VFX Festival Starts 21 February 2023

2023 VFX Festival is Coming Soon

The VFX Festival is back in London from 21-23 February 2023. 

The 2023 VFX Festival returns to Escape Studios in Central London and, like last year,  will run as a hybrid event, both online and also in person. The event runs from 21-23 February. 

The 2023 VFX Festival will be hosted at Escape Studios at their midTown Campus at 190 High Holborn, and also online. To book your tickets, follow this link to thevfxfestival.com.

"Artifact" Wins "Best VFX" at Singapore Fest

Artifact wins Best VFX at Singapore World Film Carnival

Congratulations to BNU animation student Kristis Bandzevicius whose animated short "Artifact" has won "Best VFX" at the Singapore World Film Carnival. 

"Artifact" is a short film created by BNU animation student Kristis Bandzevicius.   "Artifact" was written, produced and directed by Kristis, currently studying for his MA in 3D Animation at Bucks.   This is the film's fifth festival award. 

Rookies Deadline 1 June 2022

At Bucks New University we encourage all of our students to enter The Rookies Awards, the international competition for young creatives, which and closes on 1st June 2022.

The Rookies was founded in 2009 to "showcase the most talented student designers, illustrators, film makers, animators, developers, digital artists, and launch them into the career of their dreams."

This year the deadline is 1st June 2022, so there is plenty of time to start crafting a great project.

VFX Festival in London 9-10 March 2022

VFX Festival 2022

Escape Studios' VFX Festival is back in March 2022, this year taking place as a hybrid event, both online and also in person.

Escape Studios will host the event at their midTown Campus at 190 High Holborn, also streaming the events for a live online audience.

To book your tickets, follow this link to thevfxfestival.com.

VFX Taster Online Just £25

Online 3D VFX Taster Course

We're recommening this new online 3D VFX taster course, recently launched by London's Escape Studios.

The online taster was developed by Escape Studios' Head of 3D, Mark Spevick, and is delivered through the Smashcut platform.

Best of all, it costs just £25, and takes under 6 hours to complete. It's a great way to find out if 3D Animation and VFX is for you.

The VFX Festival is Back: 16-18 March 2020

The VFX Festival is back. The annual festival hosted by Escape Studios is returning to London from 16-18 March 2020.  As in previous years, the festival hosts industry speakers to come and talk about the latest developments in Animation, Games and VFX.  In 2020, the festival will focus on discovering and developing new and emerging talent.  Two parts of The VFX Festival 2020 - EDU and Emerging Talent - will take place on 16 - 18 March at the Southbank Centre - the UK’s largest arts centre on the South Bank of the Thames.

The Making of "Venom"

Venom

Troy Saliba, animation director at Double Negative, gave a talk in London earlier this year, to talk about his work on the blockbuster release: Venom.

Troy was my animation director on "Monster House", way back in 2005, so it was a pleasure for me to see him again, and welcome him to London, where he is now working for DNeg in Soho.

Troy's talk was a masterclass in how animators work alongside VFX artists on FX-heavy films, where the final result, with all the FX work added, can often look quite different to the animator's initial keyframe animation.

The result is that, on films like Venom, animation and FX are heavily interlaced, requiring careful collaboration between departments, and plenty of back-and-forth to get the right final result.

The Making of Detective Pikachu

Detective Pikachu

At last week's VFX festival in London, Framestore's Jonathan Fawkner gave a talk on the Making of Detective Pikachu, a movie which was filmed in London and which used the talents of two of the UK's top VFX houses, Framestore and MPC.

It's the kind of talk that we encourage all our students to attend, because of the insights to be gained from understanding the challenges of the animation pipeline within a big VFX project.

One of the big challenges on the film was the take the original Pokemon 2D artwork, and create characters which could be fitted into a photoreal VFX environment.

ILM Explains How to Animate Dinosaurs

Fallen Kingdom

One of the highlights of today's VFX Festival at Escape Studios in London was the presentation by Jance Rubinchik, animation supervisor at ILM, on the making of Jurassic World, and Fallen Kingdom.

Animating animals and creatures is something that ILM has pioneered since the first Jurassic Park movie. Each new Jurassic film has sought to raise the bar for animal and creature work.

Animators who do this kind of work have to become experts in animal and creature locomotion, understanding how the animals would have moved, in order to create a believable performance.

