Solent hosts Industry Week

This marks the third year the Film and Media Department has hosted Industry Week, which brings together students from the CGI, Visual Effects, Games, and Animation courses.

The event has become a core part of the department’s events calendar and is designed to give students more industry exposure in the second semester. It provides opportunities for students to network and develop skills beyond the core curriculum at Solent.

Alex Scott, Lecturer VFX/CGI, said "events like Southampton Solent's Industry week allow our students increasing exposure to cutting edge techniques from studios and software vendors alike."

This year, we were thrilled to offer a range of workshops led by industry experts and our own Solent alumni, ensuring that students are well-prepared for successful graduate outcomes.

Workshops began on Monday, where students explored CG lighting with Digital Vehicle pro Tom Gough. They then chose to attend either a technical demonstration of Mari texture creation with Jessie Burgess of Foundry, or a Visualisation session with Patrick McAndrew of DarcStudio.

Both Patrick and Tom are graduates of the CGI and Visual Effects team and are regular speakers at Solent. Foundry returned on Tuesday for a full-day session led by industry pro Ruth Hutton, who demonstrated how professional Lighting and Look Development setups are created for film and television using Foundry's Katana software.

On Thursday, Alex Kelly of Figma (also an ex-student) dropped by to introduce students to complex shader creation in Unreal, before a busy Friday afternoon where SideFX dialled in from the US to offer a remote class on the workflows between Houdini and Unreal Engine. This innovative use of industry leading software shows students how they can automate asset design for complex scenes in Unreal, assisting them with modules such as Virtual Production.

Alex Scott commented "students are already subject to an incredible curriculum offering with regular industry focused events such as CGFX (a week of workshops and Talks) and Industry Week, supporting our portfolio of Digital Arts courses as they prepare to enter the job market. We are particularly pleased to run these alongside weekly Industry Forums and Rushes sessions where students have opportunities to share work for feedback with peers ahead of the departmental Graduate Show in early June. This open and outward facing curriculum alongside live client briefs is what makes Southampton Solent such an attractive offer for students studying in these exciting areas".

You can find more information about the events here.

The department's CGFX event now takes place in November ahead of the January UCAS deadline.