How Long Does it Take to Become a Great Animator?

Canadian animator Norman Maclaren at work. Photo: Wikipedia

Animation is a complex craft and it takes a long time to master.  I have been teaching animation since 1996 and I have spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what should go into a really good animation course. How does a school get its students to a professional level of skill within the shortest possible period of time?

Until joining Bucks in 2012 I was teaching at Escape Studios in London where the animation courses were just 3 months long, which is a very short space of time to teach someone to animate. We had very little time to spend on any individual exercise - no more than a day or two.

What surprised me most about this approach was how well it worked. Everyone worked like crazy and we didn't waste any time. Every hour of every day was precious and the challenge was always to figure out the fastest and most efficient way to get the best work done. In three months almost all of the students had become proficient in the art of animation.



Above is an animation demo reel by Rich Jeffrey, a student who had never done 3D animation before. This reel was assembled at the end of the three month course.

Here at Bucks we apply the same principles; that is to say intensive animation training to get students to a professional standard as fast as possible. By the end of year one all of our students should be feeling reasonably comfortable with the medium, able to give a performance and create an entertaining piece of work. By the end of the final year we want to see the students completing high-quality short films, able to compete and succeed at the highest level in the industry.

---Alex

For more on the experience of studying at Bucks New University, come and visit us at one of our Open Days,  take a virtual tour of one of our animation studios, check out what our students think of our course, and see why we're ranked in the top 12 creative universities in the UK. Find out why we're giving free laptops to all our students, and why we give all our students free access to videos at Lynda.com. Also, see what financial assistance might be available to you. Learn which is better for animation, a PC or a Mac? Get hold of a copy of a map so you can find your way around campus, and learn about motion capture at Bucks. And find out about how our online video tutorials work.

When Should an Animator Animate on the World Control in Maya?

When Should You Use the World Control to Animate in Maya? The short answer is: "never". But, as with most rules, real life is not quite as simple as that, and there are exceptions to the rule. Since this is an area of some confusion for animators learning to to use Maya, here's a brief outline of what the rules of World Control Etiquette really are.

What is the world control?
The World control is the control on a character or creature rig which allows it to be moved into position. It is also sometimes called the World Mover, the Global Control, or the God Control. It is at the very top of the animation hierarchy, and supersedes all the other controls, hence its name.

What is it used for?
The World Control is used to place your character in your 3D set. That is generally the first and last time that you will use it.

Why should you not use it for animation?
Because it creates confusion. If you set keyframes on your world control to move your character, you will have to counter-animate other controls such as the body and the feet. This will create two sets of curves which counteract one another, and make it very hard to edit your curves.

So why in the Animation Apprentice tutorials do you sometimes animate on the World control?
Good question. The reason is that sometimes you have no choice. For example, if you are animating a walk cycle "on the spot", you may need to set a keyframe on the World Mover in order to create a sense of forward movement. This is because training rigs are generally highly simplified to make learning Maya easier. On production rigs, which tend to be very complex, there would likely be a series of controls below the World Control in the hierarchy which perform the same function as the World Control, but are called something different, such as the "Direction Control". So, on a production rig, you would use one of these other controls to create the same function, while leaving the World Control untouched.

So it is bad to animate on the World Control?
Generally, yes. But when you are animating motion cycles with simple rigs, then you may have no choice.

----Alex

For more on the experience of studying at Bucks New University, come and visit us at one of our Open Days,  take a virtual tour of one of our animation studios, check out what our students think of our course, and see why we're ranked in the top 12 creative universities in the UK. Find out why we're giving free laptops to all our students, and why we give all our students free access to videos at Lynda.com. Also, see what financial assistance might be available to you. Learn which is better for animation, a PC or a Mac? Get hold of a copy of a map so you can find your way around campus, and learn about motion capture at Bucks. And find out about how our online video tutorials work.  

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.

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

Life drawing classes will be running from Tuesday 28th January 5pm-7pm for 8 weeks. To sign up to the activity, students will need to email Kate Blythe (kate.blythe@bucks.ac.uk) with their full name, student ID and contact number on Tuesday 21st January from 9am.

