Published on 27 November 2017
Three BA Animation and Design graduates have won Children’s BAFTAs this weekend – an unparalleled hat trick for the national television awards.
Catherine Salkeld, and Ross Phillips won their first BAFTAs, and Jardine Sage won his fourth award.
Catherine, 26, from Durham, is a Storyboard Artist at animation studio Blue Zoo in London, which won in the Best Independent Production Company category. After graduating in 2013 with a BA in Animation and Design, Catherine went on to join Blue Zoo in London, working on children's television programmes including Miffy and Friends and Tree Fu Tom. During her time at Sunderland she was awarded a Futures Fund bursary, which allowed her to travel to the USA to attend a Pixar summer school, and won Best Animation in the 2014 Royal Television Awards.
Ross Phillips, 30, from Gateshead, graduated BA Animation and Design in 2008. He won in the Best Interactive and Pre-School category for his work on Studio AKA's Hey Duggee. During his time at Sunderland Ross won the Radar Festival Award for his animation for Hip Hop soul group The Heavy, and in 2011 was included in Institute of Public Policy Research North’s list (ippr north) of the 50 brightest and most talented people in the North of England.
Jardine Sage, 32, from Suffolk, graduated BA Animation and Design in 2009, and has now picked up his fourth BAFTA. Jardine Sage won in the Short Form category for Share A Story, a competition CITV runs for children aged five to 12-years-old to write and storyboard the tall tales, which Jardine’s team at CITV then turns into animations.
Speaking at the BAFTAs in 2014 Jardine said: “My time at the University of Sunderland was integral to my development, as it afforded me the three years where I learnt my craft! I had amazing support from Ros Allen who is the programme leader for the Animation and Design course in Sunderland, and I am still in contact with her today as a result. I would say that I was also very lucky, to be a part of an amazing team at CITV and the success that we’ve all had.”