CARY, NC – Epic Games is now accepting applications for a new curated educational initiative: Unreal Fellowship. This four-week intensive blended learning experience is designed to help industry professionals in film, animation, and VFX learn Unreal Engine, understand the state of the art in virtual production, and be able to create new opportunities with leading technologies and techniques in the emerging field of real-time production.
Applications are open until Monday, July 27 at unrealengine.com/fellowship.
Conducted entirely remotely, the Unreal Fellowship will accept 50 Fellows and kick off with an orientation day on Friday, August 21, with classes running from Monday, August 24 to Monday, September 21. All of the learning tools are completely free of charge, and Epic will provide each participant with a $10,000 stipend to ensure that they can dedicate ample time to successfully complete the rigorous curriculum.
The Unreal Fellowship builds from existing Unreal Online Learning courses for foundational skills, and also offers 22 hours of dedicated live training, weekly guest lectures from industry leaders, weekly mentorship meetings, open “office hours” with a live trainer, and a dedicated Slack channel for communication and Q&A. With an estimated 94 hours of content along with project-based work across the four-week program, Fellows will focus on learning Unreal Engine fundamentals, model ingestion, animation, mocap integration, lookdev, lighting setups, and cinematic storytelling. The curriculum was fine-tuned earlier this year through a pilot program with 15 Fellows.
“Technology can only be a great democratizer if it is freely available and empowers the people who use it. Epic not only has the first, but with their Fellowship program, has taken an active path to bring professionals and luminaries into their ecosystem. This is evidence of more than a passive interest in the Hollywood community, but an active positive force towards important storytelling and change,” said Daniel Gregoire, Owner and Chairman of Halon Entertainment.
“At Epic we have always believed in the transformative power of real-time computer graphics for film and television production,” said Kim Libreri, CTO of Epic Games. “With the Unreal Fellowship we are actively investing in visionaries who will be responsible for crafting the stories of tomorrow to ensure that they are armed with a deep understanding of the many ways that real-time technology can benefit their projects.”
Epic’s LA-based team is driving the live training and real-time collaborative components of the Fellowship. A minimum of five years of experience in commercial film and television production, immersive entertainment or game development is required, along with the ability to commit to the Fellowship full-time for four weeks.