The Rules:
1. Only one person and can sign up per email.
2. Spaces will be allocated on a first come, first served basis
3. Spaces are limited and, if there is high demand, there is a good chance that some students will not get a space.
4. If the student manages to get a space they will be asked to pay a £10 commitment deposit into the Student Union reception.
5. It is important that students can commit to 6 out of the 8 weeks as if anymore of the sessions are missed then they will not receive their deposit back.
6. Any students who do not secure a space on the course will go onto the reserve list therefore is anyone does not pay their deposit or drops out, then they will be offered the space.

For more information, contact  Kate Blythe, Student Activities assistant.

t: 01494 601 600 | e: kate.blythe@bucks.ac.uk
Bucks Students’ Union, Queen Alexandra Road, High Wycombe, Bucks, HP11 2JZ

www.bucksstudentsunion.org

Time to put down your Wacom tablets and sharpen your pencils!

----Alex

"Flipping the Classroom" - Our new Video Tutorials at Bucks

Sal Khan - the man who flipped the classroom. Photo: Wikipedia

Here at Bucks we believe in the power of online training - and in the idea of "flipping the classroom", a philosophy of teaching pioneered by Sal Khan's Khan Academy. The idea is that, instead of taking notes during class and doing the homework later, you watch the lectures in advance, online, and then use precious classroom time for workshops and feedback. Best of all, each student gets to learn at their own pace, so no-one gets bored or, worse, falls behind and can't keep up.

Over the coming semester we'll be rolling out this new technique, giving our students access to hundreds of online videos, teaching you everything from how to make a ball bounce to full character and creature performances.  The idea is that you watch the lecture before coming in to class, and the classroom time itself becomes a workshop, rather than an information download. Better for everyone, and more fun as well.

So, to get started, and to find the videos, start by logging in to your Blackboard account. Find DA405 - the animation basics course, and scroll down to the Video Resources tab - and click on that link. You will now be taken to a series of weblinks to copy and paste in your browser window. Make sure you use Explorer - for some reason the videos don't play well in Firefox or Chrome.

The videos play best with Internet Explorer

Once you have pasted the links, you will be asked for a password. You can find the password at the announcements tab at Blackboard. Enter the password, and you should be able to access the videos.

Watch them in this order:

1. Theory Videos
2. Technical Videos
3. Tutorial Videos

It will take you around 2 hours to watch the videos, and at least 4 hours to do the exercise, so make sure you budget plenty of time before class. Don't leave it until Monday morning!

Two screens. Video tutorial on the left, Maya on the right

The ideal way to learn is to use two screens at once, and do the exercise as you go along. On the left hand screen you watch the videos, on the right hand screen - you do the exercises. Follow the videos carefully step by step, click by click - and you won't go wrong. One of our students watches the tutorial videos on his iPad, then does the work at his desktop computer. A perfect combination (see below).

iPad below, desktop display above

Once you're done, drop your Maya file onto a USB stick, or you can even email it to yourself and pick it up when you next log in back at Bucks. Make a Quick Time of your animation, upload it to your YouTube account, and then embed it at the Facebook page, for in-class review.

Welcome to the future of education!

---Alex

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:

A Demo Reel should be Entirely Free of Mistakes.

What do I mean by that? I mean that there should be nothing obviously wrong with any of your work on your reel. If any part of your work is still a work-in-progress, then don't include it. Or, rather, include it, but only once it's finished.

The best way to judge your reel is to see it through the eyes of other people. Show it to your friends, your colleagues, people whose view you respect. Ask them what they think. Do they understand what you did? Did they like the work? Are there things which confused them?

A demo reel is the single most important weapon in your arsenal when it comes to finding work. Make sure it's the best work you are capable of.

The video above was recorded for my online animation school, Animation Apprentice. It runs about 15 minutes, and covers most of the steps towards putting together a great reel.

Any questions - feel free to add them in the comments below and I will do my best to answer!

----Alex

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.
3D Artist magazine is full of information about becoming a digital artist. 3D tutorials, tips and tricks, free software; all kinds of stuff for the aspiring digital professional.

At page 103, in their Course Focus section, they have this to say about our new course at Bucks:

"The Bucks New University Animation & VFX Course aims to be nothing less than the best. This is a big aspiration for sure, but the packed curriculum on offer, including animation, modelling and directing, more than prepares students for a job in industry".

We don't disagree!

---Alex

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".

