BA (Hons) Animation

Words by Peter Martin, Course Leader

Amongst the many industry speakers and masterclasses to contribute to the Course some highlights include the annual Animation WIP Conference, it’s always an exciting event and this year speakers from a range of animation disciplines gave inspiring talks about their various creative practices and about working in the industry, including character designer Dan Kelby, stop motion animators Oliver Tobias and Tom O’Meara, layout artist and producer Isobel Stonehouse and CG artist while writer and director Magali Barbe screened her latest film “This Time Away”.

During the year London International Animation Festival Director Nag Vladermersky joined animation director Stephen Ong to give insightful industry feedback to third years on their pitches and projects in development.

We were delighted when three graduate films from last year took all three nominations for ‘Best Animation’ in the student category of the Royal Television Society Awards, East of England; they were all strong entries, the award was won by Elizabeth Fijalkowski for her film “Cat Fight”.

This July we’re thrilled to hear Alkinoos Koutsantonakis won a D&AD New Blood Award and can now put a pencil in his portfolio, thank you to Jon Dunleavy for excellent work as the supporting tutor.

The spirit of collaboration was well and truly alive in this year’s graduates. From an anthology in which each contributor was asked to nominate their ‘happy place’ to a multidisciplinary VR Project and a Harryhausen inspired live action/stop-motion/VFX hybrid short film. Throughout students displayed invention and imagination, particularly impressive was their ability to support and encourage each other, especially during the Coronavirus lockdown. Students found innovative ways to stay in touch and to adapt their projects and processes to the unexpected restrictions and showed great resourcefulness, adaptability, invention and determination. These skills will serve them well in the future.

They have been a wonderful group of students to work with, spirited and ambitious in their creativity and highly committed to their art as animators. As they begin the next stages of their lives I know they are equipped with a great range of skills, my hope for them is to have an exciting, richly creative and fulfilling life. Something of their spirit and attitude is captured in these words of Maya Angelou “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style”.

I wish them all the very best of good fortune for their futures.