Bitesized three-day courses offer introductions into animation, Maya and visual effects
Graduates, school leavers and aspiring game developers in the UK are invited to attend a set of three-day summer courses which aim to introduce people to the basics of game design.
The sessions will take place at the London-based Escape Studios, a world-leading school of computer graphics, and is designed to offer “insight into the visual effects and gaming industries, and highlight exciting career opportunities.”
Though a small course, Escape’s influence is likely to be big for anyone wanting to enter the games business. Last year the school of computer graphics managed to get a “vast majority” of its graduates in jobs within the visual effects and games industries.
Escape says it is providing these courses as “fewer businesses in the traditional industries are offering graduate placements due to the economic downturn.”
Taking place on Tuesdays to Thursdays, the course is offering four introductions into as many key aspects of game design.
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From July 28 the course will offer an introduction to 3D using Maya, while, one week later from August 4 there will be a session on animation. The next week will see an introduction to visual effects and on the fourth week from August 18 there will be a more general introduction to games design.
Each of these “tasters” will contain abbreviated content from Escape Studio’s renowned full-time courses. If anyone attending so happens to take on the full-term course at the end of the summer, the taster classes will be free. Otherwise, all four courses will cost £349 per attendee.
“Over three days, students will learn the basics of 3D effects creation and gain a better understanding of what’s involved in visual effects and character animation with guidance from world-class tutors.”
“We’re offering anyone interested in getting into computer graphics a sneak preview with our summer taster courses,” said Escape Studios’ Dominic Davenport. “Our accelerated classroom learning courses are recognised by the industry and provide students and graduates with high quality training by professionals.
Don't get me wrong, these courses are fantastic, but please, could somebody tell Escape that school leavers and graduates don't actually have money.
Yeah, especially seeing as the article makes it sound like it's actually 4x £349 in order to do a full 12 days.
That's pretty much a year's tuition fees for a full-time university course.
The title is also a little misleading as Escape do not offer game design courses; in fact they stress this heavily and seem to be very keen on avoiding misunderstandings in this area.
In that case the whole article is misleading because it repeats the words Game Design a few times when it's art focused.
Even the introduction course about Games isn't about Design from looking at the website.
I wouldn' say 'misleading' - it means design for games. You're just arguing about syntax.
As for Escape - I've heard mixed things about them. One colleague swears by their course; someone interviewed for a job slagged them off...
Hi there,
Before I start I am Training Dev Dir at Escape, I'm afraid as always our press release has had some artistic interpretation and we are very careful to state we do an art course not design ( the design word is used a little too liberally within the press ) Try as you might someone always thinks a tinkering will make it better!
As to cost, well we have to charge something! and at just over £100 a day show me another professional course teaching Maya at that pricing....
best
lee
A friend of mine recently did a course at escape studios. He really liked what he learned and said the course was great. But after that he couldnt get a job and found escape studios extremely usless when "helping" him find one. Expect to learn alot from good tutors but done expect any help from them afterwards..
The friend in question should feel free to contact either myself or Paul Wilkes of our recruitment team at escape studios as it's not the tutors who will give cv, reel critique or job hunting advice but the recruitment team here.
best
lee
I am seriously thinking about doing a course at escape especially the vfx professional. However as I have slagged my nuts off after my illustration degree in concrete and crap working as a groundworker for the last three years in order to save the money to further my career intentions, I would pretty much be demoralised If I couldnt get a job in it.
