Several of you have emailed asking for more of an insight into the Awards Ceremony.  As mentioned previously the main information will be posted onto Manchester University’s Animation 09 site.  But here is a few snippets of the day.

Animation 09: A pictorial overview

Toby Howard, Deputy Director of the Undergraduate School for Computer Science of Manchester University, is the superb host of the day.  he kept the Awards moving at a fast pace, ensuring the audience was consistently engaged.

Simon Taylor, ‘Sick of School’ picks up his first award for Key Stage 4, Individual Award, of a Laptop!

All felt inspired seeing schoolchildren, so young, blessed with so much talent, collecting their awards

It was also very heartening to see so many females winning awards and demonstrating superb creative talent.  Given the games & film industry has traditionally been very male dominated, this looks set to change in future generations, which can only rein-vigour the creative industries

Louis Durrant picks up his first Award of a Laptop for ‘Hip to be Square’ for Key Stage 3 Individual entrant.

Toby Howard builds up the excitement in the auditorium as he introduces the final Awards and builds up to the EA Special Awards

Matthew Jeffery, Head of Talent Brand congratulates the students on the high quality entries and asks whether there is a future Steven Spielberg, John Lasseter or Will Wright in the room.  Kate Booth, European Outreach Manager gets ready with the EA Award prizes and looks on

Matthew outlines why all the entrants should be very proud and congratulates Manchester University on a Nationwide UK Competition for 7 – 19 year olds that attracted over 800 entries.  Animation 09 was a huge success and Manchester should be applauded for it’s endeavours.

Matthew and Kate present Simon Taylor with a PS3 & Games & a Certificate for ’Sick of School’.  Simon won the EA Special Recognition Prize for an outstanding animated short

Matthew & Kate welcome Louis Durrant to the stage to collect the EA Overall Winner Prize: Best Animated Video of Animation 09 for the superb Animated Short, ‘Hip to be Square’.

Matthew preceded to give a presentation to the audience on Animation inside EA and the future of gaming.  This was aimed to be educational and allow the audience a behind the scenes insight into videogame animation.

As part of this presentation Matthew discussed the importance of working hard at school, making the best choices when it comes to selecting options, A’Levels and Degrees to Study.  In this part of the presentation emphasis was put on the importance of traditional degrees like Maths, Physics, Computer Science, Business Studies, English as the best grounding to get in the games industry.  Education was providing students with too much choice and students needed to appreciate that a large number of degrees needed more thought in course structure and ensuring they prepared students for their future career.  Games degrees and games design courses were prophesized as maybe not setting up students for long term success, (with a few exceptions).

The future of gaming and entertainment is being driven by technology be it the internet & web 2.0 with the adoption of Broadband; TV was changing with the likes of Sky Plus allowing live TV to be paused and TV was now viewable over the web and on handheld devices; Cinema was changing with High Definition TV’s and surround sound bringing the cinema experience into the living room; Music was now founded on downloads and creating the ‘soundtrack’ of one’s life over mediums like Itunes; Gaming was being pushed not only technologically through the power of the Next gen machines like PS3 and Xbox360 but through widening and deepening gameplay experience through accessible controllers like the Wii-mote and looking to the future, Project Natal, with no need for any controller.  Technology is really revolutionizing the way we are entertained was the clear message…..

Audience members were invited on stage to try to differentiate between three pictures of cars.  1 car was taken from Need for Speed videogame, another was a real car and the other was from a film CG render.  Audience members consistently got the images incorrect, hence demonstrating how far gaming, film CG and reality had converged

A large part of the presentation went into animation techniques, an introduction in Motion Capture, a review of Artificial Intelligence, demonstrating complex AI and logarithms used in FIFA, behavioral patterns in gaming and a discussion into emotionally believable characters in gaming and the infamous zombie line.

Concluding the day, Matthew & Toby Howard field questions from an intelligent and peceptive audience of 7 – 19 year olds creatives.

Looks a cool day.  Thanks to Toby, Matthew & Kate for the pictures.

EArl

Last Friday, the winners were announced of the UK Animation 09 competition, sponsored by EA.  The Award Ceremony was packed with entrants from across the UK all hoping they had won a prestigious award.  The atmosphere at the MOSI, (Museum of Science & Industry), in Manchester was electric as school children aged from 7 – 19, their teachers, parents, professors and media all came together to celebrate this great nationwide competition.  Manchester University will be posting photos and all the Award winning videos up on their site shortly…keep an eye here: http://tinyurl.com/c5okj2

We have previously blogged on the rules, entrance requirements and goals of Animation 09.  To refresh your memory click here.  http://tinyurl.com/ngbwws  This is one of the most exciting competitions currently being run as it really caters for all ages and it is great to see 7 year olds not only taking part in this competition but showing real talent and winning awards.  Congratulations Manchester, EA cannot wait to support you in 2010.

EA sponsored the event via EA Outreach, which seeks to give back to the community.  The EA Global Recruitment Team sponsored two prizes, 1) Overall Winner Prize: Best Animated Video of the Competition; 2) Special Recognition Prize for an outstanding animated short.  Both winners won Playstation 3′s, with the new Dualshock Controller and Games.  EA also gave a presentation and an insight into their world of Animation and the Future of Gaming, which was a true highlight for many in the audience.

