The VFX Festival 2021

Hosted by Escape Studios, The VFX Festival returns in 2021 and will celebrate the theme of ‘limitless creativity’ in the visual effects, animation, games, and motion graphics industries. The virtual festival will begin in March and will feature insight into award-winning productions, inspiring expert-led presentations, careers advice, as well as the latest trends, technology, and innovation from around the world.

Each year the festival brings together an awesome creative community, allowing emerging talent to explore the best of the creative industries and gives opportunities for professionals to expand their knowledge. There are three exciting areas to this year's festival.

The VFX Festival EDU

For school and college students (under 18 years old) who are excited to learn about the world of visual effects, animation, games and motion graphics.

This part of the festival is free to attend.

16th March - 18 March

You can book your tickets via the form below.

Get tickets below

The VFX Festival Emerging Talent

For students currently studying within Higher or Further Education and young professionals who are looking to kick start a career. The festival will be filled with inspiring talks, panel discussions, bite-size presentations, careers, and recruitment opportunities.

9th March - 11th March

You can book your tickets via Eventbrite.

Get tickets now!

The VFX Festival Virtual Series

A series of monthly events focusing on award-winning projects, trends, technology, development, and innovation from around the world. This part of the festival will consists of talks, presentations and workshops to dedicated to everyone looking for knowledge-building opportunities.

Starting end of March

You can book your tickets via Eventbrite.

Get tickets now!

The VFX Festival Emerging Talent (9th and 11th March 2021) | Programme

What to expect?

Learn from studio professionals during inspiring talks
Get the latest industry news through selection of presentations
Hear careers tips and advice during panel discussions
Hear about recruitment opportunities and jobs at the newest addition to the festival called 'Marketplace'
Meet and network with artists and recruiters

Tuesday, 9th March 2021

11.00 - 12.00 | Session and studio to be announced shortly

12.30 - 13.30 | Making a stylised short in Blender with purpose

Mark Spokes, Animator and Short Director & Grant Berry, Art Director at Blue Zoo.

About Speakers:

Grant Berry, Art Director

Grant is an award-winning Director / Designer. He is happiest when working on alternative visual storytelling. Illustration lies close to his heart but enjoys using mixed media to create interesting and standout visuals. Grant Joins Blue Zoo from The Mill where he worked on commercials, Title Sequences and promos.

Mark Spokes, Animator and Short Director

Mark has won awards for both his graduate film and a charity short film for BFX film festival. Most recently to direct the Blue Zoo short film, Sinking Feeling, raising awareness for mental health charity, PAPYRUS UK. Mark joined Blue Zoo as an animator three years ago, after graduating from Bournemouth University.

14.00 - 15.00 | BlueBolt’s Battles, Blood and Extensive Environments… VFX of The Last Kingdom Season 4 VFX

15.30 - 16.30 | Panel Discussion 'How to start in VFX and animation?'

Andrew Brassington, Head of Talent Development at Escape Studios (Chair)
Henry Bull, Head of Recruitment at Framestore
Melissa Spiezia, Global Talent Acquisition and Partnership Manager at The Focus
Lauren Barnes, Senior Talent Resourcer at Blue Zoo
Sara-Laila Francis, Talent Acquisition Specialist at Blue Zoo
Chloe Campbell, Recruiter at Foundry
Harriet Edge-Partington, Union VFX

17.00 - 18.00 | Concept Art - Behind the Pipeline

About session:

You don’t need to be a genius at math or sciences as a Concept Artist—this is where original ideas and creativity truly thrive! You will:

Learn about our artist’s inspirations.
See amazing concepts from HBO’s Lovecraft Country and other big shows
Learn how concepts can be crude, but it’s more important to show the idea.
See how crucial this role is and how concept art determines a lot of technological and creative processes throughout a project.

