What Is It Like For Overseas Students Studying at Bucks? Radoslav Hristov Explains

From Bulgaria to High Wycombe. Image: Wikipedia

Radoslav Hristov is one of our newest students at Bucks, having come to High Wycombe from Bulgaria to study Animation and Visual Effects. We asked him to talk about what brought him to the UK, and what life is like at Bucks for students from overseas.

Free Jason Ryan Masterclass from Brown Bag Films

Brown Bag Films

It's amazing how much free material there is on the web nowadays for learning animation. Studying at University gives you a formal curriculum, a (hopefully) properly thought out program for your studies and your eventual maturity as a well-rounded digital artist. But your tutors at university won't teach you everything. Along the way, doing tutorials online is a great way to learn and improve your work.

Wednesday 19 November 2014 - Our Next Open Day at Bucks

Wednesday 19th November is our next Open Day at Bucks. Open Days are a great way to meet the Course Leaders (for Animation & VFX - that's me and Dave Creighton) here at Bucks, find out about our courses, and also explore our campus.

We're sure you'll be impressed by the state-of-the-art technical equipment we have in the brand new Gateway Building; the result of a £40m investment program completed just a couple of years ago, aimed at turning Bucks into a creative hub for media production of all kinds.

Meet Our Tutors - Sabah Masood

Exterior shot by Sabah Masood

Sabah Masood is one of our newest tutors at Bucks, having just started teaching our students pre-production concept art and development. Sabah has a wealth of freelance experience designing, building and lighting 3D interiors and sets for clients such as Pinewood Studios. Her expertise helps to fill out some gaps in our existing curriculum, making sure that our students are fully prepared for a long and successful career in the digital arts. We asked her to talk about what she is teaching at Bucks, and how the experience has been so far.

Film & TV at Bucks Wins Creative Skillset Accreditation. Yay!

The Film & TV course at Bucks has just has just received conditional accreditation from Creative Skillset - the UK Government body which oversees university courses in the creative industries. More specifically, Creative Skillset have given Bucks "a conditional pass and recommendation to accredit", which means we're not quite there yet; some work still needs to be done, but now there is little other than time and diligence standing in the way of full accreditation. So, what does this mean for Bucks, and why is Creative Skillset Accreditation important?

VFX Supervisor Paul Franklin Reveals The Secrets of Dark Knight and Inception

VFX Supervised by Paul Franklin

Paul Franklin gave a free lecture at Escape Studios in London on 15th October about the work of a visual effects supervisor. He talked about what goes into the making of the sophisticated films he has supervised, such as Dark Knight, Inception, and Interstellar - coming out this November. Franklin is an Oscar nominated VFX supervisor with two BAFTAs on his shelf. Clearly, he is a man who knows VFX inside out, offering a unique insight into how big budget visual effects blockbusters get made.

Enterprise Festival at 6pm on Monday 3 November at Bucks - Free Drinks & Nibbles!

Calling all animators at Bucks - mark your diaries for the  Enterprise Festival Launch Event at Bucks on Monday 3 November, which runs from 6pm to 8pm. You can find out about how Enterprise at Bucks can help you start up your own business, and become a freelance digital artist. Best of all, Complimentary food and drink will be available, as well as the opportunity to find out more information about this year's festival.

Bucks Tutor Rob Kelly Talks About His Work On BBC 2 Idents

BBC ident by Rob Kelly

Rob Kelly is a director with a long track record in the TV industry, and of course he is one of the tutors on the Animation and Visual Effects course at Bucks. Rob lectures in motion graphics, primarily using AfterEffects to teach our animation students (amongst others) to create excellent motion graphics work. In this interview at the Film and TV blog at Bucks, Rob talks about his work directing some of the classic BBC 2 Idents, and how he created them.

Calling all Bucks Animators - Social Media Job!

All this could be yours

Calling all Bucks Animators -  If you have a little knowledge of Social Media and would like to make some money and also add some job experience to your CV - Bucks New Uni is looking for a Social Media Ambassador - ideally a 2nd year Animation & Visual Effects student, who will work with the Department of Media Production to help get the word out about all the exciting work being done here at Bucks.

How to Make a Quick Time Movie in Adobe Premiere

In this short video Bucks tutor Dave Creighton explains how to import images into Adobe Premiere and then export a movie file. For anyone who has not used Premiere before, this simple video explains the basics in a very clear way, and show you how to export a movie file in simple steps.  It is especially useful for animation students who have created a series of images in Maya, using the batch render procedure, and want to turn those images into a movie file that can be uploaded to YouTube. Thanks Dave!

Industrial Light and Magic is Opening a Brand New UK studio

Coming to London

Industrial Light and Magic is opening a brand new UK studio to work on a new Star Wars trilogy. Disney’s special effects firm was founded by George Lucas back in the early days of VFX, and now ILM is coming to London even as Pinewood Studios' filming of Star Wars VII nears completion.

VES Student Awards Now Accepting Entries - Deadline 23 November 2014

The VES Student Award for
Outstanding Visual Effects as Presented by Autodesk

Calling all Visual Effects Animators at Bucks! The annual VES awards are now open. The Visual Effects Society is the organisation that brings digital artists together from all over the globe - it's our professional community organisation. 

The student awards represent a unique opportunity to showcase your work and have it reviewed by the industry’s leading VFX artists. If you win, you will have a chance to take the stage in Beverly Hills, California at the annual VES Awards.

