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Published: 29th November 2022
Students from Games Design, Media (Film & TV) and Art and Design had a fantastic virtual guest lecture from Kevin O'Brien, Story Artist at Pixar Animation Studios in California.
Kevin shared his background with students, highlighting his 30 years of active work experience in pre-production design and storyboarding for animated films, television, and live-action. Having worked on a wide range of titles including The Simpsons, The Iron Giant, Futurama, Ice Age, The Incredibles, Wall-e and Turning Red he was keen to share with students his practical methods of working.
He talked about how staging and the use of camera angles are done through storyboarding and shared how he finds inspiration through historical cinema. He highlighted what makes great visuals and how these can be used to frame and set a scene.
In particular, the discussion about the links between cinema and animation was something that most students had not made before, which really opened their eyes to a new way of thinking and creating.About their experience with Kevin students shared that:
“The talk gave me valuable insight into the animation industry. It was a unique opportunity to be given that I really enjoyed.” - Sam “The talk with Kevin from Pixar was really interesting. I really liked how he described his journey to becoming a storyboard artist and what led him to get to work at Pixar and on many different animations and live-action films.” - Nate “I liked the whole talk very much, the fact that you can create a whole series from drawings or scenes for movies, is inspiring for me and broadens my perspectives for future careers.” - Julie
“The talk gave me valuable insight into the animation industry. It was a unique opportunity to be given that I really enjoyed.” - Sam
“The talk with Kevin from Pixar was really interesting. I really liked how he described his journey to becoming a storyboard artist and what led him to get to work at Pixar and on many different animations and live-action films.” - Nate “I liked the whole talk very much, the fact that you can create a whole series from drawings or scenes for movies, is inspiring for me and broadens my perspectives for future careers.” - Julie
Thank you to Debbie Avery, our Games Design course lead for organising this valuable talk and to Kevin for sharing his experiences.
