We recently had a Q&A with Benjamin Shahin-Scales, Access Creative College Lincoln‘s Best Animation/VFX Award winner 2024, to find out more about his time at ACC and his plans for the future.
Congratulations on your ACC Award win. How do you feel?
I feel like I have achieved a new level of success in anything I’ve ever done in my time working on films! I’ve never won many awards, mainly because I didn’t push myself to the best of my ability until I got into Access.
I think with the mindset I set for myself and having the goal of just making fun stuff, I managed to make myself and my family proud.
Tell us about your time at Access. What have you enjoyed about it? What have you learned?
I enjoyed making friends with people on my Animation and VFX course, and learning from them about things they’re passionate about and what led them to start the course.
Friends on the same course as me have given me the ability to share ideas and concepts with people which feeds my creative soul and even learn new ideas which I would not even think of. If anything, they make the course all the more enjoyable.
Have you done anything in the industry outside of your studies? If so, tell us about it!
I have been working on animations which is a big part of the film industry with films like Toy Story and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. I use a free software called Blender and I animate using pixel-styled characters (for now). I aim to try to have something new for each short or film.
I have a YouTube channel which has my animation work on there and I had only started getting really invested in animation since last year. In that time I have learnt to love what I do, despite the intense work which goes into it.
What’s your proudest achievement from your time studying with us?
Getting the award for best animation is the achievement I’m most proud of. I haven’t earned anything else like it other than earning people’s enjoyment from my content, especially since I’ve never aimed to go that far ever in the past when I just kept editing videos. I will continue to better my work as I continue to my second year, and will keep learning from others.
What are your plans for the future? How are you going to take what you’ve learned at Access into your career?
I’m going to take the lessons I’ve learnt through my experience at Access, which come from my mistakes, which goes to show why mistakes can be good when they’re done once because you’ll grow from it when you put your mind to it. I’ve learnt to be more proactive and more productive with the time I had when it came to assignments and to take what I do more seriously.
What advice would you give to someone considering studying at Access?
If you’re going to study a creative subject which you want to turn into your career, you will need to learn to love it. Coming from a creative myself, if I had not taken Film Videography and Photography I would not know where I’d be right now.
It’s key to know what you want to do with your life, and choosing something that’s completely in league with what you want in life will set you on the right track for success and will maybe win you some awards when you put the hard work into it. Work for what you want and learn to enjoy a course and not to take it for granted.
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