**January 2024 now full**

Accepting Applications for January 2025

Available with Monthly Payment Plans

Course Dates: 15th January 2025 - 8th April 2024

Graduation Date: 10th April

Limited Spaces Available!

 

Our second 12-week animation course, devised and created by world-leading professionals from multi-award-winning and independent studio Aardman. Taught to you from the comfort of your own home anywhere in the world, through a vibrant online learning environment, with personal mentoring and a supportive 24/7 community of Aardman staff and other course participants.

FEE: £2800 (payment plans available)

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Course Outline

Working alongside Head of Animation Loyd Price and Aardman Co-founder and Creative Director Peter Lord we are pleased to offer Stop Motion 2, an industry-led online stop motion course. This 12-week course is standalone and you do not need to have completed our Stop Motion 1 Course to be able to join. More information about what is covered on this course and what level of skills are required to enrol are covered in the “PARTICIPANTS & APPLICATIONS” section below.

While Stop Motion 1 develops an understanding of principles of physical character movement, Stop Motion 2 delves into the advanced facial performance including conversational acting, lip sync, sculpting through mouth shapes, advanced full-body acting, acting with props, and creating characterful bi-ped performances alongside a vocal audio track. You will also learn aspects of the animation production pipeline, giving you an understanding of how work develops from animatic (moving storyboard) through to final shot and the vital role an animator plays in this.

The course is built around 12 weeks of supported teaching and tasks to develop practical skills in advanced character animation performances, delivered by a team of highly experienced tutors and mentors. This course is aimed at people from the industry, animation students, graduates and self-taught animators to help improve their practice, skills and abilities. 

You will be introduced to the week's activities via a live-streamed lecture with the course leader where you can ask questions, share ideas, discuss animation techniques and watch inspiring work. You will then be invited to explore the week's masterclasses and subsequent tasks, run and hosted by the animation team. These lessons have been created especially for this course alone. You can watch them as many times as you want, pause, freeze, and step through frame-by-frame should you wish. The tasks are usually in the form of two filmed briefings which invite you to attempt a task at home. When completed, you upload your finished task to our secure and private course community where your mentor will watch it before your weekly feedback session. From week 9 to 12 you are supported while you make your final moving image piece. There is a fully moderated active online community hub where you can share ideas, thoughts and support throughout the course.

We estimate that the weekly activities will take you around ten hours to complete. Once you start making your final moving project, you decide how much time you want to dedicate to it.

Please sign up to the next Online Open Day run by the Course Leader via our Academy Website to find out more.

Course Map & Structure

A breakdown of all topics, lessons, activities and minimum weekly animation time needed each week on the course.

Alumni Work

"I have loved every second of this course and highly recommend it, the masterclasses, the live lectures, the Q&As have all been amazing, however the best bit for me has been the one to one chats with my mentor. I have been able to ask lots of questions and receive extremely helpful feedback to improve my animation skills."

 

Neil Whitman (Stop Motion 2 Participant)

"The Aardman Academy team really hit it out of the park for Stop Motion 2. I was always quite scared to do dialogue in my stop-motion. I love how we are slowly building up that skill to do dialogue along with the body acting. You see the whole animating process and insider tips on working with clay to make things more manageable. The mentor meetings help you problem solve and elevate your animation. It is really the best course in stopmotion that I have ever experienced." 

 

 

Ellen Yu (Stop Motion 2 Participant)

"As a professional CG feature animator, and stop motion hobbyist, this course has been eye opening. I always knew how much work went into stop motion animation, but the people at Aardman are so incredibly talented and knowledgeable. The course gives you a true inside look into how to make professional stop motion animation. The masterclasses are fantastic and the demos alone - are worth the price of admission. I'd highly recommend this class to anyone looking to improve their skill as an animator or learn the craft of stop motion animation."

 

Justin Weg (Stop Motion 2 Participant)

"If you are wondering if you should take this course, then the answer is "yes, you should." I never could have achieved the level of work I am producing without this type of instruction and mentorship."

Ellie Henderson (Stop Motion 2 Participant)

Example of Weekly Timetable

We run from Wednesday to Tuesday to allow Mentors and Participants to work over the weekends.

Guest Q&A Sessions

In addition to the Course content, we offer a series of guest speaker Q&A events throughout the 12-week programme.

Previous Stop Motion 2 guest speakers have included:

  • Nick Park - Academy Award®-winning  creator of Wallace & Gromit
  • Sarah Perry - Movement Director
  • Fiona Copland - Producer of 'Kiri & Lou'
  • Magda Osinska - Aardman Director
  • Ainslie Henderson - BAFTA winning Animation Director
  • Gav Strange - Aardman Director & Graphic Designer
  • Malcolm Lamont - Senior Stop Motion Animator
  • Lucy Izzard - Aardman Director

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STOP MOTION 2

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