UCF Digital Animation student shortlisted for Royal Television Society Award

Karolina Glusiec, an exchange student studying BA(Hons) Digital Animation at University College Falmouth has been shortlisted for a prestigious Royal Television Society Student Television Award (RTS) for her short animated film, Carousel Rodeo.

The 14^th RTS Student Television Awards are for student work that shows outstanding visual and aural creativity, a mastery of craft skills, innovation and initiative. Judges will look in particular for freshness, originality and audience appeal within the constraints of the law and broadcasting practice.

Karolina's film was announced as a regional winner of the RTS Student Television Awards at the end of 2008 and immediately qualified for the National RTS Student Television Awards. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony hosted by comedian, Jack Whitehall on Friday 8 May at the Barbican Centre, London attended by key industry figures, students and tutors. Masterclasses will also be held throughout the day where Karolina will have the opportunity to benefit from the experience of respected industry professionals.

Karolina spent six months at University College Falmouth making her animated film, Carousel Rodeo, and has already won Best Animation and Audience Award at the prestigious Off Jak Goraco Independent Film Festival in Lodz, Poland and took second place at the 10^th Animated Exeter festival this year in the Best of the West category.

Carousel Rodeo is a short animated film inspired by a song, ‘Karuzele Skutery Rodeo' (Carousel Scooters Rodeo) about a young boy's adventure in a fairground, drawn in a unique and beautiful style, using bold black and white design and a striking animation technique. The film took Karolina six months to complete and contained over 5000 individual drawings.

"I really wanted to show the emotion of the song and translate it into the language of film through animation," said Karolina. "I wanted to show how a child feels when lost in a fairground."

"This is an incredible achievement for Karolina and we are absolutely thrilled for her" said Course Leader, Andy Wyatt. "Karolina had very little animation experience eight months ago and worked incredibly hard to master new skills and techniques to create her film." He continued, "To have students already winning such important awards in the first two years of the BA(Hons) Digital Animation course beginning at University College Falmouth is very exciting. It sends out a very strong signal to the industry that University College Falmouth is very quickly building a reputation as an international centre of excellence for animation."

Karolina was able to study at University College Falmouth through the European Commission exchange programme (ERASMUS) that enables students in 31 European countries to study for part of their degree in another country. "I am so grateful to have been able to make this film whilst studying at Falmouth. I gained invaluable technical skills and advice from my tutor about plot lines and characterisation and made many friends. I hope to return to Falmouth to further my studies in animation soon" said Karolina.

"In a short space of time the BA (Hons) Digital Animation course at Falmouth has established an amazing reputation for the quality of its student work," said Director of the School of Media, Paul Inman. "Karoline's achievement is all the more impressive given the competition from animation schools all across the UK. The School of Media is home to the Cornwall Skillset Media Academy, a centre of excellence for professional education and training in the Creative Industries, and the BA (Hons) Digital Animation course is one of its flagship programmes."

UCF's new BA(Hons) in Digital Animation is located in The Lanyon Building, which was formally named by His Royal Highness The Earl of Wessex as a tribute to St Ives painter, Peter Lanyon, as part of the multi-million pound expansion of the creative hub of the Combined Universities in Cornwall initiative.

The three-year course combines cutting-edge animation practice with the study of animation theory, film language, drawing and traditional animation processes. The new Digital Animation Studio is equipped with the latest software, specialist desks and lighting for animation drawing - and even a skeleton to enable students to capture movement in their characterisations.

University College Falmouth is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the powers to award degrees in its own name. It has two campuses in Cornwall - at Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns, and jointly manages with the University of Exeter) - and a third campus at Totnes in Devon, following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008.

This merger created a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing. The Devon-based courses will relocate to a new, high-specification Performance Centre at Tremough in 2010, paving the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall by 2012, that will be unique to the South West.

The College is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union, the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council.

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For further information about University College Falmouth, please contact Jilly Easterby MCIPR, Head of Public Affairs, Telephone: 01326 213792; or email: jilly.easterby@falmouth.ac.uk

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