Tim McLaughlin: "You need a creative and clever mind"

He brings his practical experience to courses which are already turning out graduates with skills which are increasingly demanded by film, internet and computer games businesses.

"Many of our graduates are producing the level and quality of computer animation and digital effects which are becoming the standard in the world's film industry," said a spokesperson for the NCCA.

Mr McLaughlin's expertise is in computer-generated creatures.

"It's not in terms of what are the technical things that we do at ILM, pushing this button or moving that slider, but in terms of the problems anyone building a computer-generated creature will encounter - and some tips on solving them."

He says the most important talent for anyone considering such a course is a clever and creative mind.

Artistic basis

"There's a sense that the business is very technically driven, but what Bournemouth and the NCCA understands is that it's actually a technical application of a creative process.

"So the students here are creative here to begin with, and have a vision - have something artistically, aesthetically that they want to get out."

From one of the projects Stuart Adcock has worked on

Two of those students are Miles Green and Stuart Adcock, both in the second year of an honours degree in computer visualisation and animation.

But Stuart says it is not all about being visionary: he felt at something of a disadvantage to fellow students whose background was in mathematics.

"It's an aspect of the course that I didn't really expect to do until I started it," he said.

"But it is good, I think it makes us a lot more employable at the end.

"The software does a lot of things for you but at the end of the day we understand what is going on in the background."

Miles says he did a traditional arts foundation course - he was into sculpture and painting.

Animated fish from a project by six students

"But as many kids are you grow up with a computer in the house and get to play on simple paint programs and want to take it further."

His advice to anyone thinking of following in his footsteps is not to be scared of the maths and the computer programming.

"It's an extremely interesting course. It's fantastic when you get into it."

And Tim McLaughlin says it is in a growth area - not only in the obvious sense of special effects.

"More and more directors and producers are thinking about the application of the technology," he said.

"It's not necessarily huge, big-budget, fantastic films ... but as a new way of making movies."

Elements of films - main actors, background cast, setting - can now be shot separately and combined digitally to make the finished piece.

"That application is growing."