About Speakers:

Mai Anh Tran, Concept Artist at Rodeo FX

Mai-Anh Tran was born in France to a Vietnamese family. She grew up in Paris and studied 3D Animation. She began as a matte painter at Rodeo FX in 2014 and was offered opportunities to do concepts. The freedom to brainstorm and propose new ideas and designs kept her in concept work. Mai Anh finds that concept art really stimulates one’s creativity and also allows for great satisfaction when seeing the final shot looking like you envisioned it. Key projects: Men In Black International, Lovecraft Country for cityscapes, Antman for both concept art and matte paintings, and Deadpool. Her advice to newcomers: “Practice a lot and get inspired by other artists' work, and always be keen to learn new techniques”.

Florence Durante, Concept Artist

Concept Artist Florence Durante grew up near Paris, France and began her career as a photographer then moved on to digital retouching and after a one- year internship, evolved into a matte painter. After a few years working in France, the UK and Australia, she set the goal to move into concept art and took some basic art classes—art foundation, drawing, and painting—and began to catch up. Her journey is primarily self-taught with hours invested into personal projects and asking for feedback whenever possible. Her advice for anyone entering the industry is to always be a good student and never stop learning. Key projects: Matte Painter - The Martian, Gravity, Pan, Blade Runner 2049, Fantastic Beasts 2. ; Concept Artist - Game of Thrones season 7, Fantastic Beasts 3, Crawl, Lovecraft Country, WandaVision and lots of upcoming TV shows.

Deak Ferrand, Concept Artist

Deak Ferrand, the renowned artist at the helm of Rodeo FX Los Angeles, brings more than 25 years of experience as Art Director and Senior Matte Painter. With his cinematographic vision, he captures clients’ ideas and develops them into refined and detailed images, like the recent creature work he did for the highly anticipated series Lovecraft Country.

As Senior Matte Painter, Deak has most recently created artwork for Lovecraft Country and the film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, as well as the Sy-Fy series Krypton, Game of Thrones seasons 4 through 7, and Amazon’s Jack Ryan, for which he received a 2019 VES award. He’s also been an Art Director on HBO’s Watchmen and VFX Supervisor on Jack Ryan. With a portfolio of more than 90 feature films and series, Deak has worked with world-class directors.

18.30 - 19.30 | Q&A with Roger Guyett, VFX Supervisor moderated by Saint John Walker, Deputy Dean / Director at Escape Studios

About Speakers:

Roger Guyett

Roger Guyett is an Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning Visual Effects Supervisor with 25 years of experience in visual effects and on set supervision. Roger Guyett has worked on films such as J.J. Abram’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Star Trek Into Darkness, Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, Jon Favreau’s Cowboys and Aliens as well as the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Guyett’s vast knowledge and unmatchable experience has been recognized by the Academy, BAFTA, and Visual Effects Society. His work on Star Wars: The Force Awakens earned him a BAFTA and Visual Effects Society award.

Saint John Walker

Saint has been working at the interface between the animation, computer games, and visual effects industries and higher education, with a mission to produce better quality talent to feed the UK's creative industries. Saint has been authoring and updating the well-respected Core Skills of VFX Handbook and Student Primer. As a member of Access:VFX, Saint has worked on a number of projects to encourage more diversity and inclusion in visual effects and animation.

Marketplace

The ‘Marketplace’ which runs alongside The VFX Festival Emerging Talent will provide great opportunity for attendees to meet studios and hear about their work, as well as open or upcoming vacancies. Live sessions with studios representatives are scheduled between talks and presentations to provide you a chance to experience full programme of the event.

12.00 | Studio to be announced shortly

13.30 | Meet Blue Zoo

The UK’s leading animation studios, producing some of the most well-loved kids shows on TV, award-winning commercials, and animated short films renowned for unique visual storytelling and innovation. Blue Zoo has twice won the BAFTA for Independent Production Company of The Year and is a proud winner of the 2019 Best Places to Work in TV .‍

15.00 | Meet The Third Floor

THE THIRD FLOOR is a visualization studio dedicated to supporting the production of next-generation media content for feature film, television, commercials, video games, virtual reality and themed attractions. Working hand-in-hand with directors, producers and key crew, the company’s artists use specialized skills in storytelling and computer animation to create digital versions of shots and scenes to streamline physical production and post.