The Animation Talent Award is a short film competition that offers rising animation stars the chance to win a real production budget and create an animated short film. The competition has a distinct focus on music and animation.

Here's how to enter:

1. Register. Registration is now open at www.animationtalentaward.com. Don't delay - there are only 100 slots available.

2. Pick your music. Participants must select the music for their Short Film Project from among five pieces of music of different genres and styles presented on the contest’s website.

3. Start drawing. To, enter the contest, you only need a good concept - not a completed film. The submission deadline is June 2, 2013 - exactly one month from today. Concepts can be submitted in various forms such as sketches, descriptions of ideas, or storyboards

 4. Win money and prizes! (hopefully)
The successful participants will be selected by a jury, and can earn production money via crowdfunding at “startnext” and compete for an additional production budget of €2.500,00 (around £2,300) sponsored by ARTE Creative! Other prizes include a one year ADOBE Creative Cloud membership & a WACOM Inkling.

Any student at Bucks who wants to enter - come and talk to me, and we'll make a plan.

---Alex

PS This kind of project is especially highly recommended for 2nd and 3rd year students, looking to jump-start their careers by entering (and hopefully winning) international competitions. Even if you don't win, what you learn by taking part is almost inevitably a huge benefit in itself.

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.

Basically, it's awesome - better than the book, better than the DVD series - as it perfectly combines the best qualities of both. And, at around £25, it costs barely more than the book does. So this is - in short - a huge leap forward for learning animation. My only regret is we can't get a copy for the library here at Bucks. The library does not have iPads - so if you want a copy you'll have to buy the hardware first.

The iPad feels as if it is made specially for this kind of eBook. The digital ASK has many of the traditional features of a book - plain text, nice pictures - so far, so familiar.  But, as you scroll through the pages, you find video introductions to the chapters. Click on these, and you get a personal introduction to the subject by the author, giving his own view on why it's important to read it, and what you will learn.

Other little miniature icons blink at you invitingly - click on these and it pulls up a short animated video explanation of the principle being addressed. Much of this material is taken from the ASK DVD set. Confused about overlapping action? Successive breaking of joints? The importance of using silhouettes? A short video shows you what it all means, and demonstrates in simple clear terms exactly how these principles get applied in practice.

And the videos are highly interactive. It's not like YouTube, where you can't scrub and scroll through the animation, frame by frame. Here, you can pause the video, scroll through it, fast or slow, focus on an individual frame, step through it frame by frame.

It's like having a really great animation tutor right there in the classroom with you, equipped with all the latest bits of kit - video, power point lecture, white board, and good old-fashioned books - but it is all at your disposal in exactly the format you want.

It is obvious that a great deal of thought and effort has gone into the presentation. The interface is very easy to get the hang of, and simple to operate. Tap the screen and the chapters are revealed on a scroll bar at the base of the screen - so you can easily navigate to the bits you need. 

In short - it's the best £25 you will spend on any device to help you learn animation. But you have to buy the iPad first, of course.

---Alex

PS Here's a list of stuff you get with it:

1. The Animator’s Survival Kit Expanded Edition - that is to say the whole book - for the iPad
2. More than 100 animated examples of the principles of animation - taken from The Animator’s Survival Kit Animated DVD series, and inserted into the relevant sections of the text. You can slow these down and watch them frame-by-frame.
3. Dad's 50-years-in-the-making Circus Drawings animation
4. Video introductions for the chapters - by the author. 80 this year!
5. "Sensitive navigation", which "fades away gracefully away when not needed"
6. "Onion skinning" - to see multiple frames of animation at once.

Framestore signs off on our new course

Head of Animation at Framestore Kevin Spruce has signed off on our new course at Bucks. We're thrilled that Framstore have OK'ed our course outline, and especially the module which focuses on creature animation, preparing students to be able to animate animals and creatures to a professional level, and preparing our graduates for work in the expanding animation and visual effects industry.

We hear a lot about skills shortages in industry, but there is no substitute for speaking to leading figures at our best companies to find out what skills they need, and where the shortages are. For many years animation schools have focused largely on character animation - that's the Pixar-style stuff, teaching students to give a character performance.