It’s now time to submit your best visual effects or animation work from school projects completed this year. The deadline is 23 November 2014.

Bucks Animation Tutor Alex Williams Launches Free Movie App

Yesterday Bucks animation tutor Alex Williams launched a new free app at the iTunes store. The app is for his indie animated feature film My Haunted House, and this is the first release of an official iPad game for the movie. The game is completely free - you can download it now from the iTunes store. If you beat Level 1 you can unlock and watch the award winning short animation teaser - Charlie and Yip. Here is the link to download https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/my-haunted-house/id898642249?mt=8

Deadline to submit a feature film project to Cartoon Movie: 26 Nov 2014

Cartoon Movie 2014

The Deadline to submit a feature film project to Cartoon Movie is 26 November 2014. Are you looking for co-producers, financing and distributors for your animated feature film project? If so, you should submit it to Cartoon Movie! If your film gets selected, you will be able to pitch it to almost 1,000 animation and industry professionals from forty countries. Present at Cartoon Movie are 200 buyers, including 120 distributors & sales agents.

The Cheapest Way from High Wycombe to London - Revealed at Last!

Bucks SU Inter-Campus Link Bus

Getting to and from London can be expensive for our students in High Wycombe, but finally we can reveal The Cheapest Way to travel from High Wycombe to London. Instead of taking the train from the main station, all you have to do is catch the free Bucks Students' Union Inter-Campus Link Bus. It goes to (and from) our High Wycombe campus to the Uxbridge campus. From Uxbridge, catch the Tube from Uxbridge station into Central London on the Metropolitan line or the Piccadilly line using your Oyster card. If you travel off-peak, a return ticket to central London is just £6, and you won't pay more than £8.90 for a whole day's travel within the capital.

Our Next Open Day at Bucks - Tomorrow!

Tomorrow Saturday 11th October is our next Open Day at Bucks. Open Days are a great way to meet the Course Leaders (for Animation & VFX - that's me and Dave Creighton) here at Bucks, find out about our courses, and also explore our campus.

We're sure you'll be impressed by the state-of-the-art technical equipment we have in the brand new Gateway Building; the result of a £40m investment program completed just a couple of years ago, aimed at turning Bucks into a creative hub for media production of all kinds.

Meet VFX Supervisor Paul Franklin at Escape Studios on Wednesday 15 October

Heath ledger in Dark Knight - VFX supervised by Paul Franklin

On Wednesday 15 October at 10am VFX Supervisor Paul Franklin, who has worked on Inception, the Dark Knight Trilogy and most recently Interstellar, will be giving a talk at Escape Studios in London. The event is completely free, and is a unique opportunity to meet one of London's leading visual effects experts. A VFX Supervisor has responsibility for all the visual effects on a film - these folks really know their stuff, and can give a unique insight into how the visual effects on a film actually gets put together.

Free Zombie Rig from Hotel Transylvania!

Free zombie rig from Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures have just released a free zombie rig from Hotel Transylvania - created in Maya. This is a great opportunity for animation students to use a production-quality rig, one which has been used on a beautifully animated Hollywood blockbuster. Production rigs are more complex than the training rigs that we use at Bucks - so it is strictly for experienced animators. We have not tested it out yet ourselves, so we welcome input from our students on its strengths and weaknesses. Below are the terms of the license offered by Sony Pictures.

Film & TV and Audio & Music at Bucks Join the Blogosphere

Gateway Building at Bucks - our modern media hub

One of the best things about studying at Bucks is the opportunity to collaborate across creative media with other departments.  Film & TV and Audio & Music are two of the most successful departments at Bucks, and both have now launched their own blogs, talking about what they are up to and the work that the students are creating. Their students have been producing short films (and even feature films) for years, winning awards, and offering animators a chance to collaborate and make even better films than they would achieve by working alone. To see more about what Film and TV are up to, visit http://www.filmtvbucks.co.uk/. To find out what Audio and Music are doing, visit this page. You can also see both blogs featured in the RSS feed at the top left hand corner of this blog - just click on their latest feed to find out their news.

Bucks Tutor Alex Williams Introduces his Animated Feature Film: My Haunted House

Alex Williams is Co-Course Leader of Animation & Visual Effects at Bucks New University. He is also working on an independent film project, My Haunted House, which is currently in development, aiming for a 2016 release. We asked him to tell us about the project, and what still needs to be done to bring it to the big screen.

Keep in Touch - a Message to all Our Graduates

Gateway Building

Three years sounds like a long time, but your degree in Animation and VFX will fly past. One of the best things about studying at Bucks is the amazing resources for media production that we have in the Gateway Building - our modern media hub, completed just a few years ago.  The great benefit of easy access to all this university equipment - and also the access to fellow students who are also interested in creative media - may not be fully obvious to you until you graduate, and it's not there anymore.

bluegfx expo - 6th November 2014

Blue GFX - in London 6th November

Blue GFX Expo is taking place in London on 6th November 2014. Last year's event was superb - in attendance were the founders of Blue Zoo, the UK's biggest TV animation company, the guys from Framestore who did the animation for the Skyfall title sequence, and representatives from Autodesk showing the latest hair simulation tools. There were so many talks on cutting edge CG tools that it was hard to choose which ones to attend. For all our students, this is a not-to-be-missed chance to catch up with the latest technology and meet in person the people who run the UK's top animation and visual effects houses.