Student Secures Blockbusting Placement

A student from the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), based in a Surrey campus, has spent the summer working on a blockbuster placement.
Victoria Smith, who is in the final year of a BA (Hons) Animation degree at UCA Farnham, gained a month’s work experience on Disney's new stop-motion blockbuster, Frankenweenie.
Victoria, who is 21 and from Hampton near Kingston, said: "Working on a Hollywood movie was fantastic. It was such a brilliant opportunity to really get a feel for what goes into making a feature length production.
"The attention to detail, the amount of people involved, the hours and hours of dedication - I was slightly star-struck just being there, knowing that little things I made will possibly be seen on the big screen."
She spent most of her time in the puppet workshops – more than 200 were needed - but also helped out on set.
"Day to day I was placed wherever help was needed," she said. "I spent a whole week making wigs for puppets which I really enjoyed - four of the wigs I made are being used on characters in a couple of crowd shots. I also spent a week making character blinks and was allowed to do some blink tests on-set, which was really exciting."
It took Victoria nearly eight months to secure the internship but she believes the hard work during the summer will aid her career prospects.
"It was a great experience and I was certainly worked hard," she explained. "I valued every minute I was there and stayed late most days to continue working and talking to people about what they were doing.
"There were several UCA Farnham alumni working on the film so it was great to be able to chat with them."
The BA (Hons) Animation course at UCA Farnham has produced three Oscar-winners: Daniel Greaves, Michael Dudok de Wit and Suzie Templeton. In addition alumni have went on to work on major motion pictures, television programmes and commercials.
Frankenweenie is the upcoming animated film based on Tim Burton’s 1984 short which is about a pet dog that is brought back to life by its loyal owner after the poor little guy was struck by a car.
The voice cast features familiar Burton favourites such as; Winona Ryder (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands), Catherine O'Hara (Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas), Martin Short (Mars Attacks!) and Martin Landau (Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow), joining them are Charlie Tahan and Atticus Shaffer.
A stop-motion animated film, 'Frankenweenie' will be filmed in black and white and rendered in 3D, which will elevate the classic style to a whole new experience.
Frankenweenie is due to be released in the UK on 5 October 2012.
See: www.ucreative.ac.uk
(LB/BMcC)