Creature work is a bit different. Companies like Framestore have to be able to re-create lifelike and photo-real animal and creature performance and then - and this is the really tricky bit - layer in a character performance on top. Think of the armoured bears in Golden Compass, animated by Framestore, and you start to get the idea of how difficult a task this can be.

We're aiming to give our students a solid grounding in this kind of animal and creature work, so that our graduates can take aim at the best visual effects houses in Soho, find employment, and build themselves a satisfying career.

---Alex

What's wrong with VFX training in the UK? - Creative Skillset has the answers

A huge part of our mission at Bucks is to make our course industry-relevant. We want our students to have cutting-edge skills so that they have the best possible prospects of finding exciting, challenging and well-paid work in the animation, games and visual effects industry.

With that in mind, I came to the Creative Skillset Tutor Day at BFI yesterday at the South Bank, to find out what we can do better here at Bucks to improve our course. The focus of Creative Skillset is the VFX Course Handbook (you can download a copy here), a detailed document painstaking put together by Creative Skillset in close consultation with the VFX industry to identify exactly what should go into an industry-relevant course.

Core Skills Handbook - worth a look

We've been paying close attention to the Skillset Handbook as we re-tool our Animation & VFX course, to make it more closely focused on the needs of industry. The Handbook is designed to be modular, so that relevant sections can be dropped right into a University course.

There were plenty of tutors present, also lots of folks from industry including Anna Swift, head of recruitment at Framestore, with whom we have been working closely to make sure that our creature animation module closely matches the needs of Framestore - and of course other VFX houses. Anna has been hugely helpful and I get the impression generally that industry is delighted to co-operate with Universities - if only we can reach out them and forge relationships.

The lectures focused chiefly on relevant skills - the most commonly used software (Maya for 3D work and Nuke for 2D compositing), and on what the universities can do to supply industry with graduates who are job-ready.

Skillset offers assistance, advice - and goodies, such as funds to send students off to conferences like  FMX (sadly no more cash is left this year), and a roster of VFX ready assets which you can access here. The Skillset website is a good place to start if you're looking to make sure your skills are up to date - their whole remit is to make sure that students are learning the right skills to get hired.

Overall, their tutor day was a great idea, an opportunity to meet the Skillset folks as well as other tutors and also a reminder that the needs of industry change constantly.  We at the universities need to be swift on our feet to ensure that we are offering students the very latest training and tools.

---Alex

Does Education Kill Creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson is an educator who believes passionately in the importance of teaching creativity in our schools. In this fascinating (and very entertaining) 2007 TED talk Robinson explains why he thinks our system of education is broken and needs fixing.

Here at Bucks we believe that creativity can be taught. Studying 3D animation and the digital arts is not just about learning the right tools and which buttons to press. Yes, technical expertise is necessary, but creativity matters too. Good digital artists are just that - artists. Inventive, creative, funny and entertaining.

Soho VFX houses charge far more than their counterparts in Asia. How can they afford to charge a premium? The answer lies in a unique blend of technical excellence and creative talent. The perfect digital artist knows the software inside out - and also knows what to do with it. Clients come to London because they get - and expect - something extra.

Pleasing clients is what commercial artists do for a living. This means coming up with ideas, creative solutions, ways to make the client look good. Creativity and creative thinking is at the very heart of the process.

So a BA in Animation & VFX isn't just about technical excellence - though this is also vital. It's about coming up with great ways to apply what you have learned. Creating great projects is what we aim to do here at Bucks.

---Alex

Who needs a website?

Create a blog - it's free!

Who needs a blog or a website? Only everyone who is a freelancer. And, in the entertainment industry, we are all freelancers. Jobs for life, if they ever existed, are long gone, and for most of us a gig that lasts a few years is a long one.

So...as a freelancer, you need to be selling your wares. You need a shop front, a glossy window to flaunt your talent. The bad news is - this will involve work. The good news is - it has never been easier to build your own blog or website.

Here are some links to sites that will walk you through step by step how to create a free blog or website to host your work:

1. Blogger. Sign in through your Google email account. If you don't have a Gmail account - get one. It's free.
2. BBC Guide - a simple guide to creating a blog. 
3. Wix.com is a great website for setting up a free, simple website to host your work. Just follow the instructions.

OK, so you've got a blog, or a simple website. Now...what should your website look like?

