Impact Arts

Just 25 days until CashBack to the Future kicks off in Ayrshire, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Renfrewshire – offering 12-19 year olds the chance to work over four weeks this July with an amazing creative team of artists, musicians and performers!

We’re putting the spotlight on our artist team, and we’re thrilled to confirm that multi award-winning animation filmmaker Ross Hogg will be our Digital artist tutor in Edinburgh this year.

A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, Ross uses intricate, hand-crafted materials to create animations that celebrate the vibrancy and physicality of the medium. He has received five BAFTA Scotland nominations in the last five years, winning the New Talent Award for Animation in 2014, the Award for Short Film in 2016 and the Award for Animation in 2017.

We spoke to Ross about what young people in Edinburgh can expect from the workshops he’s running at the National Museum of Scotland this summer.Remember, we still have spaces on CashBack to the Future in Ayrshire, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Renfrewshire. Find out more and sign up here!

How are you looking forward to CashBack to the Future?

I’m really looking forward to it. I’m especially excited to introduce a range of hands-on animation
techniques to the workshop participants, making the medium more accessible and
encouraging them to play and experiment with animation in mind.

I can’t wait to
see what everyone is capable of and I look forward to seeing the vibrant
results.

What can young people expect from your workshops?

Young people can expect to learn how to create moving image using a varied
range of animation techniques – from traditional ‘cameraless’ methods, to
sequencing imagery digitally, experimenting with where the analogue and digital
processes overlap. The workshops will take on a very open and experimental
approach so no previous animation or drawing experience is necessary.

Spectators (2014)

What techniques will you be looking to pass on to the group?

We’ll be using drawing and mark-making skills. The group will have the chance to
work two-dimensionally using frame-by-frame animation and three-dimensionally
using constructed objects or pixelation animation methods.

We’ll also look at developing a sense of
timing and pacing, and looking at how to construct a
narrative and tell a story through the way images are sequenced. Teamwork and
communication skills will become important if working in groups and this may
result in a series of collaborative outcomes.

How would you encourage young people to get involved?

Everyone is able to animate, no matter what age they are and
regardless of experience in animation. Sometimes the most exciting films are
made by people who are genuinely experimenting and exploring what is possible
with the medium.

Sometimes it’ll work, sometimes it won’t. The main thing is
that those taking part are inspired and enjoying themselves. When
that happens, interesting, exciting and energetic work is normally created.

The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (2013)

The Cashback to the Future programme is funded by the Scottish Government’s CashBack for Communities initiative, which uses the seized proceeds of crime to back projects for disadvantaged young people. Additional funding comes from the National Museum of Scotland and the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Young Roots and Kick the Dust funds.