The Aardman Academy Industry Certificate: Stop Motion 1

Calling all aspiring animation professionals! Creative Access has partnered with Aardman to offer two funded places on this brand new world-class online stop motion course. Don't miss this rare opportunity...

Aardman, based in Bristol (UK) and co-founded in 1976 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, is an independent and multi-award-winning studio. It produces feature films, series, advertising, games, interactive entertainment  and innovative attractions for both the domestic and international market, including a new 4D theatre attraction at Efteling in the Netherlands. The studio runs the Aardman Academy to nurture talent and strengthen ties between the animation industry and education. The Aardman Academy offers a variety of courses from intensive one-day workshops teaching production skills and storyboarding, to comprehensive twelve-week courses for professionals in craft-based subjects from model making to animation.

The Aardman Academy, Industry Training: Stop Motion 1 is a 12-week virtual course developed and taught by the award-winning professionals at Aardman. It’s the first in the series of industry-led courses from the studio; committed to building sustainable careers within animation. Aardman has committed to fully funding two bursary places on the course, working in partnership with Creative Access. The collaboration is targeted at building a more diverse and inclusive workforce within the animation industry, nurturing talent from the ground up, inherent to the development and production of world-class entertainment for a diverse and intergenerational global audience.

Details about the course

• Due to launch in February 2021
• Intensive tuition spanning the three month period via virtual lessons and weekly one-on-one mentor tutorials with an individually assigned Aardman professional who will act as guidance, offering advice throughout
• Course leader, former Aardman director and filmmaker Mark Simon Hewis (8 Minutes Idle, The Life Size Zoetrope) will deliver weekly live, interactive lectures online, setting tasks and enabling course participants to meet, share ideas and engage in the Aardman Academy community
• A welcome pack for each successful applicant, with specialist equipment needed to participate in the course (including professional animation software Dragonframe and its accompanying controller and Animation Toolkit)
• Each of the 12 weeks will cover a different topic, all vital in building the right foundations and developing the practical skills needed for a career in animation
• Video workshops, lectures and tutorials will provide grounding for regular assignments, which will be individually assessed and reviewed via weekly feedback sessions with the participants’ mentor
• Progress is reviewed after every four week period, culminating in the final submission of work to be assessed by mentors and course leaders. Final cut showreels will be live-streamed for all participants in a virtual wrap party

Peter Lord, Aardman Co-founder and Creative Director comments "I’m a huge advocate of animation as an expressive art, but I find that in this country we’re great at encouraging film-making and much less good at teaching the foundation skills of animation and performance. The Aardman Academy believes in redressing that unbalance. It’s important to us at Aardman to nurture great talent, and make sure future filmmakers develop the skills and the confidence to prepare them for the industry."

The Aardman Academy, Industry Training: Stop Motion 1 is now open for applications. This opportunity is only open to individuals from a group which is under-represented in the creative industries. This includes, but is not limited to, Black, Asian and ethnically diverse candidates, people with disabilities and individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. 

To Apply

• Log in to your Creative Access account or register today to apply for this opportunity
• Please include a link to your portfolio and a 200 word statement about why you want to do the course