About me
Maria Birmingham is a 2D Character Animator from London, UK, who is passionate about all things films, animation, acting and storytelling. Maria first trained as Theatre Designer, before going on to study Character Animation at Central St Martin's. After graduating she went straight into an internship at Cartoon Network and has worked for companies such as Cartoon Network, NFTS, The BBC, BBC World Wide, Tiger Aspects and Mind Candy during her career, doing animation, production, design and games related work.
In 2010 Maria worked for nine months in Shanghai, China for animation studio Jetoon and during this time she worked on children's TV shows such as 'Silly Bitty Bunny', 'Groove High' and 'Trust Me I'm A Genie'. Since returning to London, Maria has worked as an Animator on TV series such as 'The Animated Series of Mr Bean', 'Driftwood Bay', 'Kiva Can Do', 'Pablo', 'Jazz Duck', 'Doctor Who; Power of the Darleks' and 'Rita and Crocodile.'
Alongside work, Maria attended ICAT (Independent Centre of Actor Training) where she trained as an actor for stage and camera. She also studied clowning, laban, movement, voice for stage and radio, Chekhov, Stanislavsky and Shakespeare while on the course. Maria also finished a course in Toonboom, earlier this year where she learnt how to animate and character rig in the software. She is currently learning how to use Blender while working for Calon TV Ltd, animating on their popular show 'Sali Mali', while developing her own projects. She was also recently asked to be a Jury for the 'I Will Tell' Film Festival, judging their animated film category.
Skills
2D Character Animation, Adobe Animate, After Effects, blender, Celaction, Character Design, creative writing, Illustration Skills, layout design, Life Drawing Skills, Painting, Photoshop, premiere, Prop & Model-making skills, Spine, Storyboarding, storytelling, toonboom, Toonboom Rigging, traditional animation, Trained Actor, Trained Set & Costume Designer, voiceover