It is an honour to share both ‘EA Award Winners’ videos with you today.  All winners and notable entries can be found on Animation 09′s main site shortly. 

The ‘EA Award Winners’ are both very worthy winners and deserve the full credit they will duly get.

‘It’s Hip to be Square’

This won the EA Overall Winner Prize: Best Animated Video of Animation 09.  This great video is the talented work of Louis Durrant of Trinity School.  Louis is Key Stage 3.

Take a look.  I am sure you agree that Louis has a talented future ahead of him.  Congratulations Louis.

‘Sick of School’

‘Sick of School’ won an EA Special Recognition Prize for an outstanding animated short.  This great video, ‘Sick of School’, was created by Simon Taylorof Kingsley School Bideford.  Simon is Key Stage 4.

Again, Simon has a great future ahead of him.  I am sure you’ll agree the video below is superbly animated, colourful, has a strong vein of humour and is engaging to watch.

Any competition which encourages schoolchildren from the ages of 7 – 19 is a great thing.  It ensures that  more and more people feel at ease using computers and encourages them to study IT and Computing as they move through their education.  EA is very proud to be a partner with Manchester University and support this superb initiative.  Roll on Animation 10 in 2010.

Who knows, last week at MOSI, the next Steven Spielberg, John Lasseter, Will Wright or Miyamoto may have been discovered and their creative juices are now flowing and a career path is now mapped out in their talented minds…..let’s wait and see.

A big thank you to all involved for a great day… and of course thanks to the EA Outreach team and Global Recruitment Team.

EArl

EArl is a passionate believer in developing new talent and helping them get noticed and recognised for the potential they have, that’s why it’s a delight that EA is a key partner for Manchester University’s ‘Animation 09′ competition. 

Manchester University has identified that a growing number of students have been shying away from studying key subjects like Computer Science at Degree level and decided to help encourage children from the ages of 7-19, get excited about using computers and gain enthusiasm for subjects like ICT at School.  Manchester hence put put together a nationwide competition…focused on Animation and drawing upon a number of key skills to help in a student’s development.  School teachers have embraced this competition as it has been designed to compliment the National Curriculum and hence provides coursework, which is both fun and yet highly educational, yet sits alongside the curriculum.

UK Government statistics show that, year on year, key subjects like Maths, Physics and Computer  Science are seeing on average 10-15% less applicants, as students apply for a wider brevity of degree subjects offered by the Universities.  EA is a firm believer in the value of traditional ‘core’ subjects as a great basis of understanding and hence is proud to support Manchester University in ensuring that schoolchildren do not fear core subjects but also enthusiastically opt for them at A’Level and onto Degree Level.

Animation 09, follows the highly successful Animation 08.  This second year has succeeded the wildest dreams of Manchester University.  Over 775 UK schools registered for this competition and judges sifted through 812 entries, (which as you can imagine, takes some time to weigh up quality and shortlist).  Take a look at their site:  http://tiny.cc/ywKYg

Animation 09, seeks schoolchildren to put together an animated story, lasting around 60 seconds, using one of 3 software packages: 

Alice:         Which is available as a free download from www.alice.org

Scratch:     Which is again available as a free download from :  http://scratch.mit.edu/

Flash:         Flash is available as a download as a free 1 month trial from Adobe.  Click here for more details:  http://tiny.cc/6YuzY

The rules surrounding submitting state that a students animated entry:  ‘can be about anything you want, with one constraint: it must be inspired by material from the taught curriculum. It might tell a story, or explain or demonstrate something – the only limit is your imagination! ‘

Overall the competition has 8 categories including:

• Age 7-11 (Key Stage 2) – individual or team
• Age 11-14 (Key Stage 3) – individual or team
• Age 14-16 (Key Stage 4) – individual or team
• Age 16-19 (studying in sixth form/college) – individual or team

EArl loves the concept of encouraging schoolchildren at a range of ages getting involved.  Particularly exciting is seeing a nationwide competition for Key Stage 2 children, aged between 7-11.

EArl was fortunate to tag along with EA nominated judges yesterday and view the final judging and was EXTREMELY IMPRESSED by the overall quality.  For those that talk about a crisis in talent or in creativity in the UK, competitions like Animation 09 really do renew your faith in what school children can achieve.

Whilst I am sure entrants would love me to reveal the winners, (and hence winners of prizes including a laptop, ipod and Playstation3′s from EA), I will have to ask you to be patient and wait.  EA has two awards on the night.  The EA Overall Winner and the EA Recognition Award, both of which we will seek to publish on this blog.  Both are great examples of brilliant animation and storytelling. 

To give you a flavour of the judging criteria…..the following were key determining factors steering the judges marks, (as well as the quality of the Animation):

1. Originality
2. Creativity
3. Technical quality, use of animation software features
4. Relevance to the taught curriculum
5. Overall directorial quality as a movie

A great day judging was had by all and again, it is so motivating and touching to see the quality of animators coming through in the UK, from such young ages.  EArl looks forward to revealing photos and winning videos from the Awards Ceremony on Friday 26th June.

EA & Manchester University have a great affiliation.  Numerous Manchester Graduates have gone on to work at the EA UK Offices, where Burnout Paradise is developed by Criterion Games.

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