STEVE LAWSON

Lecturer – BA (Hons) Animation

Qualifications – BA (Hons), MA
Steve is a multi-award-winning animation director, animator, story artist and writer, and joined NSoA in 2024. Originally hailing from Northumberland, Steve grew up in York before working and studying all over the UK, cutting his teeth in production for films, television and other digital media.

Steve’s first job in the film and television industry was back in 2015 on the indie feature Scott and Sid, starring Tom Blyth, but by the time he graduated from Oxford Brookes School of Art in 2017, with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, Steve was honing his craft as a stop-motion animator and director. Even so, he had maintained a firm interest in the worlds of art and art history, and represented the students of Oxford Brookes on the Ashmolean Museum’s Student Board.

In late 2017, Steve moved to London, where his first job was to direct the animation on the Channel 4: Random Acts film Ready or Not. Thereafter, Steve took on a range of freelance commissions, which ranged from character design to website building, before joining Spiral Productions as an assistant producer. There, he worked on major projects for institutions like the Science Museum and the National Museum of Qatar, contributing his skills in story, editing, drawing, designing, producing and writing. But something was missing… And in October 2018, Steve accepted a place on the prestigious Direction Animation MA programme at the renowned National Film & Television School, the place where Nick Park created Wallace & Gromit back in 1989.

Throwing himself into the process, Steve’s industry experience and openness to experimenting saw him get a great deal out of his first year, which also saw him be taught by people from Aardman, Laika and beyond. During his second year, the pandemic struck, but Steve managed to lead a team of nearly 150 people to produce his award-winning MA graduation film Build Me Up – now available on YouTube’s DUST network – during which time he was mentored by John Stevenson, the co-director of Kung Fu Panda and animation director on Shrek.

Since graduating from the NFTS in 2021, Steve has worked on a range of projects, from Nickelodeon’s The Tiny Chef Show (S1) to Nexus Studios’ Room to Read: Dewmini’s Story and Channel 5’s Tweedy & Fluff, and he continues to work on projects for the likes of Lego, Universal, the BFI and more. In 2023 Steve was offered a place on BAFTA’s Connect programme, in recognition of his commitment to pushing regional storytelling and non-London-based animation projects.

Most recently, he directed the music video for Nikita Faie’s Insomniac, and is currently working with an Emmy-winning production company to write and develop a series based on Build Me Up, amongst other projects.