New teaching staff join the animation team

Programme Leader Andy Wyatt brings over twenty years experience in the animation industry to the course, and in that time has worked as an animation director at Aardman, been an animator on the Teenage Ninja Turtles, Grizzly Tales for Guesome Kids, Disney’s Duck-Tales and loads more. He has also run his own animation studio, producing animation for CBBC and Channel 4.

We are now delighted to announce some new additions to the teaching team;

Kim Emson on set.

Kim Emson is our specialist Stop Motion tutor, and when not teaching on the course is a very busy animator, with experience animating on Ooglies, the Clangers and with Tim Burton on Frankenweenie.

Our new stop motion studio is fully kitted out with DragonFrame and a professional animation stage with lights.

Damien Markey teaches 3D computer graphics and animation. Damien started his career as a television producer, moving into interactive television and then into visual effects. He has experience running and teaching visual effects courses and has graduates working at ILM (Star Wars), Double Negative (Ex Machina) and Framestore (The Martian)

Les Eaves has joined the team to teach character design and storyboarding. Les is an experienced storyboard artist currently working on on the Mr Bean TV show (the animated one) and has worked on many shows including Horrid Henry, Fleabag Monkeyface, Chuggington.

Animation Students Connect with Industry

Students from the BA Animation course had the opportunity to network with animation professionals at Manimation, an animation conference which took place at Manchester's new venue, HOME, in partnership with the Manchester Animation Festival. The conference was sponsored by the Manchester School of Art and BA Animation programme leader, Andy Wyatt introduced the day, which consisted of panels, presentations and case studies including a keynote addresses from BBC Director of Children’s, Alice Webb and CEO of 9Story Media and Media Entrepreneur Neil Court. The conference also had guest speakers from PixelBomb Games, TT Games, Factory, CITV, Studio Liddell, Creative Skillset and Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick. The animation students were involved as volunteers, assisting the speakers and organisers given them contact and exposure to industry professionals. The BA Animation course has excellent links with the animation industry and to have our students working alongside some of the key players in animation is a fantastic opportunity.

BA Animation students worked as volunteers at Manimation, the industry conference for animation.

One of the sessions, at Manimation which was a joint session with the Manchester Animation Festival was a panel discussion with three studios from Manchester, moderated by our very own Steve Henderson (who also happens to be the co-director of the Manchester Animation Festival and Editor of Skwigly animation magazine).

Drawing at the English National Ballet

In November, the BA Animation students were invited by the English National Ballet to draw their dancers warming up and practicing for a performance of Romeo and Juliet at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. Life drawing is a key element to the animation course, and to be given the chance to draw some world class dancers in action was an opportunity to great to miss. Animation is all about movement and performance, and to study these dancers was an amazing experience for the students. An exhibition of the drawings is planned for the new year.

BA Animation students and Animation Programme Leader, Andy Wyatt at the Palace Theatre, Manchester after a drawing session with the English National Ballet.

A couple of examples of student drawings from the ballet.

What Equipment does an Animation Student Need?

Many people have asked me what equipment an animation student needs. Just because we produce animation digitally, does not mean we do everything with computers and when we are designing or coming up with new concepts, traditional art materials are essential.

Here is a list of stuff you will need;

Computers and Peripherals

• A portable Wacom graphics tablet such as a small intuos pen. You will find this incredibly useful. All animation studios who create 2D animation works digitally and you will be expected to work with a digital graphics tablet, such as a Wacom. The small intuos tablet will fit in your bag, and will work on all machines in the Art School.

http://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/pen-tablets/intuos-pen

• A laptop computer is not essential but desirable as most of the work you create will be digital. It can be a Mac or PC. There is another post on this blog with the idea spec for your laptop.

• USB Memory Stick (s) at least 8GB
• A portable hard drive (at least 500GB)
• A good pair of portable headphones...not the small IPhone type...something that will cover your ears.

Art Materials

• A4 Sketchbook
• A2 Sketchbook
• Pocket sized sketchbook for taking out and about.
• Some good drawing pencils B to 6B and a sharpener.
• Some art materials: water-soluble markers, coloured pencils, pastels, inks or paints, paint brushes etc
• Drawing pens
• Automatic ‘clutch’ pencil
• Rubber
• Sellotape
• Masking Tape
• Bluetack
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Hole punch
• Notebook
• Pen
• Craft Knife
• Permanent marker
• Folders for animation drawing/design work (Foolscap document wallets are good)

Manchester Animation Festival Launched

An exciting new Animation Festival will take place in Manchester on 17-19 November 2015 at HOME.

The festival will feature international animation screenings, talks and workshops. The business conference Manimation will take place as part of the festival on Thursday 19th November and will attract producers, studios and professionals from the animation industry.

Here is a picture of me (in the flowery shirt) and Manchester Animation Festival Co-Director Steve Henderson launching the festival at the Children's Media Festival in Sheffield.

The festival will be a perfect opportunity to students studying animation to absorb themselves into the world of animation for three days, and meeting other animators.

http://www.manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/manchesteranimationfestival

http://www.thechildrensmediaconference.com/

Oculus Rift and Digital Innovation

The amazing Digital Innovation space at MMU has now officially launched as a playground space of converging technology. Its where animators can meet programmers, scientists, engineers, artists, educators, gamers...in fact anyone who uses digital technology. Here I am testing out some animation through an Oculus Rift headset, which uses game engine technology to render the animation live. The Digital Innovation space is called 'The Shed', and opened it's doors officially last night. More information on the space can be found here. There is also an interview I did with Digital Innovation, which talks more about the Animation Programme here.

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