Look for inspiration in other students' showreels. What does/does not work? If you see a reel you like, consider copying their format. There is no shame in being inspired by other people's work.

Equally, if you see a website or blog that you like, use that as inspiration for your own.
Here are some examples of animator's websites and/or blogs that work really well:

1. Brendan Body A nice clearly designed website with excellent character and creature work.
2. Kiel Figgins. Excellent website with a great animation demo reel and also many free rigs. 
3. Josh Burton. Website by the creator of the Morpheus rig and an excellent animator. 
4. Curlymation. Blog of Matt Rees, Aardman animator. This is a very simple blog that does its job very well.
5. Wouter Tulp blog. A simple blog that is a clear and effective showcase of talent.
6. Wouter Tulp website. A clear, simple website.
7. James Woods. Excellent clear, simple site
8. Reel Barrow. A list of animator's demo reels.

So, you've got four days off (at least) over the Easter weekend. If you don't have a blog - build one now! No excuses!

It's free!

----Alex

Student Showcase - SyFy Channel Ident by Krzysztof Michalski.

This is an ident (that is to say, a "station identification") created for the SyFy channel by Krzysztof Michalski, now in his third year at Bucks. Krzysztof completed this short piece in his second year; the brief was to do an ident for a TV channel. Broadcasters use idents to remind viewers what they are watching and also to help develop their brand identities. Motion Graphics work is a big and growing market for animators and digital artists.

Idents like this, as with any short pieces of animation done for a client, can be great ways to get professional work on your demo reel. Short pieces work to your advantage because you can really polish the details and bring your work up to a high professional standard, rather than getting bogged down in something excessively long.

The most common mistake students make when they start a film project is to be too ambitious. Better a short project skillfully made than a long one which is incomplete.  Remember the golden rule of demo reels - they must be completely free of mistakes.

And the golden rule of student films - keep it short!

Many congratulations to Krzysztof on an excellent piece of work.

----Alex

The Twelve Principles of Animation - start learning today!

What is Animation all about? For a general introduction to the medium, and a beginners guide to the language and basic principles of animation, watch this video above.

The original "12 Principles" date back to the Disney Studio in Los Angeles in the 1930s, and we still apply the same rules today. So hop into our animation time-machine and travel back to the glory days of Hollywood and find out what makes the medium tick.

Here is the second part - it will take you about 20 minutes to watch both videos.

Watching videos online is an excellent way to learn. As long as you have a decent broadband connection, online study is no longer the poor relation of learning in the classroom. Here at Bucks we believe in Blended Learning, a mixture of online lectures and classroom tutorials.

Watching lectures online frees up precious classroom time for individual tutorials and one-on-one study, giving students a better experience and enabling us - the teachers - to give more individual tuition. We believe that this is a better way to teach and represents the future of education.

Just as importantly, it's the only way to deliver a really high quality training in our complex and growing industry without increasing course fees. We have a keen eye on the bottom line and we want to offer every student the very best value we can.

-----Alex

The 10,000 Hour Rule - why practice makes perfect

It is a cliche that practice makes perfect, but in his 2008 book Outliers author Malcolm Gladwell argues that in order for any person to become really good at any cognitively-challenging task, they have to practice a lot. 10,000 hours-worth of practice, in fact.

His argument is simple. Getting good at something takes time. By way of example, he cites the case of The Beatles who performed live in a club in Hamburg more than 1200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time, and thereby getting really, really good at what they did.

Gladwell also cites the example of Bill Gates, who met the 10,000-Hour Rule when he gained access to a high school computer in 1968 at the age of just 13, and spent 10,000 hours programming on it.

Gladwell argues that the key to success in any field is largely a matter of practicing, with the proviso that you need constructive feedback so you don't simply practice your mistakes.  So, doing some simple sums, if you practice something for 20 hours a week, it will take you around 10 years to get really expert at it.

Malcolm Gladwell. Photo: Kris Krüg

Gladwell also notes that he himself took exactly 10 years to meet the 10,000-Hour Rule, working as a journalist at the American Spectator magazine and The Washington Post, polishing his craft as a writer.

Animation is no different. Getting good at it takes time and diligence. The Nine Old Men at the Disney Studio became the best by virtue of years of practice, competition - and being pushed by Walt to be the very best they could be.

