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.

How Important is the Creative Economy? Watch this Animation and Find Out...

Cartoon starring Simon Pegg gets over 2 million views on You Tube

A short cartoon I made back in 2000 starring the young Simon Pegg has now been viewed over 2 million times on You Tube, and has been stirring up quite a storm in cyberspace. It is also now showing on Channel Frederator in the US. The animation was originally made as a pilot (a test animation) for a TV series that never got made. The animation was done in Flash and the episode also features the voices of Nigel Planer, Doon Mackichan, Morwenna Banks and Darren Boyd.

On the set of CITV's Compost Corner

Here is CITV's animation maestro and Creative Producer, Westley Wood on the set of 'Compost Corner'.

Westley is one of the industry advisors to the BA Animation course and we are working closely with the industry to make sure our graduates have all the skills and knowledge to pursue a career in animation.

I took this picture after meeting up with Westley in CITV's studios in MediaCity this morning.

If you haven't seen Compost Corner, check out the Facebook page here!

The Making of a Cartoon for TV

I was looking through some old videos and came across this gem...a video of yours truly explaining to Fern Cotton how to do animation! This was made back in 2003 when I was directing a cartoon series for Top of the Pops Saturday called PopSkool....anyone remember that? They were a bunch of short cartoons about a school where pop stars learned how to become famous by established masters of pop. Ozzy Osbourne was the headmaster and stars like Kylie, Robbie Williams and Janet Jackson were the teachers and pupils included Busted, Blazin Squad, Atomic Kitten, Britney Spears etc...Those were the days when I had bleached hair too!!

New Animation Course gets Academic and Industry Approval

The new animation course is on target to commence enrolling students from September 2015, and has now been given the stamp of approval from both academics and representatives from industry at a validation committee.

This is fantastic news for us, as this means we can now fully get the ball rolling to build a brand new animation studio in the School of Art.

One of the industry representatives, Mike Robinson, from Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick, was particularly impressed by the Art School and the plans to build a course that CHF and indeed the rest of the Manchester animation community could work with.

Applications to start the course in September are now invited, and the course can be applied through UCAS using the course code D367

40 New Animation Jobs to be Created in Manchester

The new BA Animation course was officially launched to the industry at 'Manimation', the Manchester Animation Festival, held at Media City on 20th November.

Course Leader Andy Wyatt (pictured conducting an online interview with Craig Fletcher, CEO of Multiplay at Manimation) announced Manchester School of Art's exciting plans to start a long-awaited dedicated animation course in September 2015.

The event, which was supported by the School of Art was a day of presentations, panel discussions and networking events. Perhaps the highlight of the day was the key note address by our friends from Dublin, Brown Bag Films, whose CEO Cathal Gaffney announced the studio plans to expand their existing Dublin and Hollywood workforce of 160, by opening a studio in Manchester, creating 40 new jobs for animators. We will be working with Brown Bag to make sure that we create the sort of graduates that they would like to employ in the future.

Key creatives from some of the top animation, visual effects and games studios in the UK were at MediaCity to discuss the future of animation, including Cubic Motion, the Composer Works, Mackinnon and Saunders, CBeebies, Multiplay, Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick, Brown Bag Films, Adobe, British Film Institute, Mainframe, Rights TV, Next Gen Skills Academy, 422.TV, The Brothers McLeod, The Peel Group, Compact Media Group, Peachy, RealtimeUK, Fettle, EON Reality, ToonBoom, CITV plus many many more.

More information and the official event blog can be read here;

http://www.thechildrensmediaconference.com/events/manimation-2014/

For more information on the new animation course contact Andy Wyatt here

Design Your Future - London Excel Exhibition Centre

Nice to meet so many people at the UCAS 'Design your Future' event today at the Excel Exhibition Centre in London. If you missed us there, we will be at the Design your Future event in Manchester on 24th-25th November at the MCCC

The interest in the new animation course has been amazing.....and we've met some really talented folk.

Also we have an open day coming up on 29th November. Come along and say hello :-)

Manimation, the Manchester Animation Festival

Manimation Returns to BBC Salford


Thursday 20 November 2014
BBC Bridge House, Salford

Manimation Fusion will be a full day of sessions on all aspects of the animation industry including TV series, movies, commercials, VIS FX, apps and games – with the chance to meet key players in broadcasting, producing and funding.

PLUS the added bonus of Manimation Inspiration – an evening of creative conversation and networking, which is a FREE event in collaboration with the Next Generation Festival. Full details of speakers to follow soon. Book Now


Register now for the return of the popular Manchester-based workshop and networking event – Manimation.

Manimation 2014 is organised by CMC with support from MMU and supported by MIDAS.

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/

Programme Leader joins Simpsons writer at BBC writing event.

Manchester School of Art Animation Programme Leader Andy Wyatt (back row far left) joins a team of writers from the BBC's 'Writers Room' to discuss animation. The writers from all over the UK have worked on some of the nations top TV shows and were joined by Simpsons and Futurama writer and creator of Strangehill High creator Josh Weinstein (front row, centre).