60 Years since Animal Farm

It is now 60 years since the UK released it's first animated feature film 'Animal Farm' produced by the Halas and Batchelor studio in 1954.

Todays news on the BBC celebrates this, here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29845321

The UK animation industry has grown since then and now it employs 1000's of people across television, games, visual effects, film, new media and advertising.

Our animation programme leader Andy Wyatt was lucky enough to work for Halas and Batchelor in the early 1990's and remembers many of the original animation cells from Animal Farm in boxes, and at the time no-one knew what to do with them. Now fortunately, all the artwork has been archived and that part of our animation heritage is safe.

If you want to be part of the future of the animation industry, we are now open for applications to study animation on our BA Animation programme. Details on our new updated website here;

http://www.art.mmu.ac.uk/animation/

A Great Film to Show Off our Amazing Facilities

The Animation course is based in the Art School, and the animation studios can boast all the equipment, computers and industry standard software you are ever going to need to create some great animation. However as an art student, you will have access to a huge number of workshops, studios and equipment if and when you need it. Our technical team have produced an amazing video that shows off some of the stuff we have on offer.

Our Amazing Building...Come and See for Yourself.

The Manchester School of Art may not have won the prestigious Stirling Award for Architecture, announced in an award ceremony last night (well done Everyman Theatre in Liverpool), but we can be proud that our building was nominated and shortlisted as one of the 'six of the best' in the UK. 

It's going to be fantastic to have our new BA Animation course based in one of the UKs most beautiful buildings, listed alongside buildings like The Shard in London.

You can see and read about the building from an architects perspective here.

To develop creativity, an inspirational environment and space is critical, and if you come along to one of our open days, I will guarantee you will be inspired too. The open day tomorrow opens at 10am and Programme Leader, Andy Wyatt will be doing a presentation about the new animation course at 1.15pm, and he will also be around all day to talk about the course, and animation in general.

School Visit for an Animation Workshop

Animation Programme Leader Andy Wyatt and a team from Manchester School of Art visited Priestnall School in Stockport this week to talk about a career in Animation and also run an animation workshop where students created their own animations in the style of OOglies, one of the TV series that Andy worked on.

The animation was created by using some stop motion software apps installed onto IPads.

We are always happy to visit schools or colleges to talk to students (year 9 and above) about a career in animation, run animation workshops, or talk about animation in after school clubs.

Contact Andy Wyatt for more info.  http://www.art.mmu.ac.uk/animation/

Open Day on 11th and 18th October 2014

In 2015 Manchester School of Art will launch an exciting new BA course in animation.  The course will be very much about the future of animation: it will take all the traditional skills of drawing, narrative and character and look at how these might be applied to emerging digital platforms as well as in television, film, visual effects and advertising.

Manchester has a very proud history of animation, from Cosgrove Hall (Dangermouse, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Wind in the Willows) to Mackinnon and Saunders (Corpse Bride, Bob the Builder, Fantastic Mr Fox) Factory Transmedia (Strangehill High, Roary the Racing Car) and many others.

Former Executive Producer of the Simpsons, Josh Weinstein, said recently that he sees that there is the possibility that Manchester will overtake LA as a centre for creativity in the animation sector:

“The city was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and now I see it as being at the heart of a new revolution in the media industries, particularly animation.”

And he is not the only one: in the last 3 years BBC Children’s has moved its location from London to Manchester, partly because of the vibrant animation sector in the city. Industry links are an essential part of study at Manchester School of Art and the BBC, ITV as well as our locally based companies are already lending support for the planning and teaching of the new degree.

If you are interested in being part of this exciting journey and applying to be one of the first students in this amazing opportunity, please contact Animation Programme Leader Andy Wyatt a.wyatt@mmu.ac.uk for more details, or come and see us at one of our open days on 11th or 18th October.

You can book for an open day here http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/visit/