Escape Studios
Escape Studios was founded in April 2002 by Dominic Davenport and fully supported by Oscar winning director Ridley Scott.[1] Based in Shepherds Bush, London UK and Santa Monica, California USA, Escape has built a reputation delivering classroom and online training to the global computer graphics (CG) community.
Escape boasts one of the foremost schools of computer animation and visual effects. As well as training Escape Studios is a major visual effects recruiter in the UK as well as Europe’s largest reseller for Autodesk Maya, Pixar RenderMan and many other CG focused hardware and software products.
Classroom Courses
Escape Studios offers full-time and part-time courses designed to take complete beginners to the point where they are able to perform at an industry entry level in 3D Visual Effects and Compositing.
Classroom Courses are:
- Visual Effects Professional 18 weeks full-time
- Visual Effects Production 12 week full-time
- Composting Professional 18 weeks full-time
- Compositing Production 12 weeks full-time
- Maya Core 30 weeks part-time evening
- Visual Effects 28 weeks part-time evening
- Compositing 20 weeks part-time evening
Online Mentored Courses
Escape Studios online mentored courses follow the same curriculum as the 12 week full-time classroom courses but are delivered globally online through a custom build eLearning system. Courses run for just under a year and can be studied on a part-time bases. Students follow a set of weekly video tutorials then undertake weekly projects which are reviewed by one of Escape's tutors and the feedback sent to the student through the eLearning system. These courses are followed by a class group who can access each other's feedback and gain from a group learning experience.
Online Mentored Courses are:
Tutors/Instructors
All of the tutors and instructors Escape Studios employ are industry professionals who have many years of professional productions experience.
- Visual Effects Courses in London are taught by Mark Spevick, Dan Shutt and Gideon Corby.
- Compositing Courses in London are taught by Davi Stein and Hugo Guerra
- Online Courses are mentored by Simon Fenton, Paul Harrison as well as a number of other freelance industry professionals.
Recruitment
Escape Studios UK runs a recruitment department to get students and other freelance CG professionals hired by production houses around the world for work on film, commercials, game and visualisation projects.
Technology
Escape Studios UK Technology department provide hardware and software sales and professional services to companies around the world.
Production
In the past Escape Studios UK's ran a production department which provided out-sourced VFX production services to a number of production facilities in London. These live projects enabled students completing courses to be hired as freelancers to gain their first experience in VFX production. These projects have included the following films:
- The Dark Knight (2008)
- Wanted (2008)
- The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
- 10,000 BC (2008)
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
- Fred Claus (2007)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
- The Da Vinci Code (2006)
- Poseidon (2006)