Last week saw the UK’s very first VFX Festival, hosted by Escape Studios—a four-day spectacular exploring the breath-taking world of visual effects. Our industry pals and we celebrated the last decade of VFX with a jam-packed schedule of exclusive events, and it was our tutor-led workshops at Escape HQ that seemed to particularly whet the appetites of all those budding VFX artists out there.
Our Head of 3D, Mark Spevick, kicked off events on Wednesday evening with his What is Visual Effects? introductory workshop, which gave its creatively-curious attendees a taste for the software that makes all that VFX magic possible. The studio was packed with school kids, who were mesmerised by Mark’s clever trickery, conjuring up on-screen explosions before their very eyes. That evening also saw our intermediate NUKE workshop ran by our Head of 2D, Davi Stein—this proved to be an eye-opening event for attendees who already had some familiarity with this hot piece of software, eager to gain insiders’ advanced tips and tricks.
On Thursday evening, workshoppers delved into the world of compositing, with Simon Haslett’s Just what is Compositing? introduction for beginners. Our guests for this included another bright-eyed bunch of school kids, who we’re sure will never watch a blockbuster action film in the same way again.
Our VFX tutor, Dan Shutt, delivered an intermediate Maya taster session on the Friday evening, in which attendees were treated to an exploration of the program’s more advanced features. Together they learnt how to model a tractor tyre, employing a very clever and not immediately obvious route, learning a valuable lesson: often when you’re striving for VFX perfection you need to think outside the box (or cylinder, in this case). Friday also saw our popular Python Fundamentals for NUKE Artists workshop, led by Double Negative’s Senior Compositor and Escapee, Victor Perez—attendees left the studio with dropped jaws! We also had guest host, Stuart Holloway, from Autodesk in to dazzle workshoppers with the delights of Smoke 2013.
The last day of Escape’s sell-out event was packed with spoilt-for-choice festival-goers, with the repeat of many of our popular workshops from the following days. We were also delighted to offer Framestore’s compositing workshop with their Technical Directory, JP Li, and The Foundry’s Rough Guide to Nuke workshop, hosted by their Creative Specialist, Juan Salazar.
The VFX Festival celebrated the very best visual effects talent and achievements to date, and our hands-on workshops certainly proved to be the must-go events for those inspired to pursue a career in the industry.
We are currently updating The VFX Festival website, be sure to check back later this week to view galleries from the events and to register for 2013.