How to Create a Great Demo Reel

What goes into a great demo reel? The answer is - only your very best work. Better a short reel with excellent work than a long one with mistakes which need fixing. Employers and clients will look for mistakes, errors, and unfinished work - these are red flags which suggest a digital artist who doesn't complete, or who might flounder under pressure.

Which brings us to the single most important rule of demo reels:

Bucks Animation Show - Private View on Friday 7th June 6.00 – 9.00 pm

Come and check out the work of our awesome graduating students on the Animation, Games and Interactive Media degree course. The show forms a part of the ‘Bucks Eyes’ Degree show, and will showcase the very best student work done over the past year. Come and see the next generation of digital artists strut their stuff.

How to Get a Job in the Animation, Games & VFX Industries

For all our graduates who will soon find themselves seeking work, here is a short video on finding a job - and keeping it - with a special focus on jobs in the Animation and VFX Industry. Remember the 5 key ingredients for finding work:

Student Showcase - Mike Swan's graduation year project

Bucks student Mike Swan has just completed an ambitious project for his final year - the modelling, texturing and lighting of an Aston Martin sports car. We asked him a few questions about his project and how he put it all together.

Everything You Need to Know About Annecy

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.

Bucks Animation & VFX featured in 3D Artist magazine

We're proud to be featured in the Course Focus section of this month's edition of 3D Artist - you can find a copy of the magazine at a newstand and in our library at Bucks.

Everything You Want to Know About MOOCs

What is a MOOC? The answer is a Massive Open Online Course. MOOCs represent, say many education analysts, nothing less than a revolution in education, a complete re-casting of the way we study. If you believe the hype, education will be transformed in the next decade in the same way that the book business was changed by the launch of amazon.com.

Dave Berry talks internships, advertising and jobs

Dave Berry, one of our talented students here at Bucks, recently completed an internship for the advertising company VCCP which, among other projects, did the animated meerkats for "Compare the Market.com". During Dave's time at VCCP he worked on and helped to complete the advertisement for O2 shown above. Here at Bucks we take internships very seriously - placing students in an industry environment is a vital part of learning to become a professional digital artist. We asked Dave to tell us a little about his experience.

National Scholarship Programme - up to £6,000 for students starting in September

Scholarships! Photo: Wikipedia

Bucks is a participant in the Government's National Scholarship Programme (NSP). The University is to make available 192 individual scholarships worth up to £6,000 for students starting in year 1 of their course from September 2013.

Animation competition at Tatty Devine - now welcoming entries

The jeweller Tatty Devine are running an animation competition! The competition is to produce a short animation inspired by their SS13 Hot House Collection. You can download the full brief and images pack here.

Open Day at Bucks - Wednesday 12th June

Our next Open Day at Bucks is Wednesday 12th June. Open Days are a great way to meet the tutors (for Animation & VFX - that's me and Dave Creighton) here at Bucks, find out about our courses, and also explore our campus. We guarantee 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.

In Praise of the Bucks Media Collaborations Page

Not many universities can claim to offer the kinds of opportunities for collaboration in arts and media that are available at Bucks. Lecturers love it when their students reach out to other departments; it helps foster creative thinking across disciplines, and it make student projects more reflective of real-world problem solving. When you graduate, most of your media projects will be group collaborations, so getting used to working with other artists in teams is part of getting ready for a successful career.

Prince William Scholarships at BAFTA - financial support for your master's degree!

BAFTA has just announced three annual Prince William Scholarships (applications for which opened yesterday) which are intended to assist talented arts and media students in need of financial support.

The scholarships are for study at a post-graduate course in film, TV and games. Successful applicants will each receive up to £10,000 to cover their course fees and receive mentoring support, free access to BAFTA events around the UK, and a funded work placement within the Warner Bros. group of companies.

Allen Stroud's Kickstarter-funded project needs you!

Allen Stroud is one of our most entrepreneurial lecturers here at Bucks, running the highly successful  Film & TV department. He has recently raised enough money at Kickstarter to make a short film based on the 1980's cult video game ELITE. Short films require collaboration across many disciplines, and Allen needs animators!

Calling all animators - the Animation Talent Award wants your submissions!

The Animation Talent Award 2013, a short film competition with a focus on combining animation with music, has just launched. It takes place this summer in Halle, Germany, and you have until June 2nd to submit a project "in concept".

How should you get ready for September?

What kind of preparation should students do before starting with us in September at Bucks? Here's a 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 here at Bucks.

Open Day at Bucks - tomorrow!

Our next Open Day at Bucks is tomorrow Saturday April 27th. Open Days are all about meeting the tutors (for Animation & VFX - that's me and Dave), finding out about the courses, and also exploring our campus.

Cartoon Movie - the place to pitch your animated film ideas

Cartoon Movie, like Cartoon Forum, should be on every animator's radar. It takes place in Lyon every March - in 2014 it will be held from 5-7 March. It is a huge pitch-fest for talent and business to get together and make independent animated feature films, and, like its cousin Cartoon Forum, you don't have to speak French - Cartoon Movie is bilingual and English is the main language spoken.

Cartoon Movie is the place to pitch your animated film idea. If you've got a concept for the next animated smash hit - this is the place to pitch it.

Bucks Animation on BBC 3 Counties Radio

literally dozens of listeners in the High Wycombe area

Just five days left to listen to me chatting with Roberto Perrone on BBC 3 Counties Radio about our new re-purposed Animation & VFX course at Bucks. Oh, the glamour of local radio! Fast forward to 1 hr and 23 minutes in to the show to hear the interview.

Enjoy!

----Alex

The Animator's Survival Kit - now available as an app for the iPad

The Animator's Survival Kit came out around a decade ago as a book, and a few years later as a DVD set. Since then it has been the leading resource for students wanting to learn animation. Anyone who is serious about the medium should have a copy of the book - until now. Here at Bucks our animation dept has just had a sneak peek at the new The Animator's Survival Kit - as an iPad app. Below is our review of this new electronic addition to the animator's library.

Cool new camera from MoVI - changing the face of cinematography

Here is an awesome new live action camera that gives smooth and steady results even though it is a hand-held device. This will make it even easier for low budget films to get results that traditionally only big budget movies can produce.