Originally from Rome, Luca graduated from MA 3D Computer Animation at London College of Communication in 2021.
What attracted you to postgraduate study, and MA 3D Computer Animation?
I graduated from my BA in 2017, since then I have freelanced for various clients. It was fun for a while, but I soon realised that I wanted a full-time job with a steady income and I wanted to beat my fear of the 3D world, so I looked into MA courses and found this course at LCC.
Can you tell us a little bit about your final major project? What was your inspiration behind it? It’s a short film about a silly talking bust at the Vatican Museums. When the Covid-19 pandemic started, I went back home to Italy and finished the course online.
I visited The Vatican Museum, and as I was walking around some of the stone and marble statue galleries I kept thinking that the statues looked real and it would be great if they could walk, run and talk to each other. At the time we were learning body mechanics and performance animation techniques, I was also learning camera and body tracking on 3DEqualizer, so the idea of shooting the galleries, tracking them, and animating a statue character in the shots made complete sense.
Did the course provide opportunities to engage with industry?
Our Course Leader (Luke Bridger), and the other tutors, all have plenty of industry experience and still engage with the industry regularly, so they know what students should be doing to get a foot in the door.
Luke was really good at getting us to try different techniques (such as matchmove) because he acknowledged that landing your first job as a junior animator in a leading VFX company can be difficult, so he encouraged us to also investigate other ways of getting in.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone thinking of studying the course, what would it be?
Keep at it! At first, learning all that new 3D software was super intimidating and I kept thinking to myself that I would never understand this stuff. But if you keep trying and don’t give up, it gets a lot better.
What was the most important thing you learnt from studying MA 3D Computer Animation at postgraduate level?
The most important thing I learnt was to just keep trying problematic techniques over and over again until they start to stick.
Why would you recommend studying your course to others?
I would recommend this course for its facilities, its incredible asset library (one of a kind) and for the tight-knit group of students you can learn from in class. However, the latter only works if you come out of your shell and actually engage with them.
What was your personal highlight of studying your course at London College of Communication?
The Screenprinting studio. Personally, after a long week of learning 3D software, screenprinting was a great way to unwind!
What are you currently working on / what are your plans for the future?
I am currently working as a Junior Matchmove Artist at a production company called One Of Us.
Visit the MA 3D Computer Animation course page.
To view Luca's final project, visit the Graduate Showcase.