This eight week internet course has been designed in response to the quarantine restrictions as a result of Covid-19. The restrictions do not stop us working in animation and may give some an opportunity to have the extra time to revisit a long cherished project or develop new ideas. I want to share my experience of years of developing short animated films at some of the most successful animation departments across the world.
This course is designed for animation directors of all ages who wish to have professional support to develop a short film. At the end of the development period the participants should be ready to take their projects into production or seek the necessary funding to do so.
The aim of the course it’s to produce all the working documents necessary to go into pre-production or fund raising of a short animated film at the end of the quarantine period. The main emphasis will be on story.
The materials you will produce in the course are: Story synopsis, Director’s statement, character design, background design and key story images.
The course will look at the tools used for developing animated film stories including mood boards, reference material, research, discussion, step outlines, thumbnails, key story images and concept art.
There will be lectures.
At the end of the course we will look at rough budgets, schedules and funding opportunities but as this is dependent on local knowledge and conditions it can only be a guide to moving forward.
Applications are welcome from all ages and countries. The course will be taught in English. The aim of the course is to advance the development of short independent animation. Children’s films, series (except teasers) and feature film development is excluded.
Please apply to entry@paulbushfilms.com using the words ‘online entry‘ in the subject line.
PAUL BUSH has taught story development in many prestigious film schools such as the NFTS in the UK, CSC in Italy and HSLU in Switzerland as well as professional mentoring and development programmes like Anidox , Netherlands Institute of Animated Films, and at the Binger Institute. He has given workshops and masterclasses at Harvard, GEDAI Tokyo University of the Arts, EIC-TV in Cuba, RCA in London, Tallinn Academy of the Arts and many of the most successful film schools across the world. He was in charge of the animation graduation year at the National Film and Television School between 2005 and 2016 where he was responsible for the production of numerous award winning student films, including academy award nominees, a student Oscar winner, and several Bafta and Annecy winners.
He is also well known as a film-maker. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths in London and taught himself film-making at the London Film-makers Co-op in the 1980s. In the 1990s he began working single frame and it is for these films that he became well-known. His first animations were reworking of engravings scratched directly on film such as His Comedy (1994). Later he began a series of experimental stop frame animations that have been hugely influential including Furniture Poetry (1999) and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2001). More recently While Darwin Sleeps (2004) and The Five Minute Museum (2105) have won numerous awards and in 2012 his feature Babeldom was released in the UK to critical acclaim. His work has been shown in cinemas, festivals, galleries and on television all over the world. He has had retrospectives recently in Madrid, Lisbon, Bucharest, Brussels and Taiwan.
