Middlesex stop-motion animation scoops three prizes at RTS Student TV Awards

Middlesex University has triumphed at the national RTS Student TV awards, winning more awards across the undergraduate categories than any other university

Anomaly, made by 2024 Animation graduate Arturs Volbikovs, took prizes in the Animation genre category and craft skills awards for Production Design and Writing at the ceremony last Friday at IET London in Savoy Place.

The stop-motion short is an affectionate mockumentary-style look at life in a Latvian village, casting a light on the prevalence of alcoholism in the country. It follows in the footsteps of Latvia's first ever Oscar at this year's Academy Awards, for young animator Gints Zilbalodis's wordless feature Flow.

Joint programme leader for BA Animation and Lecturer in Animation History and Theory at Middlesex, Dr Sam Summers, says that Arturs executes the 3D plasticine animation in Anomaly “with a professional, alongside an anarchic, comic sensibility. Arturs deftly walks the tightrope between comedy and melancholy in a way only animation can achieve".

Lecturer Steve May says that Arturs' work at Middlesex “was always striking and original, demonstrating a great understanding of comic timing".

Arturs wrote Anomaly as he wanted to make a film about "the average Latvian village" with wooden buildings of one or two storeys and people enjoying bike rides, the beach and mushroom-picking.

There is an intimacy and familiarity to life in the Latvian countryside, where many city-dwellers decamp for the whole summer, that he “imagined what it would be like to make it even smaller".

He has made another Latvia-set animation for his Master’s at the Royal College of Art. “We might be a small nation but we live in a beautiful country with a beautiful culture,” he says.

Anomaly involved painstaking solo work to build the miniature set with wood, wire and metal. Relatives, family friends and the animation teacher at a club Arturs attended as a boy in Riga recorded voiceovers. Knowing he wanted accordion music, Arturs happened to meet talented accordion player Alise Silina at London Latvian House, who went on to produce the soundtrack in partnership with young US composer Eric Davis.

Arturs' coursemates Alfie Savage and Jack Burgess worked on videography and colour grading for the film, and second year students Dunja Zlatanovic and Janis Frostmanis assisted.

Growing up, Arturs made stop motion animations at home with his medical doctor father using a tiny webcam. He watched a huge number of cartoons including Wallace & Gromit and classic Soviet animations - Spongebob was a particular favourite because, Arturs says, of its great design, use of colour and use/technique of knack for telling "short, simple stories in an interesting way".

Middlesex BA Animation course leader Jonathan Hodgson’s two BAFTAs, for Roughhouse and The Man With the Beautiful Eyes, were a major reason why he applied to the university, he says. He also greatly valued the advice of industry-practitioner lecturers Steve May and Chris Shepherd.

While at Middlesex, he spent a term in South Korea, where he made Migration, a story of a red bird flying to warmer climes. It was selected to appear at 13 festivals and was a finalist for awards at three, winning a Best Editing prize in Madrid. "Middlesex people care about the industry, about and around animation,” Arturs says. "It seems like MDX is taking animation more seriously than most other unis."

Anomaly was produced with funding from the Phil Davies Award, an annual grant donated to outstanding Middlesex Animation students by the producer of Peppa Pig. The soundtrack was produced in collaboration with top London sound studio Fonic.

In April, Anomaly won the Animation award at the London region round of the RTS awards, while A Bigger Bear (written by Isaac Morgans) took the Writing prize and Midknight Crisis (art director and production designer Dafne Sanchez) received the award for Design.

Find out more about studying Film at Middlesex University.