More life drawing at Bucks - why should animators learn to draw?

For all our animators and digital artists who didn't manage to sign up with the Bucks Students' Union in January for their life drawing classes, or want second helpings of life drawing, the animation department will soon be teaming up with Mark Hudson's graphics students in the Timberlake Building to bring a series of new life drawing sessions.

Student Showcase - the art of Sabah Masood

Sabah Masood is one of our many talented students here at Bucks, specialising in 3D modeling - with a focus on design and architectural visualisation. She is in her final graduation year, but she has already established a successful freelance career doing digital 3D modeling for clients such as Pinewood Studios and many others. We asked her about her work, and about how she managed to launch a freelance career at such an early stage.

Freelance artists and taxes - what you really need to know

Render unto Caesar what is due to Caesar

The tax code in the UK runs to 10,000 pages, and there is no human being who knows the whole code. But, every freelance artist needs to know at least the basics. Below is a short introduction to how the system works, from a self-employed artist's perspective. It is by no means complete, and it is no substitute for paying a qualified accountant to give you proper advice (which is highly recommended), but it should explain some of the basic rules of tax survival for freelancers, and get you pointed in the right direction.

Bucks students visit Shepperton Studios

On wednesday our students at Bucks New University visited Shepperton Studios. Being a movie geek, I couldn't wait to visit the place where classic films like Kubrick's Dr Strangelove, The Day of The Jackal,  Ridley Scott's Alien and Attenborough's Ghandi were filmed. I mean, even empty film studios are full of atmosphere; a place to fill the imagination with dreams of stardust. Shepperton did not let us down.

Learn Flash with Andy Sykes - free online video tutorials!

Andy's in the house

Right now our first year students at Bucks are learning how to use Adobe Flash, creating 2D animation as part of their first Introduction to Animation Module. As with all of our classes (and with higher education in general), the formal instruction is just the starting point for an in-depth understanding of the subject. Animation is a complex craft that takes time and patience to master, and we encourage our students to make use of all the resources available.

Calling all animators - time to fill out the National Student Survey!

The National Student Survey (NSS) is to higher education in the UK what Gallup polls are to politicians. The results speak volumes about the state of our universities and, in particular, which ones are giving students the kind of excellent experience that we ought to be delivering.

The survey opened on January 21st and runs until 30 April 2014. Bucks has set a target for 75% of eligible final-year students to complete their survey - you'll be seeing NSS helpers in red T-shirts around campus, ready to ambush you with a smile, a pen - and a form to fill in.

If encouragement doesn't work, there is always bribery. This year there is a new incentive for students to fill in the survey - a £5 voucher to spend either on printing or in the campus cafes.

Sign up today for life drawing at Bucks!

Calling all Bucks animators and digital artists! Today is the day to sign up with the Bucks Students' Union for their life drawing classes. We strongly recommend that everyone sign up. It's great skill to acquire and will help all our animators become better artists. Drawing skills help with design, storyboards, thumbnails - all necessary parts of the animation process.

Full details below. Sign up now and don't wait - these classes are popular and will fill up fast!

What does Bucks look for in an online portfolio?

Life drawing - excellent training for animators

One of the most common questions we get asked by students applying for the Animation and Visual Effects course here at Bucks is: What should go into my portfolio? The answer is - a bit of everything. Drawings, Painting, Life drawing, sketches, scribbles - and especially 3D digital artwork.

Our course at Bucks is increasingly digital, reflecting long-term changes in the industry, and we find that applicants with solid computer skills tend to flourish best. For a full description of what might go into a good application portfolio, check out this post.

Nowadays, we are doing a growing number of online interviews with Skype, generally for applicants from overseas. As a result, a new and slightly different question arises - what should go into an online portfolio?

Motion Capture comes to Bucks

The "T pose"

Last week Motion Capture came to Bucks New University for the first time. The green screen room in the Gateway building played host to our latest, biggest and most expensive digital toy, extremely useful not just for animators hoping to capture excellent physical performances but also for students studying sports and motion analysis, helping to turn physical performances and actions into data that can be analysed, broken down, and used to improve the performance of athletes. It's cutting edge stuff, and it's happening right here at Bucks.

How to get a job in Animation - explained by BAFTA

BAFTA has been working with Creative Skillset to deliver a series of guest lectures at media universities across the country, aiming to bring leading figures in the film, television and games industry together with newly emerging talent, through lectures designed to inspire students to develop their creativity alongside their business and technical skills.

