Saint John Walker

Saint John Walker is the Programme Leader for postgraduate media at the UK’s University of Hertfordshire and a leading VFX educationalist with over 25 years of experience of teaching and training in the games, animation and VFX industries. 

He is a fellow of the Royal society of Arts (FRSA) and a member of the honorary Visual Effects Society, and has chaired London events for them. He is also a member of Siggraph UK. 

Most recently Saint was Dean and Director of Industry Engagement at the UK’s Escape Studios and previous to that he designed, initiated and ran the VFX degree course at Norwich University of the Arts for four years. 

Saint is an active member of Access:VFX, and the convenor, designer and chair of the popular Industry panels at the London International Animation Festival each year. Recent work with the Next Gen Skills Academy, FMX (Stuttgart) and the View festival (Torino) saw him chairing and taking part in industry panels as diverse as AI, Animated Documentaries, VFX Careers and Creature FX. 

Saint is the author of the well-respected Core Skills of VFX Handbook and Student Primer, which he is currently updating for a new generation of new entrant talent. 

He was Creative Director for Epic Games’ Summer of Unreal 2021, a four week pan-European course that trained over 800 animation professionals in Unreal Engine. An emphasis on exploring and teaching now technologies saw him leading three training courses in virtual production in 2022 partnering with Mars and Garden Studios. 

Saint has designed and run courses for the National Film and Television School, University of the Arts, and is an external examiner for one of the best animation schools in the world, the Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark. 

Visual Effects (VFX): I am currently updating the Core Skills of VFX and VFX Student Primer handbooks with support from the UK Screen Alliance. The previous edition that I authored in 2017 is now in need of overhaul. A series of Industry Focus Groups are being planned across the UK and in Australia and Europe.

New Animation Workflows: After chairing a series of industry panel sessions at the 2024 London international festival with leading global animation companies like Aardman, Nexus, BlinkInk. DNEG animation and Studio AKA, I am leading on the plan to create an illustrated book of the transcripts with the CEOs, Heads of Department, Creative directors and founders, complete with high quality imagery of their work.

The Victory-Foxtrot-Xray-Halo podcast: It’s an occasional series of conversations with people moving the tectonic plates of the VFX and Animation industries and expanding the VFX story. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vfxhalo