Dotti Colvin is a traditionally trained animator who started life at Norwich School of Art & Design (NSAD). Her work mainly consists of Maya animation and a mix of stop motion and special effects and her showreel includes of a blend of her ‘favourite things’. Dotti notes that her first showreel contained a lot of special effects work so as a result her first ended up being in that area- somewhere she wasn’t that interested in, but with her showreel now she, “just gets called for jobs she likes!”. All Dotti’s commercial work is 3D and she is very interested in created textures and 2D flat work in 3D spaces. She loves using After Effects as part of a Maya pipeline and has experience in both commercials and music video production. Dotti notes that with music videos “you are much freer creatively, unlike with commercials having to adhere to many constraints such as the agency director, client and product exposure can mean that it is a little more restrictive.” However, if you are working in production permanently there are often periods of downtime between the tight deadlines that come with commercial adverting work which allow time for creative development and experimentation.

Dotti started life on the foundation course at NSAD however spent most of her time in the animation area with Suzie Hanna. After Norwich she did a degree in illustration at Middlesex University where she received a scholarship to go and study at the School of Visual Arts in New York for 6 months. Whilst in New York she got a taste for the excitement of the production industry and on her return to the UK she left and tried to get a job in the production industry. Dotti got a job as a production assistant/ runner at Loosemoose Productions , unfortunately there was no permanent work and so when that position came to an end she “went across the road” (being that it was Soho!) to Pizzaz (Now Studio AKA)and worked as a runner. Dotti soon found (after 3 days) that she was the (self proclaimed!) worst runner in the world an accolade that has meant they have never forgotten her not held it against her when offering her work. After, her short spell at Pizzaz Dotti knew she just wanted to work at Loosemoose and set about persuading the company director on a shoot that they should give her some work- she did this by presenting him with a bunch of flowers! Through this persuasion tactic Dotti found that her freelance contracts with Loosemoose started to get longer and longer, mainly working as a production assistant but occasionaliy getting the chance to do photoshop mockups and set designs. She found she was good with technology and was asked to write an internet user guide for the staff at Loosemoose (bearing in mind this was the early 1990’s!). During this period Loosemoose where creating a lot of blue/green screen work with a combination of stop motion and computer generated (CG) imagery, where most of the postproduction was sub contracted out for the CG animation work to be added, this was costing a lot of extra expense to the company and so in 1997 Dotti proposed to set up the computer department which would save time and money on productions and also through using CG create more spectacular shots.They accepted and this became her first permanemt job in production. Her first job was not an easy one, considering she had never used 3D animation software, but was asked by the company director to create a spider in Lightwave! After some speedy learning on the job she completed this and many other things before making a switch to Maya She created an animated viral for Pepperami completely in CGI as her first task in Maya. After several years at Loosemoose Productions and working on many award-winning commercials including a silver award for her music video direction, in 2004, Dotti went freelance and also began training professionals to use Maya at universities in the UK and abroad and at the European training centre in London (Escape Studios). Dotti found a real love of teaching and two years ago decided to set up a training business herself with another colleague from Escape studios, balancing their industry experience with purposeful training.

Dotti notes that her traditional animation training has been invaluable to her success and skill at using 3D applications translating her abilities to create well observed movement into CGI as well as having a fundamental understanding of key frames and control of movement. Something some 3D CGI animators lack but, are essential to becoming accomplished in this field.

Dotti is currently setting up Polywood with her business partner, Polywood studios (which is an auto desk authorised publisher) has been created for anyone who loves animation and wants to do training in specialising Maya (2D or 3D) production pipeline and is an entire virtual world full of characters that will aid learning. Each character is designed to make it fun to learn Maya but also take the fear out of the learning process. It is designed so that you can start with something simple and achievable but rewarding to take way as a quick time movie. Polywood aims to be a place where training and production in 3D animation can be undertaken, there will also be forums and competitions as well as ultimately a collaborative environment that will open up industry contact with training allowing students to work on projects with industry professionals all through this environment. It is intended that podcasts from industry professionals will also be published on the website for students to view. Dotti is currently beta testing the site with small groups of students at the Royal Collage of Art (RCA) for feedback. Students from courses across the board such as architecture and jewellery design are involved and have been putting what they have learned through character design into practice with their own disciplines. Dotti hopes to launch Polywoodstudios.com later in 2008. For more information and to join the mailing list please go to: www.Polywoodstudios.com