance commercial project: Rocketsig.  Rocketsig is an email signature product created by Rocketseed, a tech company that offers clickable email banners, with built-in analytics so that a company's email can become an important marketing tool. The purpose of the film is to help their prospective customers understand exactly what it is that Rocketsig will do, so that they can get their message across more quickly and effectively. Animation is a wonderful tool for taking complex ideas and getting them across in a simple, clear way. And this film was a great way for our students to get paid experience of working a live freelance job.

The Top Three Free Maya Plugins Every Animator Should Use

Maya 2016

What free plugins do Maya animators need? Each time Autodesk release a new version of Maya they fix many things that don't appear to need fixing - such as the design of the overall interface, but leave many traditional weaknesses in place.  Luckily for us, there are a number free plugins that can easily be accessed by Maya animators to make our lives easier. Here is our shortlist.

Headlines - The University Of Hertforshire's Annual Student Showcase

University of Hertforshire - Headlines

One of the highlights of the animation year in the UK is Headlines, the University of Hertfordshire's annual student Exposé, where the Uni shows off the very best work done by their graduating students. It is a testament to how well respected the UH Animation & VFX courses have become that so many leading industry players show up - including London's Framestore and also MPC, both of whom have employed many UH Grads. The emphasis on many of the industry presentations was on the future of our industry, as new technology opens up new horizons. So, what was in this year's show?

All Aboard the Harry Potter Studio Tour

Harry Potter Tour

I recently took the Harry Potter Studio Tour at Leavesden, visiting the 80-hectare studio complex which was used for filming the Harry Potter series of films. The tour might sound like a three hour trivia odyssey for Potter fans, but in fact it turned out to be as good an introduction to the art, craft and science of visual effects film-making as almost any amount of classroom instruction - and far more fun.

Summer Internships at Blue Zoo!

Blue Zoo are offering two six week internships in their London studio; one working in our commercials team, ideal for someone with bold ambitions to be an animated commercials director, and another in their TV series department for someone starting out on a mission to become an expert CG character animator. We strongly encourage our students to apply.

Twelve Steps to Finding the Perfect Summer Internship

Interview, a short animated film by Mikkel Okholm and Mikkel Brons-Frandsen

How do animation students find summer internships and placements in the industry? Jobs in the entertainment industry have always been highly competitive, and even unpaid internships can be hard to find, So how do you track them down? There are many ways - official jobs postings, word of mouth, rumours in the pub, personal contacts, even cold-calling - all of these can be effective ways to find a summer placement in the business. Below are the twelve key rules we think are vital for success.

Student Showcase - Steve Woodhouse

3D render by Steve Woodhouse

Animation Apprentice student Steve Woodhouse has posted some excellent architectural renders recently. This kind of 3D work is highly complementary to the study of animation, and a great addition to his digital skillset. Animators are increasingly expected to have a working understanding of the rest of the CG pipeline, especially in smaller studios, where multi-tasking is often necessary. And, of course, if you are making your own film, then a knowledge of the whole process is more or less essential.

How Disney Animators Created Beautiful Acting in Frozen

Watch Disney's smash hit animated film Frozen and you will find some first class acting, beautiful work which arguably takes the medium to a whole new level of sophistication and skill. But how do animators achieve such great acting? The answer of course is just the same as it would have been at the Disney studio 70 or 80 years ago: if you want great acting, study great actors. Below is an excellent shot progression showing how animators on Frozen used live actiion reference to bring their shots to life.

Portfolio Requirements for Our New Online MA in Animation

Life drawing - excellent training for animators

Thinking of applying for our new online MA in animation? One of the most common questions we get asked by prospective students is: What should go into my portfolio? The answer is - a bit of everything. Drawings, Painting, Life drawing, sketches, scribbles. But most especially - 3D digital artwork. So, what exactly do you need?

Planning Animation - Fagin Thumbnails by Glen Keane

Oliver and Company

The secret of great animation is in the planning. Open up a copy of Maya, the leading 3D software, and you just get a blank screen. With CG animation you get nothing for free; you must fill the blank space with creative, entertaining animation. 

The secret of doing great work is to thumbnail - that is to say, to plan out your work with sketches and scribbles - drawings which create a kind of road map of where you want to go.  

In the video below, I show how master animator Glen Keane approaches the business of doing animation thumbnails.

Introducing The Animus Creature Rig

Animus rig by Nick Miller and Lin Xiong

Finding great rigs to study creature performance isn't easy.

Here at Animation Apprentice we are recommending that our students test out the Animus Rig, created by the very talented Nick Miller and Lin Xiong, and released as freeware into the Maya community.

Animus is a great rig for a number of reasons, one of the most important being the wide range of facial controls, which makes it very good for sophisticated creature dialogue and lipsync. So, how does it all work?

Still Time to Sign Up For Annecy on June 15th!

Annecy - still time to sign up

Annecy is to animation as Cannes is to Film. Like Cannes, there is no particular reason why this small and rather attractive town on a lake in the French Alps should host the world's biggest animation festival - except for the fact that they have always done so. They got there first, and while many towns and cities now have animation festivals, Annecy is the first, the original, the biggest and still the best. So, should animators go all the way to the French Alps to find out about animation?

Free Maya Rigs from CGMeetUp.com

CG MeetUp - full of great resources for animators

CGMeetup have posted a list of free rigs for animators to download and start using themselves. Here at Animation Apprentice we encourage all our students to try out new rigs and see where inspiration leads you. There are more and more excellent free rigs being released into the Maya community and this only helps our students to produce more and better work. To find the list of free rigs, follow this link.