16.30 | Meet Union VFX

Union VFX is a boutique visual effects facility founded in 2008 by Adam Gascoyne and Tim Caplan, providing a creative service for feature film and television productions. Located in the heart of Soho, London, our studio is an environment where originality and innovation flourish. Our team of exceptional supervisors, producers and artists share a combined wealth of experience and passion for filmmaking, which has established Union’s reputation for imaginative solutions, quick turnarounds and stunning results.

18.00 | Studio to be announced shortly

Thursday, 11th March 2021

11.00 - 12.00 | Session and studio to be announced shortly

12.30 - 13.30 | Arm & Hammer - A breakdown of the animation process and techniques used

Chris Welsby, Senior Animator at Moving Picture Company (MPC)

About session:

A presentation on how the animation was approached to deliver believability, humour and character in the performance. How we approached the use of human reference and applied that in an animalistic way.

About speaker:

Chris has twelve years’ industry experience under his belt, in addition to an MA in animation, his longtime passion. Joining MPC in 2017 after a stint at Framestore and Passion Pictures as a senior animator, he has built an impressive portfolio of animation work. Most recently, projects that Chris have been involved in bringing to life includes Arm & Hammer ‘Once Upon A Time’, XBOX ‘Us Dreamers’, Heineken ‘Solar Power’, O2 ‘Christmas Bubl’, JEEP ‘Bird’ and Virgin ‘Up, Up and Toupee’.

14.00 - 15.00 | Developing Outcasters

Matt Jones, Associate Technical Artist; Rachael Tarr, Associate Audio Designer; Owen Ruddle, Associate Gameplay Programmer; Javi Galvan, Technical Designer; Alice Forbes, VFX Artist at Splash Damage

About session:

Attendees will learn what it’s like to work in a AAA studio making a quirky game like Outcasters. We have a member from audio, gameplay – code, games design, Tech art and, VFX.

About speakers:

Matt Jones has been at Splash for 3 years now as an Associate Technical Artist. Matt first joined Splash to work on Dirty Bomb, joining the project as a fan of the game. After Dirty Bomb production finished, they moved onto Gears: Tactics for a year and is now currently Sole Tech artist for Outcasters.

Rachael Tarr started in the games industry at Splash Damage as an Audio Production Tester and has worked her way into the audio design team, having shipped Gears Tactics and Outcasters during the 3 years she has been working there.

Owen Ruddle is currently an Associate Gameplay Programmer and graduated from the University of the West of England's Games Technology course in 2017. Since then he has worked for two studios, The Polygon Loft and Splash Damage. In those tenures he worked on two released titles Double Pug Switch and Outcasters.

Javi Galvan worked as a Software Developer for almost two years before becoming an associate Gamplay Programer at Splash damage where he worked his way up to becoming a Technical Designer.

Alice Forbes joined Splash Damage just after university. She started out as a VFX intern. At Splash she worked on Gears Tactics and Outcasters. Now she is the only VFX artist on multiple projects

15.30 - 16.30 | Panel Discussion 'How to start in games?'

17.00 - 18.00 | Session and studio to be announced shortly

18.00 - 19.00 | Q&A with Kris Pearn, Director (collaboration with VIEW Conference)

Moderated by Saint John Walker, Deputy Dean / Director at Escape Studios

About Speakers:

Kris Pearn

Kris Pearn is a director, executive producer, writer, storyboard artist, and actor known most recently for writing and directing Netflix’s critically acclaimed animated feature The Willoughbys. He was nominated for a BAFTA Children’s Award for directing the animated feature Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and received two Annie Award nominations for storyboarding the feature films Arthur Christmas and Open Season. He has also been a storyboard artist for Shaun the Sheep Movie, Home, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and Surf’s Up among other films.

Saint John Walker

Saint has been working at the interface between the animation, computer games, and visual effects industries and higher education, with a mission to produce better quality talent to feed the UK's creative industries. Saint has been authoring and updating the well-respected Core Skills of VFX Handbook and Student Primer. As a member of Access:VFX, Saint has worked on a number of projects to encourage more diversity and inclusion in visual effects and animation.

