John Osborne - Technical Supervisor
& Webmaster

I joined the school in May 1989 as an assistant to Danny Boon, the technical head and founder of the Animation Department, at a time when model animation had established itself in the commercial industry and a new talent was about to rocket to fame. Although this particular student had in fact left the school a couple of years earlier, he had returned to finish his film and officially graduate. My first assignment at the school was to help shoot the title and credit sequences for his, (Nick Park's), film "A Grand Day Out", which tuned out to be a milestone for the department, the school and some might even argue, the animation industry.

A new School Director in '94 brought our evolving and award-winning department in line to become a Directors course equal to fiction and documentary. A new head of department started, and I took charge of the department's technical role. It was about this time that computers started to take on an ever-increasing role in the film making processes around the school and the range of techniques and programmes began to expand, (along with my job), to give the student the ability to realise their vision.

In the 18 years I have been at the school, my role has naturally evolved to allow me to become involved, informally, in every process of the students work from script to screen and formally when I take on a tutorial role in addition to the extensive list of visiting tutors.

I believe that this flexibility within the carefully designed structure of the course, tailoring to the individual needs of the students, is the key to the departments continued success - and of course the undeniable talent of the students!

Now more than ever, with the influence of Gillian Lacey and the current tutorial staff of filmmakers who continue to work in the industry, the animation student has the ability to create their own particular universe and even bring it into our world as 2D, 3D model, 2 & 3D computer, and live action merge to give us the myriad of wonders we see in our films today.