VFX Festival in London June 5-6

The VFX, Games and Animation Festival 2019 is back again, hosted at 190 High Holborn WC1 in central London, by Escape Studios.

This year the VFX festival has been split into three separate but overlapping events. All of the events are well worth attending, and we strongly recommend that any of our students in the London area attend.

VFX Festival Lineup 2019

The Escape Studios' 2019 VFX Festival kicks off shortly at London's South Bank Centre, on February 6th, with many industry speakers coming to talk about the latest developments in Animation, Games and VFX.

This year participants include Framestore, MPC Film, Jellyfish Pictures, Blue Zoo, AXIS animation The Third Floor and Creative Assembly, all coming to talk about their latest work.

VFX Festival is Back February 6-7

Escape Studio's 2019 VFX Festival is just around the corner.  Taking place at London's South Bank Centre from 6-7 February, the VFX Festival is a great place to find out about the latest developments in Animation, Games and VFX.

This year the VFX Festival kicks off with the "Emerging Talent" event, aimed at students and recent graduates, which runs for two days, from February 6th to 7th.

Antoni Zakheos at Phenomen Films UK

Many congratulations to Bucks animation graduate Antoni Zakheos, who has just started a new position as a 3D artist at Phenomen Films UK.

Phenomen Films UK is a post-production company located in London, part of the wider Phenomen Films group of companies, based in Berlin, Moscow, Kharkov and Kiev.

VFX Recruiters at the VFX festival

MPC's Sara-Laila Francis

The London VFX Festival kicked off at Rich Mix in Shoreditch yesterday. This is London's biggest animation, games and VFX event, and we strongly recommend all our students attend.

For many of our students, the biggest advantage of being there may not be the talks and lectures (though these are excellent), but the opportunity to meet some of London's biggest talent recruiters.

Tracked Plates for VFX Animators

Here at Bucks we're very much liking this new website that offers tracked plates for animators at afforable prices.

One of the challenges of creating animation within a VFX environment is working with the existing photography, know as the "plate" in VFX parlance.

In effect, animators have to move a 3D object within a flat, 2D environment - and still make it look real and believable.

2018 VFX Festival Lineup

Escape Studios' annual VFX Festival takes place in February 2018.  As in previous years, Escape has got some great speakers coming to talk about the latest developments in Animation, Games and VFX.

Here at Bucks we strongly recommend our students attend events like this one. It's a great way to find out what's going on in our industry and, best of all, to meet the recruiters from London's leading animation and VFX houses. Below are some of the VFX, games and animation companies who will be speaking in February.

16th Annual VES Awards Now Open

The 16th Annual VES Awards are now taking entries. Here at Bucks we encourage all our students to enter Category 23: Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project. 

The award is sponsored by Autodesk, who make Maya, the leading animation and VFX software, and is a great opportunity for any ambitious student to kick-start their career.

Access VFX in London Next Week

Access:VFX events are taking place next week, at visual effects studios across Soho. Access VFX is all about promoting diversity and inclusion in our industry.

Events are taking place at Framestore, Double Negative, MPC, Jellyfish Pictures, ILM, Blue Zoo Animation, Union VFX, Escape Technology, and UK Screen Alliance.

We're encouraging our students and recent graduates to attend these events; you can book your free tickets online through http://www.accessvfx.org/.

Michael Morgan on Making it as an Animator

Our students at Bucks are fortunate in being so close to the thriving animation and VFX industry in London.  Last week animator Michael Morgan spoke at an event at Escape Studios in Shepherd's Bush, West London, where he talked about how animators can break into the industry.

Michael is an animator with an extensive list of credits in video games, TV Commercials and Feature films.  At the talk, Michael shared his experience of working on projects such as Star Wars - The Clone Wars, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2, Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast and Planet of the Apes. 

In particular, he talked about how to get "From the Classroom to the Studio".

Specifically, how do graduates break into the animation industry? What are the secrets of success?

Henry Badgett in London on Wednesday 5 April

Meet the man behind Games of Thrones

One of the many advantages of studying at Bucks is the chance to pop into London for talks and events in the animation and VFX business.

This week, Escape Studios is hosting another of their free "Evening With..." events, this time on Wednesday 5 April  at their Shepherd's Bush studio, with Henry Badgett.  Henry is a VFX Supervisor at BlueBolt, and one of the original supervisors on Games of Thrones.