Meet the 3D VFX Team at Escape Studios

Meet the 3D VFX Team at Escape Studios. VFX is at the heart of Escape Studios; it’s where we began 20 years ago – when the industry was just starting to expand and grow.

Back in the early 2000s there were few places in the UK where students could learn the necessary skills to land that crucial first job in the VFX industry. Below are our talented tutors who teach the art and craft of VFX at Escape Studios, helping to ensure we remain the UK’s leading centre for the study of VFX.

3D VFX Team

Dan Shutt – Teaches Short Course and MA Students

Dan Shutt

Dan Shutt is one of our most experienced VFX tutors, with over 23 years’ experience in a wide variety of 3D fields, from feature film effects and games graphics, to TV commercials and architectural rendering. He has been with Escape Studios since 2009.

Dan Shutt’s early work in architecture included rendering the Sega World amusement attraction in Piccadilly Circus, before moving on to roles within the games industry at Sierra and Divide By Zero. Daniel worked in post-production for Lost in Space, on projects for clients such as the BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Channel 4 and ITV.

Dan teaches our short course and MA in 3D VFX, and is also an expert in Houdini. You can listen to Dan’s VFX Podcast here.

Sagar Rathod – Teaches VFX to our 3rd year Undergraduate Students

Sagar Rathod

Sagar Rathod is one of our newest VFX tutors at Escape Studios. Sagar a veteran 3D digital artist with almost 20 years’ experience in the visual effects industry.

Sagar’s many film credits include Fantastic Beasts, Kingsman, Alien: Covenant, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Sagar is teaching the 3rd year VFX and animation students as they join forces on the VFX Project, which runs from September 2022 until the end of December.

Mark Spevick – Industry Engagement & Projects

Mark Spevick

Mark Spevick has many years of experience working in industry and six working in higher education and teaching.

Mark Spevick started his VFX career at Peerless Camera, the production house co-owned by Terry Gilliam, and worked on every Gilliam film from ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ to ‘The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus’.

Mark is one of our in-house experts in Houdini, and has created a number of online tutorials in Houdini. Mark is our Head of Industry Training, and works in industry, most recently at Framestore, one of the UK’s leading VFX production houses.

Carlos Poon – Teaches VFX to 2nd Year Undergraduates

Carlos Poon

Carlos Poon has worked across all major 3D industries for 14 years, starting in industrial design, then working as Assistant Technical Supervisor on the BAFTA winning TV series ‘Tiny Planets’.

Carlos worked as FMV supervisor for five games titles including “Lego Bionicles”, and worked as a VFX Artist on the HBO series “Rome” and on the Oscar-winning “Inception”. Carlos Poon has worked at VFX studios including Double Negative and Cinesite.

Carlos Poon teaches 3D VFX to the second year VFX students at Escape Studios.

Federico Arculeo – Teaches VFX to 1st Year Undergraduates

Federico Arculeo

Federico Arculeo is a 3D tutor at Escape Studios with experience in higher education and also in industry; his film credits include “Thor: Love and Thunder” on which Federico worked as a matchmove artist.

Federico Arculeo teaches 3D VFX to our first year undergraduate animation and vfx students.

Compositing Short Course

To sign up for our short course (12 weeks) in VFX Compositing, follow this link to the official site.

Tutorials

We have hundreds of tutorials in all aspects of VFX at our Vimeo Channel. To find them, follow the links below:

FX Animation (Houdini, Maya and After Effects)