It's the same for all of us. My father understood this when - in his mid-40's - he brought legendary Hollywood animators Art Babbitt and Ken Harris to his London studio to train his staff - and himself. Below is a picture of Dad taken when I was a kid.

So is a 3 year BA at University enough time to get really good? Well, let's do the sums. Add up the hours of formal teaching you get at university (around 16 hours a week) and multiply that over the course of 3 years, not forgetting to exclude the holidays, and you end up with around 1,500 hours. In other words, it's probably not enough.

So what is the answer? The solution, of course, is to practice in your own time. Consider the tutition you get at University to be just the beginning of the time you will need to invest to get really good at what you do. It's a springboard, and an opportunity to get great feedback, but time spent in the classroom is not the whole story.

The good news is this: if you are prepared to invest the time and effort to practice your craft, you will in all likelihood get really, really good at it.

And, if you don't believe me, buy Malcom's book and read it for yourself.

----Alex

Open Day at Bucks - April 27th

Our next Open Day at Bucks is 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.


Got any questions about Animation and VFX? Want to know about careers, what kind of jobs are available for animators and digital artists? - We have the answers.

Higher education is a big step and it's even bigger now that course fees are going up. We want to make sure that all our students get excellent value for money, and receive an inspiring top-quality training that will ensure a successful career in industry.

So, come along on April 25th and find out if Bucks is for you. Check out the video above to learn more. The official page, which has more details, can be found here.

---Alex

Building a great animation reel - the problem of weight

The secret of a great animation reel is simple - it must be completely free of mistakes. As Aardman animator Matt Rees puts it: "you are only as good as the worst thing on your reel".

3rd year Bucks animation student Dave Berry has been working hard on his animation reel, polishing the exercises set in my friday afternoon animation class and turning them into demo-reel-ready material.

Above is an excellent version of the "flour sack suicide", a relatively simple exercise which which tackles the problem of weight (ie how to make stuff feel heavy), and also performance, that is to say making an inanimate object come to life.

You can find the rig, which is a free download, here. And here are some thumbnail sketches to get you started.

Dave has also gone to the trouble of adding some simple textures, lighting and a camera move to make the shot feel finished. Nothing too complex - for animation purposes you want to keep things simple, lest you end up getting judged for the wrong things.

Congratulations to Dave on a very skilled piece of animation.

----Alex

(PS If any Bucks students feel they don't have enough animation in their lives and want to come along on Fridays from 2-4 pm in G1.13...come and join us!)

Disney kills 2D Animation - Official

The Princess and the Frog - Disney's last 2D feature

According to an article in yesterday's Guardian, 2D animation is officially dead at Disney, the studio which took the medium to its greatest-ever heights. At the annual shareholder meeting in Phoenix Arizona, CEO Bob Iger said:

"To my knowledge we're not developing a 2D or hand-drawn feature animated film right now. There is a fair amount of activity going on in hand-drawn animation but it's largely for television at this point. We're not necessarily ruling out the possibility [of] a feature but there isn't any in development at the company at the moment."

It's a sad end to a great tradition. But at least it's official. I am still amazed at the number of animation students who believe that Disney is still in the hand-drawn animation business, and will be hiring animators for 2D features.

Here at Bucks we are making sure that all of our students learn skills which will get them employed in today's job market. That means using the latest software and giving our students all the vital skills they need to get find jobs and set up their own mini-studios. Soho VFX houses are constantly bemoaning the skills gap among UK graduates. It's time to fill those gaps.

---Alex

(Editor's Note: To find out more about how we're keeping on top of technology here at Bucks, you can read about how we are partnering with the animation industry, how we're talking to Creative Skillset to get early accreditation, and use our floating licenses for online tutorials - perfect for any student who wants to upgrade their skills.)

Animation Magazine features our new course at Bucks

Animation Magazine, one of the longest-established publications on the animation business, has written about our new course at Bucks New University. The article by Mercedes Milligan explains what we're up to at Bucks, and how we are going about trying to create one of the best and most accomplished animation and vfx courses in the country.

To find out more about studying animation at Bucks, you read about how we are partnering with the animation industry, how we're talking to Creative Skillset to get early accreditation, and find out what goes into a good portfolio.  And you can watch our short video here, where Dave and I talk briefly about what this new course is all about.

---Alex