Studio AKA and Royal College of Art

As soon as I got back from Budapest it was time for something else. I’d met a load of the guys from Studio AKA at Annecy 09 and had been invited to go and see the studio and hear about what they do which was a real pleasure having admired their work for so long. I’d organised a visit through the wonderful Ren Pesci and was lucky enough to be able to take a bunch of peers from the film school, notably the Annecy gang who are now all busy working on their graduation films.

We talked through the Studio’s history, their set-up and processes and saw a really interesting making of The Big Win commercial by the brilliant Marc Craste. We also got some inside info from the guy who made the sea in Philip Hunt’s epic and touching Lost and Found. We’d all seen the short in Annecy and sat through a lot of really bad work in the screening of children’s content before Lost and Found which is just beautiful, unpatronising, cinematic and heart-warming. Based on the book by a favourite children’s illustrator of mine Oliver Jeffers. The blog, featuring lots of lovely concept art and designs can be found here.
 
After AKA we went to have a look at Royal College of Art as Pete’s looking into places to do a masters. It seemed pretty buzzing, relaxed, ambitious, flexible. I’ve been thinking about post-grads recently, but I don’t want to do one yet and I don’t want to stay in the UK…