Festival of Hobbies - Animation (Featuring Flycheese Studio)

Flycheese Studio, based at Harland Works, is a fully equipped and working digital art and design studio that specialises in training and providing opportunities in the industry for people who need support to live their lives.

As well as training and supporting individuals to a professionally high standard, Flycheese is open for commissions from businesses in ares such as art, animation, graphic design and film. They pride themselves on paying all of their students to work on our professional jobs and offer an industry-level experience that gives students the tools they need to carve out a future in media work.

Flycheese operates under a positive and powerful mission statement: they want all of their sessions to be geared towards empowerment, and want their students to become artists, not just do art. In supporting the people who most need it work towards learning skills such as animation, photography and 3D modelling, Flycheese is all about the needs of the individual and facilitating creativity through inspiration.

Wallace, a creative art therapist who has been working at Flycheese for almost five years, got her start while at university and was so captured that she decided to stay. “I started out at Flycheese through a 10 week university placement and some volunteering and when that finished, Paul Brown, the Managing Director, offered me some freelance work at the Harland studio, roughly 3 hours a week and 4 years later I'm now the Studio Manager for both of our studios!”, says Wallace.

Working at Flycheese has also been a learning experience for Wallace, who says that through her job, she has learned a great deal about digital media and animation. She explains, “I got into more digital art and animation mainly through volunteering at Flycheese. I have always studied art but never experimented digitally with it. Attending Flycheese has awarded me the opportunity to explore digital media and animation and I do it every day. It's been an amazing "on the job" training experience and has worked perfectly with how I learn”.

As someone who supports a lot of people in exploring their creative side, Wallace offers a suggestion as to why creative hobbies are so important, saying “People always need an outlet for their creativity and I think a hobby gives you that chance with out having the pressure of reaching academic/career goals and expectations other people have set for you”.

The students are hard at work in the Harland Work studio, after having recent returned from Christmas break. It’s straight back into the flow of things for Flycheese! I ask Wallace what some of the students are working on this term.

“What aren't they working on?! Currently, I have a group of students working on a stop motion parody of Friday the 13th where the premise is that Jason wants a holiday in Skegness away from all the bad things he gets up to. I also have some students animating using 2D card assets on a slider with their animation being about a fairytale land full of colourful characters. The projects are always changing and are always a good mix of original ideas and re-imaginings of their favourite films and shows and as the projects are purely student led, there are always evolving jobs for everyone such as storyboarding and set building”.

One of Flycheese’s students is Owen, a young man who has had a love for animation for as long as he can remember. He started to pursue his passion aged 14, and is now a familiar face at Flycheese. Even outside the studio, Owen is busy getting creative after setting up his own animation studio with a green-screen in his home!

As well as digital work, Owen enjoys Lego and 2D drawing, but his heart is always in animation. “I like animated films” says Owen. “My favouites are Nick Park and Peter Lord”. Park and Lord are founders of Aardman Animations, the company responsible for family favorites such as Wallace and Grommit, Creature Comforts and Shaun the Sheep. “I like doing animation that’s a bit like Creature Comforts” says Owen, “but we also do live action as well”.

“At first I started with drawing and with Lego at home, then I came here when I was 14 and I did an animation with a friend called Harry, doing a Fortnite introduction”.

I ask Owen what it’s like being at Flycheese and how it makes him feel. “Happy” he says, and admits that he likes being creative. He also says that he likes the friends he’s made at the studio and looks forward to coming. At college, Owen also studies photography and video editing and is working towards his arts award, a Trinity College London qualification and hopes to go onto a career in animation an film-making.

When asked what advice he would give a potential new student at Flycheese, own says “You need confidence and to be happy!”

Wallace is part of the team that works with students like Owen, and loves her job and the work that Flycheese does.

“My favourite thing is that I get to call it my career. It still baffles me everyday that I get to help students with their projects and that it's what I earn my living from. Some days you'll see me running around the courtyard at Harland with a camera in my hand following my students and other days I'm spending the afternoon assisting them to design and paint intricate sets. Every day is different at the studio and I'm just glad I can be a part of that. My proudest moment was seeing the students have their work showcased at The Light cinema last year and being a part of a platform for them to get their work out there”.

Want to get involved? Contact Wallace at wallaceflycheese@gmail.com or go through the Flycheese social media channels and website (here). Wallace will be happy to answer any questions in regards to becoming a student and also from anyone interested in volunteering/working at one of the studios. 

If you are after commissioning a piece of work or an animation from our studio then please contact Paul on flycheese@me.com or again, through the Flycheese website.