Martin Clapp’s film The Magic Piano made the Oscar Animated Short final 10 shortlist. Martin has worked in the animation industry since graduating in 2000, mainly with 3D computer animation. He also worked on the 2006 Oscar winning film Peter and the Wolf, produced by Breakthru Films.

Find out more:
- MA Character Animation course page

‘La Messicole’

Congratulations to Central Saint Martins MA Character Animation graduate Hannes Stummvoll, whose graduation film, ‘La Messicole’ has been officially selected in the Animation category for the prestigious Rushes Soho Shorts Festival.

This animation was created as part of a live brief for the National Gallery and was inspired by Paul Gauguin’s ‘Harvest: Le Pouldu’ (1890). With a painterly aesthetic created through digital tools, it features Chloé daydreaming during the wheat harvest and explores the boundaries between fantasy and reality, work and play, visual arts and music, wheat and poppies.

The film has also been screened at many other international festivals including: 5th China International Student Animation Festival 2010; 12th Puchon International Student Animation Festival 2010 South Korea; Busan Universiade for Digital Content 2010 South Korea; Animac Catalonian Festival of Animated Film 2011 Lleida, Spain; Pictoplasma 2011 Festival for Contemporary Character Design & Art Berlin, Germany; arte KurzSchluss 2011 online short film competition Germany / France; 7th International Short Film Festival Detmold 2011, Germany. In addition, Hannes will be showcased in the Summer 2011 edition of Imagine animation magazine.

Visit:
- Rushes Soho Shorts official selection
- MA Character Animation course page

The Internet Advertising Bureau’s 120 Hours (of digital display) is a frenzied carnival of creativity, celebrating prodigious digital display ads. Centred around an art exhibition of the best digital ads, this is all about the digital creative industry.

Enter the IAB’s 120 Hours (of digital display) Creative Genius Award. IAB are asking the greatest creative minds to step forward and forge miniature works of art in any medium – photos, drawings, poems, watercolour, video etc – using online and mobile ad sizes as the canvas. Entries will be judged by a panel of senior experts from the creative industry. Two winners will receive the first IAB 120 Hours Awards, at the launch night of the 120 Hours exhibition, April 6.

Visit:
- More on 120 Hours (of digital display) exhibition and award
- The IAB website

Ignasi’s final degree film Saint Christopher Carrying the Infant Christ has been selected by the International Festival of video and digital Arts and nominated for the Metropolis awards.

Ignasi’s film was the result of a collaboration with the National Gallery London. The winning work will form a special 25 minute program to be broadcast on Metropolis, a programme on the premiere Spanish TV channel TV2.

- Watch Saint Christopher carrying the infant Christ
- Visit the PG Cert Character Animation course page
- Visit Ignasi’s website

PG Dip Character Animation alumnus Jats Gill is launching his first vinyl art toy series comprising over forty custom artist designs that he describes as twisted and seductive.

You can see them in the exhibition Bitbots Jinny: The Bewitched Forest on from 10 to 30 September 2010 at 1.11 Kingly Court, London, W1B 5PW.

Visit:
- Bitbots’ website
- PG Dip Character Animation course page

Not one but four different alumni of PgDip Character Animation have been nominated for awards in the prestigious Soho Rushes Shorts Animation Awards.

2009 Graduation films by Anna Fyda (‘Secret Santa’) and Phoebe Boswell (‘The Girl with Stories in her Hair’) have been nominated alongside films by alumni Milo Waterfield (‘Lobster Club’) and Peter Baynton (‘Save Our Bacon’).
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Pg Dip Character Animation student Joanna Czajka has a picture called ‘Jenny builds her sky’ featured in the 20/21 Art Fair at Royal College of Art.

It is shown and dedicated as a donation to Too Many Women, an organisation supporting BreakThrough Breast Cancer. The photo-montage features fellow student Jenny Lewis.

Visit:
PG Dip Character Animation courser page
20/21 International Art Fair

Broccoli Soup by Silvia Bartoli

Two of the top graduates from Pg Dip Character Animation have had their graduation films shortlisted for prestigious British Animation Awards.

‘Broccoli Soup’ Directed by Silvia Bartoli has been nominated in the ‘Best Student Film Category’ and ‘The Girl with Stories in her Hair’ Directed by Phoebe Boswell has been nominated both in ‘Best Student Film Category’ and also for a ‘Public Choice Award’.

You can vote for Phoebe’s film when it’s screened at the BFI on Thursday 18 February 18:20 NFT2 or Sunday 28 Feb 20:20 NFT2 as part of the British Animation Awards 2010: Programme One.

These two films were created in response to a brief from the National Gallery to create a short film inspired by a painting in their collection.

Visit:
Examples of Central Saint Martin’s student films for the National Gallery
PG Dip Character Animation
British Animation Awards website
BFI Animation Awards programme website

CSM alumni Panagiota Chaidogiannou and Thomas Hebdon’s short film is being shown at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

Panagiota and Thomas had the following to say:

Upon discovering the 1minutetosavetheworld competition we were excited by the challenge of creating a film on such a prominent issue that we are passionate about, but within the constraints of 1 minute. The thought of having our work shown at The Copenhagen Climate change conference was appealing, definitely a new audience! We thought it a good idea to combine Flash generated animation with stop motion animation to create distinction between the computer game and the outside ‘real world.’ All aspects of the film were completed by ourselves. This was our first collaborative project.

Visit:
Postgraduate Diploma Character Animation course page
Panagiota’s website
Tom’s websiteClimate Summit website

Alex Dashina and Varvara Volodina, two second year students on BA Graphic Design directed the new video.

The video was premiered across hundreds of music and popular culture websites in Europe and America on October 9, 2009. In its first week, the promo was viewed 10,000 times on The Decemberists website alone and Colin Meloy, lead singer with The Decemberists, has been twittering: “The video referencing Baba Yaga, that lovable Russian folktale mainstay, is A++ in my book. The video was produced by Peter Cleak and Steve Radmall.

Visit:
BA Graphic Design course page
The Decemberists’ website