In conversation with Industry Patron and Visiting Tutor Paul Hilton

Prior to Treehouse, Paul was a full-time lecturer on the BA (Hons) and MA Animation Production courses at AUB for 20 years, teaching both traditional and digital animation. He also ran the BA (Hons) VFX Production course.

We catch up with Paul and find out more about his journey from being an AUB student through to teaching at AUB, and now, back in industry and the fascinating projects he’s working on today.

My love for animation has been a lifelong affair that all started with Tom and Jerry cartoons! I absolutely loved that show, I loved drawing, and I always knew I wanted to do animation.

My AUB journey actually started at the age of 14 when I came over here for Summer School before it was even called AUB – it was the Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design then.

When it came to my A-Levels at nearby Purbeck School, I was the first person to do an animated project. It was just moving bits of plasticine around and capturing that with an old video camera, but I loved it.

I went on from there to do a Foundation in art at Weymouth. Because I was good at drawing, I thought for a time that I should be an architect, but then I went and did some work experience for an architect, and that made me realise that's not what I wanted to do! That’s one of the things that work experience is good for, giving you a real taster and helps you figure out what you do – and just as importantly – what you don’t want to do.

So, from then on, I was 100% set on animation and came back to AUB in 1997. It wasn’t a uni then, so I did a HND in Animation.

After completing my HND, I went off to be an animator at Light Image Animation, a studio in Shaftesbury, for three years. It was my first job out of education and I was very lucky to get it. I actually got the job through AUB.

I was looking around for work and not getting anywhere. And then I messaged Pete Parr, the guy who set up the Animation course originally, way back in the '70s. I asked if he knew of anywhere that was hiring and by chance, he said something had just come through on the fax machine – that’s how long ago this was!

It was this little studio in the middle of Shaftesbury High Street. I was the only animator until another guy joined, a mate of mine from uni. We were doing hand-drawn animation and computer animation for TV commercials. It was where I learned computer animation; they took a chance and taught me how to use 3D, which was just incredible.

I was there for three years until I was made redundant when the studio closed. So, then I was doing just about anything to earn money, from digging holes in the road to delivering garden machinery. And then Pete Parr called again, he said they were looking for someone to come in and do some workshops with the National Diploma in Media Production. So, in 2004 – when it’d changed to the Arts Institute at Bournemouth – that’s when I started teaching.

I came in and did a little bit of work with those guys. And then Pete asked me to work part-time with him on the Animation course. After about two weeks, I said that it felt a bit more like a full-time, not a part-time job. He agreed, I got taken up to HR, signed a piece of paper and that was that, I taught at AUB for 20 years!

I first came across Treehouse when I ran the VFX course. The course had just started at AUB, and we did a shoot in their Boscombe studio. We used the Treehouse facilities to do a shoot and then our students worked on one of their short films (Litterbugs), which is how it all started. It was a win-win. We did a lot of VFX work for Treehouse and our students got some great experience on work placements and live projects.

After 20 years’ teaching, I decided I wanted a change and to get back into industry. I saw on LinkedIn that Treehouse was looking for someone, so, I messaged one of the directors and that was that.

And now, here I am, working closely with AUB as an Industry Patron and Visiting Tutor – I'm just AUB through and through, sort of entwined into the plumbing somewhere!

We've been working on Rogue Trooper, which is Duncan Jones's new film, and due for release in 2026. That's been the bulk of what I've been working on over the last three years.

It’s quite groundbreaking how we did things on Rogue. It's not been done before, in terms of making clay miniatures, scanning them and bringing those into Unreal, which is the game engine we use to make Rogue.

It's real-time filmmaking, and I absolutely love it. For me, it brought everything together. It's drawing, sculpting, playing around with computer software, and working with other people.

As an incredibly impatient person, working in real-time is just brilliant. I don't have to wait for things to be rendered. For me, it’s brought everything I’ve been doing throughout my career together in one very exciting project.

Yes, we organised a pop-up satellite studio at AUB in 2023 during the summer when the students had all gone home and the campus was empty. We got a load of grads in and they worked on Rogue for two months as a live brief. It worked brilliantly and they produced all sorts of cool stuff!

The students were from AUB, Bournemouth University (BU) and Bournemouth and Poole College. So, we had a mixture of different students, and it was funded by both AUB and BU collaboratively. Treehouse then took on two of the grads full-time from the pop-up, which was really nice, one of whom was a grad from VFX at AUB, and the other one was a grad from Bournemouth and Poole College. A couple of the others went off to work in the industry as well, not with us, but as a direct result of what they did with us.

The project is mega. It's a very well-respected Hollywood director and we've done it in a small local studio here in Dorset. All the content's produced here and it's involved a lot of students from AUB, BU, and Bournemouth and Poole College.

Absolutely! The first was such a success that we're planning to do a second pop-up starting in February. It’ll be based at Treehouse and will just be AUB students this time from different courses. We've got students from BA (Hons) Animation Production, MA Animation Production, BA (Hons) Games Art and Design and BA (Hons) Visual Effects for Film and Television.

From my perspective, I'm pretty much done with my work and input on Rogue now. It's all into post-production, editing, sound, etc. So, my current role is working on new developments. Working on pitches for new films and also the connection with AUB, which is something we're passionate about building on. We've always worked with the universities, but it's something we're trying to build upon even more, which is why the second pop-up is now coming into focus.

There’s some really exciting new courses coming through AUB, it’s great to see the University adapting and evolving alongside this very fast-paced industry. Animation goes from strength to strength, the new Games course is brilliant and the even newer BA (Hons) Future Media Production course is really exciting as it blends traditional film, animation, and VFX with emerging tech. You’ve got something really special there!

It's an honour to still be so closely entwined with AUB. The graduates that come out of any course are an asset to the creative industries and it’s an absolute privilege to work with them. We’re all very excited here at Treehouse to see what the new year brings in terms of projects and pop-ups so we can get your amazing students and grads back in here to help us make more awesome animations. Bring on 2026!