Who's who

Andy Wyatt joined University College Falmouth in June 2007 to head up the new BA(Hons) Digital Animation course, after nearly 20 years working in the industry.

Andy learned his craft as an assistant animator to the late John Halas. He became a regular freelance animator in London working on all kinds of animation projects, including Duck Tales - The Movie for Disney, Teenage Ninja Turtles and various commercials. He joined Honeycomb Animation in 1991 where he became Director of Animation. Whilst at Honeycomb he wrote and directed the award winning cult series, Beastly Behaviour, which was shown on Channel 4, nominated for best TV series at the prestigious Annecy animation festival and can still be seen on TV and mobile phones. He also co-directed Wolves Witches and Giants, featuring the vocal talents of Spike Milligan, and was also involved in the development and design of Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, which picked up several international awards including a British Animation Award and a BAFTA.

It was around this time that Andy relocated from London to the West Country, at first with Honeycomb, and then in 1997 he founded his studio Fictitious Egg to produce animation for the then exciting new medium, the internet. The studio was the first UK company to have a series on the web in 1998, which was fantastic, except at the time no-one had broadband and no-one watched it! After a number of online animation shows for clients such as Granada and Edison Interactive, the inevitable dotcom crash steered Fictitious Egg back into producing animation for television.

In 2000, Andy directed the animation for Animal School for CBBC, which was one of the BBC’s first true ‘cross platform’ animated series, screened on both television and the internet. The studio gained a reputation for comedy and in 2002 animated all the sketches for the then new BBC3’s current affairs comedy show, The State We’re In, and then in 2004 Popskool for Top of the Pops Saturday. In the same year Andy directed all the animation sequences in the BAFTA award winning, The Giblet Boys.

In 2005 Andy joined Aardman Animations as series director for Planet Sketch, a CGI animated sketch show for CITV.

In addition to running a busy studio, Andy also found time to programme at Animated Encounters Animation Festival, lecture in animation at Southampton Solent University (where he is currently external examiner) and the Bristol School of Animation, and was briefly Vice President of ASIFA the international animation association.

Andy continues to work in the industry as a consultant, and is currently producing a series for CBBC and developing a show for Channel 4.

Andy brings to the course a passion for the medium and a commitment to make Falmouth the leading University to study animation in Europe.

When not living and breathing animation, Andy relaxes by motorcycling, drinking real ale and….er…morris dancing.