Marketplace

The ‘Marketplace’ which runs alongside The VFX Festival Emerging Talent will provide great opportunity for attendees to meet studios and hear about their work, as well as open or upcoming vacancies. Live sessions with studios representatives are scheduled between talks and presentations to provide you a chance to experience full programme of the event.

12.00 | Studio to be announced shortly

13.30 | Meet The Focus

The Focus, a careers hub for professionals enabling them to advance in their career and make the best of their experience in the VFX industry. Supported by a team of experts, The Focus provides career guidance, learning opportunities and industry insights, while offering access to a portfolio of award-winning VFX studios around the world including MPC Film, MPC Episodic, MR. X and Technicolor Pre-Production.

15.00 | Meet NVIZ

We’re passionate and committed to making things easier for filmmakers that want the complexity removed from the VFX process. We provide integrated and streamlined solutions that enable directors, cinematographers and supervisors to make effective decisions, helping them to achieve their creative vision. Whether it be visualising complex stunt sequences, providing responsive on-set imagery or creating striking CG creatures, we have experience in all areas. We are Nviz.

16.30 | Meet Foundry

Foundry designs creative software technologies used to deliver award-winning visual effects and 3D content for the design, visualization and entertainment industries. Whatever you can see, we innovate and design the technology to make sure the world can see it too, exactly as it was imagined. From the mind’s eye to the big screen, from paper napkin to product, we solve at scale for the most complex creative visual challenges, turning incredible ideas into reality.

18.00 | Meet Climax Studios

Climax was founded over 30 years ago and is located in the coastal city of Portsmouth. We have an extensive history in developing all kinds of digital experiences across all formats, delivering entire games, through to co-development and technological problem solving and we’ve won many awards along the way. We're currently developing AAA console games and looking for developers to join us.

The VFX Festival EDU (16th to 18th March) | Programme to be announced shortly

Tuesday, 16th March 2021

13.00 - 14.00 | Session and studio to be announced shortly

14.30 - 15.30 | Development stages of an animated show

16.00 - 17.00 | Panel discussion - ‘Getting started in VFX and Animation’ by Access: VFX

Thursday, 18th March 2021

13.00 - 14.00 | Session and studio to be announced shortly

14.30 - 15.30 | Session and studio to be announced shortly

16.00 - 17.00 | Panel discussion - ‘Getting started in games’.

Book your place at The VFX Festival EDU (only for tutors and students under 18 years old)

Are you planning to book a group ticket? Please get in touch via school.liaison@pearsoncollegelondon.ac.uk to secure place for your school.

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Partners

ACCESS:VFX

ACCESS:VFX is a global, industry-led, non-profit comprised of 40 leading companies, industry bodies and educational establishments in the VFX, animation and games industries. It focuses on actively pursuing and encouraging inclusion, diversity, awareness and opportunity under its four pillars of Inspiration, Education, Mentoring and Recruitment. ‍

ArtStation

ArtStation is a community that was shaped with the goal of empowering artists and creating opportunities for success. As a one-stop-shop for artists, ArtStation provides you with a simple, yet powerful way to show your portfolio and be seen by the right people in the industry. Users can showcase their portfolio, monetize their work through digital or print-on-demand products, learn to improve their craft through courses, and find jobs.

NOTE: Due to exclusive content most of the sessions will not be available to watch after the event. All our sessions are delivered live.

The VFX Festival 2021

Each year the festival brings together an awesome creative community, allowing emerging talent to explore the best of the creative industries and gives opportunities for professionals to expand their knowledge. There are three exciting areas to this year's festival.

The VFX Festival EDU

The VFX Festival Emerging Talent

The VFX Festival Virtual Series

The VFX Festival Emerging Talent (9th and 11th March 2021) | Programme

What to expect?

Tuesday, 9th March 2021

Thursday, 11th March 2021

The VFX Festival EDU (16th to 18th March) | Programme to be announced shortly

Tuesday, 16th March 2021

Thursday, 18th March 2021

Book your place at The VFX Festival EDU (only for tutors and students under 18 years old)

Partners

ACCESS:VFX

ArtStation

Escape Studios prospectus

Pearson Business School prospectus

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