Daniel Waterman is one to watch. The 21 year-old animator has recently completed work on the feature film Africa United.

Released today by Pathé International, the team behind Slumdog Millionaire, it follows the epic journey of a group of children who cross the continent to take part in the opening ceremony of the World Cup.

Mr Waterman, a third-year 3D character animation student at Staffordshire University, runs Carse & Waterman Productions with fellow student Gary Carse.

The duo were approached to animate scenes from the imagination of Dudu, a 13 year-old orphan and one of the film's lead characters.

Mr Waterman tells People: "This is definitely the biggest thing we have done so far. It was a dream come true to work on this project and a bit of a surreal experience."

The former JFS pupil has been interested in film since he was five years old. "I remember seeing Jumanji at the cinema and being blown away by it. I always used to muck around with video cameras and I lived near Elstree Studios which I was fascinated by."

He pursued his interest at school and now university, yet he still manages to fit his company's projects around his studies. "It is a lot of work and uni has made allowances as much as it can. We need to work hard to achieve what we want."

And the film buff is doing just that. He was one of the animators on the television advert for banking group Santander, staring British F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, and had previously worked on a music video for the Prodigy on behalf of Academy Films. He and Mr Carse are now working on another television advert and music video with several other projects in the pipeline. Oh, and then there is his final year university project to complete.