EscapePod: 20 - 2016 with Tara Saunders

Bimpe Alliu started off studying History of Art, but soon did a handbrake turn into the world of Concept Art, via freelancing as an Illustrator, then being snapped up by Industrial Light and Magic. Hear how it happened!

Alexis is the VFX Supervisor for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Wonder Woman 1984 amongst others. He gave a great presentation at our VFX Festival, so we nabbed him for 5 minutes whilst we could!

Number #1 in our ESCAPADES series- Five Questions in Five Minutes! ILM's Creature TD Emily Shordon answers the questions.

Since the Mandalorian, it seems everyone's heard of virtual production - images of huge LED screen backdrops powered by real-time engines and camera tracking tech; but whats it like to OWN and run one of these facilities? How is this technology changing the way film and tv is being made? We speak to Joanna Alpe and Rowan Pitts, co-founders of Bild Studios/MARS volume. As we conclude this series at 2022, EscapePod:20 looks forward to the next 20 years, what do today's students need to know and what's it like creating work with this technology?

As we look back on 2021, Rhys Salcombe, VFX Supervisor from DNEG, joins us to speak about his work as CG Supervisor on Dune: Part 1. We have a peek behind the scenes to find out about the sequences that DNEG worked on, which led to the film winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. We speak about the use of sand screens rather than green screen and how it helped to have amazing plates to work with. We're proud to say that four Escapees worked on Dune, so it's great to hear how the team worked together and created such a successful film.

2020 is the year Escape Studios became the first Unreal Authorised Training Centre in the UK - working with Epic Games and the games industry to train students and companies alike in this revolutionary software. Escape's Christian Avigni (MA Games Tutor) and Simon Fenton (Dean/Director of Interactive and Real-Time) have seen Unreal grow from the early days. Here they tell us about how Unreal changed the way they teach, how it became adopted across the media industries and how working with Epic Games has meant Escape is creating a new breed of real-time professionals.

Olivia Unwin was one of the first students to join our undergraduate courses in 2016. Here she talks about what made her become one of our early adopters, what it was like being a student on a course where everything was new and how it helped her get her break in the industry and go on get her dream job as a producer in a games company.

Escapee and current Lighting Lead at Framestore, Alastair Cross, joins us to discuss 2018's Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. We speak about the shots Alastair worked on and the challenges he faced before diving in to speak about his amazing career working as a Studio Assistant at Escape Studios all the way up to becoming Lead Artist - great inspiration to current students and aspiring artists!

In this episode former student, Gianluca Siciliano, returns to talk about his incredible career in which he has progressed to Senior Creature TD at Industrial Light & Magic. We discuss his time at Escape Studios, which guided him to his first job in the film industry working on Thor: Ragnarok! The topic then moves on to the other films and shows he has worked on which has led Gianluca to his current position. Don't miss this amazing podcast as Gianluca shares lots of wisdom on how to grow your career and how Escape Studios led him on this journey.

Tara Saunders is Sony Playstation London Studio Head; there's not a lot that goes on in the UK Games scene that she doesn't know about. Here she speaks to Escape Studios Director Ian Palmer about the crucial year 2016- the year of Uncharted 4 and preparation for VR Worlds. Also how in this year Sony Playstation partnered with Escape to help build our acclaimed Game Art degree.