A truly 'Great Race' for Animation students

The 14th National Final of the Royal Television Society Student Television Awards held at London's Barbican Centre proved a great success for Animation students from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, with the Best Undergraduate Animation award going to 2008 alumni Geoff King and Beth Witchells for their graduation film 'The Great Race'.

'The Great Race' retells a Native American folk tale of how man and his horse came to rule over all other animals on the Great Plains. The Jury's enthusiastic comments reflected on the "stunning quality of the drawing, animation, background art, story and the overall professional polish demonstrated by this work from students of the Arts Institute at Bournemouth".

The film was chosen for the award out of 38 universities and colleges from 13 regional centres across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. BA (Hons) Animation Production Course Leader Peter Symon's commented "This is another fantastic achievement for 'The Great Race' team. They are one of many talented students in animation, who continue to push the boundaries of their creativity, producing innovative and eye catching work. This award is a great achievement and a great testament to their work."

In addition, 'The Great Race' was awarded with the Imagine Student Animation Award at the Encounters Short Film Festival last November and it won first prize in the student competition Stoke Your Fires Animation Festival in April. Geoff and Beth are currently hard at work alongside twelve Institute animation alumni on Sylvain Chomet's feature length animation "The Illusionist".

The success continued for Institute alumni at the Awards Ceremony, with BA (Hons) Film and Animation Production alumnus Michael Pearce, who graduated in 2003, being awarded the first prize in the Postgraduate Drama category, for his film 'Madrugada' which he produced at the National Film and Television School.

The 2009 BA (Hons) Animation Production students will be exhibiting their animations in the Higher Education Summer show at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth from 17-25th June. For more information please visit www.http://www.aib.ac.uk/newsevents/summershows.aspx