Aardman Certificate in Character Animation – Loyd Price Interview

Applications are now open for Aardman’s Certificate in Character Animation course which the company is running alongside NTFS. The course is aimed primarily at graduates and is taught by industry professionals within Aardman studios here in Bristol. The course is headed up by Loyd Price, Head of Animation at Aardman, with the aim of bridging the gap between education and industry and enabling students to develop the core practical skills needed for them to become competent professional animators and to create believable characters through acting and performance. For those interested in the course Aardman Character Animation Course for more details and read on as ee spoke to course leader Loyd Price to get some more insight on what to expect.

Hi Loyd, could you first introduce yourself to our readers?

I’m Head of Animation here at Aardman and I’ve worked here for the past 20 years. During that time I’ve animated on all of our stop frame productions from including A Close Shave, Chicken Run, Curse of the WereRabbit, Pirates, the Shaun series and Feature film. I also spent some time working on Flushed Away, Aardman’s first CG film over at Dreamworks. Before joining Aardman I animated on Nightmare before Christmas and spent eight years animating at Cosgrove Hall on series such as Wind in the Willows and Truckers.

Can you give us an overview of the Aardman Certificate in Character Animation Course?

This is an intensive 12 week course which focuses specifically on character animation and performance. The idea behind the course is to bridge the gap between what students learn at university and the skills needed to become professional animators. There is a maximum of 12 students on each course and they have daily tuition from animators currently working within the industry. The course is run at our studio’s at here in Bristol with the main aim being to produce students with the level of animation skills needed to allow them to get jobs as animators within this competitive industry.

Who will be Teaching the course?

This year’s course will be primarily taught by myself and by Inez Woldman, a Senior CG Animator who has animated for companies such as Aardman, Passion Pictures, Luma and Partisan. There will also be other tutorial input from other industry professionals from both the Stop-frame and CG animation disciplines.

Can you gives us some insight into the course curriculum? What will applicants get from the course?

Students will be taught in small groups to enable maximum contact time with staff and other visiting tutors. The course will be taught in a series of weekly assignments, each focusing on a key aspect of animation performance. Initially the course will focus on the core animation skills to ensure that students understand the key animation principles such as timing, weight and lines of action. These technical aspects of animation underpin character performance and are essential to enable students to achieve convincing performance. Further character-based performance exercises increase the understanding of Character Posing, Blocking and Plotting the action within the shot or sequence.

The students will be encouraged to repeat and finesse each assignment during the week and to video themselves acting out variations of the exercises to guide and inform their work. The course will be based on learning technical and practical skills, providing a foundation on which students can become technically proficient animators and thereby enable them to bring their characters to life. The course is structured to build from simpler exercises towards a short sequence demonstrating character-based performance, which will be animated within scheduled production deadlines.

To complement the intensive animation training, students will have life drawing sessions, acting workshops as well as weekly industry masterclasses. These give the students invaluable contacts within the industry moving forwards, as well as tips on how to promote yourself and the soft skills needed within a competitive industry. Past speakers have included companies such as Blue Zoo, Lupus, Jellyfish, Passion Pictures, Factory Transmedia, Turner, Richard Williams, Nick Park, MPC, DNeg and Dreamworks.

Why has Aardman become involved in offering such courses?

Training to develop future talent is something that both David Sproxton and Pete Lord, the owners of Aardman have been interested in for a long time. They feel, as I do, that it’s important that Aardman takes a lead in developing students with the skills needed for the industry, not only Aardman but for the industry as a whole. This is why we have joined with the NFTS to deliver this course.

You have run the course in previous years, how have these previous editions been?

We have looked at each course and tried to develop and improve from the last. We have taken feedback from the students and from others in the industry and changed elements of the course to reflect this. For example on the second course we were able to have extra varied characters to allow students to do a two character final scene. As the course has developed we have been able to get more UK companies involved to offer short internships which have often led to students being offered animation jobs with these companies.

Have you seen success in terms of previous students gaining work in the industry after attending the course?

To date over 70% of the students from the first two courses have gone on to get work as animators within the industry.

Is the course open to applicants from all animation disciplines?

The course is open to students who want to work in either the stop frame or CG disciplines with a maximum of 6 Stop Frame and 6 CG students. The students work in either CG (using Maya) or Stop Frame (using Dragon-Frame).

What are you looking for when selecting applicants?

We are looking for students with a real passion for character animation and a desire to develop and improve their skills.

And finally can you give us any insight into whats next big thing on the road map for Aardman Animations?

We are currently shooting a short Shaun the Sheep film and are in pre-production on Early Man, Nick Park’s next feature film.