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 The animation was originally made as a pilot (a test animation) for a TV series that never got made.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 :-)