Love and animation with robots

Telling the important tale of loving your differences through animation, Hiba Jad joined us for the Summer: Animation course. A current student at Dar Al Hekma University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where she is studying Motion Graphics and she has aspirations of working for a top animation or video game studio in the future.

We caught up with Hiba to hear about her time in London, overcoming the intimidation of animation and her favourite moments both in and out of classes.

Tell us abit about you?

I’m Hiba Jad, I live in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and am Saudi/British. With a love of animation, art, illustration, video games and music. Currently studying at Dar Al Hekma University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in Motion Graphics. I aspire to become a professional animator and hope to work with a top animation or video game studio/company. A long way to go, but I am extremely excited for the incredible journey.

How was Summer: Animation?

Joining the Animation Summer School at LCC was an amazing experience. It developed my skills as well as helped me make new friends from different parts of the world. Animation has always been intimidating for me as it is very time consuming and requires patience and hard work. But spending time on the course opened my eyes and boosted my confidence, giving me the confidence, I needed! I wanted to ease my way into Animation as a beginner, as well as learn further and develop my skill set.

I really enjoyed the course, I loved the trip to the Science Museum. But my favourite moment was when we all showed our animations, it was great to see other peoples work. It was satisfying to see that people enjoyed watching all work that I had created after the hard work.

You created an animation based on celebrating difference, tell us more?

It tells a story about a ‘different’ looking robot in a world of robots that all look the same. The robot experiences hate and is always left out, until one day it decided to shut itself down because it couldn’t deal with being different and receiving hate from other robots. The robot was saved by other ‘different’ looking robots that wanted it to stay with them. At the end, they all stayed together and became friends. The story supports the idea of always being yourself because people will love you for who you are.

The most interesting thing about creating this project is all the original ideas and characters I had to come up with. Even though it was hard, it gives you the feeling of satisfaction when you finish and gather all your ideas. To come up with the concept of my animation, I thought about the idea of using a personal story or feeling to make my work genuine.

It wasn’t my first time in London, I visit the UK every summer but this time my trip was different and amazing because of my experience at LCC. I will be continuing to make animations, as I’m now certain it is what I’d like to do for my future career.

What skills did you gain on the course?

I’ve developed my skills in the Adobe suite, I now know more of the software that I can use to create animation and how to use them proficiently. My skills in visual storytelling have also improved. I’d definitely recommend the course to those who want to develop themselves and their skills during the summer.