How long does it take to get good at something? 10,000 hours? Or 20?

Author and polymath Josh Kaufman gave an excellent talk at TED recently where he discusses the horror of trying to invest 10,000 hours in a new skill in order to get really good at it. He's just become a father to a baby girl, and (like many of us) he hasn't got 10,000 seconds - let alone 10,000 hours - to invest in learning something new. So his theory (which should cheer us all up) is that the whole 10,000 hour thing is a big exaggeration. Try doing something new for 20 hours - and you should be able to master the basics.

What do our students think of our course?

We want to offer the very best Animation and Visual Effects in the country. That's a big ambition, and since our course has just launched, it will be a couple of years before anyone can really judge us on whether we have achieved that goal.

New Year's Resolutions for Animators

What should an animator's new year's resolutions be? Animation is a huge and growing business, a far cry from the cottage industry it used to be even twenty years ago. But it is a competitive world, and good animators need to work smart to stay on top of their game. So here's a checklist for some simple ways to maintain your edge.

Happy New Year - the UCAS applications deadline is looming!

High Wycombe wants you

The deadline to apply for a place on our new Animation and Visual Effects course at Bucks New University is January 15th 2014. Despite all the recent changes in higher education, UCAS is still the main portal to access a place at university in the UK. To find out more, don't delay, check out the UCAS website.

What sort of students are we looking for" We want applicants with a real passion to do animation and visual effects work, a drive to become a digital artist and take advantage of the myriad opportunities for animation, games and online work in the new digital economy. Animation is now big business, but it is competitive, and we want to give all our graduates the best possible head start.

Collaborating on Group Projects - how do you pick the right people?

Animators need sound designers

One of the most important aspects of studying any form of film-making,  whether it is animation or live action - or any other media - is learning to collaborate with other people. As a film-maker, you cannot possibly hope to become an expert in everything; you will always need help from other departments. Animators may need help from modelers, designers, texture artists - finding people with the skills you need to finish your film is all part of getting the job done.

How do you pick the best place to study animation?

Life at University

One of the most important decisions that any of us will ever make is what to study at University, and where. How do you choose? Even if you know you want to study animation and the digital arts (good choice!), there are at least 80 courses in the UK to select from. So how do you pick the right one? The simple answer is - pick the best. But how you tell which courses are the best? There are a number of ways of making the right decision, but we think that there are two that are by far the most important.

MPC is hiring!

One of London's leading visual effects houses, the Moving Picture Company (MPC), is hiring! They are looking for artists not just for Canada and Bangalore, but also for London, which thankfully suggests that Soho isn't quite finished yet.

Life Drawing Comes to Bucks! - Sign up with the Student Union on January 21st

Figure drawing - great training for animators

Animation is a blend of creative and technical skills, and a good animator needs both to survive. It is true that digital animators don't need to draw with the same degree of skill as they did in the days of hand-drawn animation, but good draughtsmanship still helps a great deal, not just for design work but for storyboards, thumbnails, visual development and all the other related areas that a good animator often gets called upon to do.

We've been working with the Student Union at Bucks to organise life drawing classes for our students, and we strongly recommend that everyone sign up. It's great skill to acquire and will help all our animators become better artists.

More storage space for our animation students!

Our new Animation & Visual Effects Course has been running for three months now, and we're still ironing out some of the kinks. Recently our students gave vent to their frustration at the rather stingy data allowance of just 750MB for personal storage, barely enough to run all the software we use, let alone store high resolution images and video.

Luckily, the Bucks IT department has come now to the rescue. From now on, starting in the New Year, all our students will get 5 gigabytes of storage; still not a massive amount - but a huge improvement, and enough to run all the software we use and also make some decent renders.

Bucks Animation & VFX Demo Reel

An animator's demo reel is never done. It is a constant work-in-progress, always being refined and updated to include your best work and weed out the less impressive material. Over the years a great deal of excellent work has been done by animators and digital artists here at Bucks.

One of the challenges of putting together a compilation reel of our best student work has been trying to track down all the films done in recent years. Here, for the first time, is a compilation of some of our students' best work, cut together by our first year animator Anton "Alfy" Alfimenko.

Breaking into the Creative Industries

We're famous again! Today the Daily Telegraph has run a piece on how students can muscle their way in to the creative industries, how to sustain a career in what is still a challenging job market, especially for recent graduates. It's a good piece, full of useful insights into what students need to learn in order to make it. Click here to read all about it.