Educating Animators Conference 2022

For five years Manchester Animation Festival and the University of Salford have been proud to present Educating Animators, a discussion that progresses the creative curriculum and bridges the gap between academia and industry. This year Educating Animators returns on Mon 14 Nov,  from 10:00 – 15:00.

For our fifth edition we would like to draw focus on an area of both academia and industry that is expanding rapidly, and the way it fits into a programme of education. For animation, vfx and games, ‘supplemental education’ is allowing people in industry and in academia to undertake courses that enhance their personal and professional skills through short courses that cover many aspects of the artform.

Animation may well claim to be the world’s most expressive artform. As it is open to collaborate with many different mediums, it offers a platform that has no defined boundary. With limitless creative potential, approaching animation from an education point of view may sometimes prove a challenge. The focus of the academic conference will be the pedagogic response to animation; how it is taught and understood across Higher Education, Schools, Community Workshops and within Industry itself. The interdisciplinary and heterogeneous nature of animation creates a complex and rewarding challenge to creating and delivering a creative curriculum. The new affordances of emerging technologies like VR, the expectations of learners, the historical and cultural contexts, and pressures of being commercially relevant also create tensions and opportunities to explore. The conference is an opportunity to share and debate good practice across the education sector, and open up conversations with industry to support knowledge transfer, to explore this creative industry and how we shape it through a curriculum.

In our fifth edition we will investigate, evaluate and interrogate supplemental education and essential skills through a series of talks, keynotes, panels and workshopping sessions.

This year’s Keynote will be Stuart Messinger – Producer & Course Leader at Aardman Academy who will be discussing the themes of supplemental education.

Schedule

9:30 – 10:30 – Coffee Reception and Networking at Media City, University of Salford.

10:30 – 10:45 – Welcome by University of Salford and Manchester Animation Festival

10:45 – 11:30 – Keynote: Stuart Messinger, Aardman Academy
Stuart is Producer and Course Lead with Aardman Academy. Stuart has loved animation, in all its forms, since a very young age and has spent much of his time drawing, making models, making films, putting on puppet shows, telling stories and performing in plays – he still does.With over 20 years’ experience of working in both Industry and Higher Education, Stuart continues to develop and deliver animation courses, curriculum content and industry training and has been lucky enough to have worked with a number of leading educational institutions. He is currently Producer and Course Lead with Aardman Academy, overseeing the design and delivery of our portfolio of Industry Training Courses. His research interests lie in developing new methods of teaching animation – in pursuit of believability in character animation and performance.

11:30 – 11:45 – Break

11:45 – 13:00 –  Skills Model Presentation and Workshop – Jonathan Mortimer
In this interactive session Jonathan will be presenting a Learner centred framework for student self-review and reflection of skills appreciation, for those wishing to pursue a career in the animation or games sectors. The purpose of this framework is to allow integration with teaching & delivery frameworks, festivals, workshops or/and personal development. This is a open opportunity to help develop a shared resource for academia and industry.

Jonathan Mortimer has a wealth of experience as a Producer, 2D animator, storyboard artist and writer. He has delivered high standard teaching in animation in both higher and further education for over a decade, and currently lectures in animation and storyboarding at Edinburgh Napier University. Mortimer works at the internationally renowned Axis Studios, as Talent coordinator and educational engagement, while continuing to work freelance as a Storyboard artist. He continues to support the renowned MOVE summit as coordinator of Emerging Talent and engages with colleges and universities. Mortimer has specific interests in the growth & development of the animation/VFX sector, and the Knowledge/Skills gap debate, making him uniquely placed to be able to research this in both the education and industry sectors.

13:00 – 14:00 – Lunch

14:00 – 15:00 – Ai Art in the curriculum – Open Debate
Opening this session – Lewis Hackett will help demystify the current state of Artificial Intelligence Art tools such as Stable Diffusion and Dreambooth by walking us through his creative workflows he has been researching and developing to create an AI assisted Graphic Novel and pipelines for concept ideation – before we open up to the floor for a debate on the use of these technologies ethically in teaching and learning.

Lewis Hackett is the director of Prefix Studios and a multidisciplinary artist working with emerging technologies across a range of mediums for film, animation, game development and real-time content. He has lectured design modules at Bradford University and delivers a range of technology and art focussed workshops as well as private tutoring for game design. Lewis is a founding member of the Deadstream art collective and more recently joined TheCultureDAO, where he has been researching and exploring AI Art techniques with the aim of proving the tech as a viable toolset for creating narrative based work.

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