Bournemouth, Education | Posted on September 10th, 2025 | return to news

Bournemouth University graduates win award for work on Star Wars

Two VFX artists who studied in Bournemouth have won an Emmy award for their work on the ‘Star Wars’ series ‘Andor: Season Two’.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… well, a few decades ago in Bournemouth, two students learned about computer animation and digital effects.

Now, they’ve been awarded with a prestigious Emmy award for the visual effects (VFX) work on the television series ‘Andor: Season Two’. Broadcast on the Disney+ channel, the show is part of the popular ‘Star Wars’ franchise.

Sue Rowe and Scott Pritchard are both graduates of Bournemouth University. Rowe completed a Masters in Computer Animation in 1994 at BU’s National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA), while Pritchard, also an NCCA graduate, completed his Masters in Digital Effects in 2002.

The pair, along with other team members who worked on the VFX for the series, won the ‘Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Season or Movie’ category at the International Emmy Awards ceremony on Saturday 6 September. The Emmys is held in the US every year and was established in1973 to honour excellence in TV programming.

Rowe worked as a VFX Supervisor for Scanline VFX. On winning the award, she said: “After being nominated for ‘Andor: Season One’, taking home the win for ‘Season Two’ is a dream come true. A huge thank you as well to our partners at Disney, ILM, Lucasfilm and the many other talented studios and artists whose collaboration made ‘Andor’ such a special show. This Emmy is truly a shared achievement across the VFX community and we’re honoured to have been part of it.”

Pritchard worked as the VFX Supervisor for the company ILM based in London. In 2022, he visited Bournemouth University to speak to students and showcase his work on ‘Andor: Season One’

Professor Christos Gatzidis, dean of the Faculty of Media, Science and Technology, said: “It is, as always, immensely rewarding to see graduates excelling in very high- rofile competitive settings. Many, many congratulations to Sue and Scott for this recent achievement. Their fantastic success in the 2025 Emmy Awards highlights the excellent value that our courses within the NCCA and throughout the Faculty of Media, Science and Technology continue to offer.”