Young Animator of the Year UK (YAY UK) competition winners were announced on Sunday, November 12 and had their work premiered at a special screening session at this year’s Manchester Animation Festival.
Run by ACCESS:VFX (accessvfx.org), ScreenSkills (screenskills.com) Animation Skills Fund and 3Dami (3dami.org), the YAY UK initiative invites budding animators aged 11-18 to submit their creations to the initiative’s awards program each year. The program aims to provide aspiring animators from a range of backgrounds with access to and advice from professionals and studios in the animation, games and VFX industry.
The young animators entered their original work into one of six categories, separated by age range and animation medium. Not only have the six winners of this year’s awards had their work reviewed by professionals from across the industry, but they’ll also get the chance to tour ACCESS:VFX’s members’ studios, including Aardman, Blue Zoo and Axis.
- Best Stop-Motion Animator Aged 11-14; Nuk Jansen, Edinburgh, Age 14 — Mosquito’s Day Out
- Best 2D Animator Aged 11-14; Pavlos Xenophontos, London, Age 14 — FlipaClip
- Best 3D Animator Aged 11-14; Jeremiah Achene, Derby, Age 14
- Best Stop-Motion Animator Aged 15-18; Ben Mullan, Bedford, Age 18 — The Deadline
- Best 2D Animator Aged 15-18; Thomas Langridge, London, Age 17 — The Complete Cartoon History of Man
- Best 3D Animator Aged 15-18; Euan Garbut, Glasgow, Age 16 — Street Food
“The quality of the films this year were phenomenal,” commented program judge Amy Backwell, Emerging Talent Specialist at ILM. “It’s brilliant to see a variety of short films executed to such a high quality with storytelling, technicality and the fundamentals of animation and form in mind. In visual effects, it’s imperative to demonstrate the ability to create realistic and believable content and that’s exactly what these shortlisted entries showcased. It’s exciting to see the level of talent improving every single year!”
Throughout the summer, the young animators on the program were set various mini challenges by industry experts from VFX and animation studios across the U.K., allowing them to hone their skills before producing their own original films. As part of the YAY UK program, animators were encouraged to use opensource software that’s available to anyone, many of which are standard tools for the VFX and animation industry. The skills learned and developed as part of the program are ones that are directly transferable to future careers.
“This year’s showcase of entrants for the awards truly epitomized the jaw-dropping creativity and boundless potential of creative teenage animators from across the U.K.,” said Tom Box, co-organizer of YAY UK, board member of ACCESS:VFX, Chair of ScreenSkills Animation Skills Council and Managing Director of Blue Zoo Animation Studios. “Each year the quality gets better and better, and the industry judges had an almost impossible job of picking the winners. It was wonderful to be able to present the winners with their trophies at Manchester Animation Festival in person, giving a platform to the next generation of talent, and hopefully inspiring many more animated careers in the process.”
Watch the winning films for 2023 and previous years at younganimator.uk/winners.
