animation schools?

madflashter · January 24, 2008 06:51 AM

Okay.. so i'm a freshman in college. i don't really know what i want to do... you know. taking random, nonrelated classes.. i took an engineering class, and all i learned was that i didn't want to be an engineer.

then it occurred to me! wtf! study animation! there's only so much you can learn from school, i guess, but i might as well study what i'm interested in. so i'm going to take a few animation classes in my current college (next semester starts monday), then, if it goes well, possibly transfer to a more specialized school. this is all a very loose plan, which i may or may not go through with, but i'm wondering if anyone has any reviews or suggestions about animation schools, or career paths, etc. =D

is anyone here a professional animator or have you studied animation in a school? any experience working in a studio?

just trying to stir up some ideas... but hell, even if i don't go to school for animation, i'll still progress as an animator, and eventually become the next walt disney. (or maybe matt groening)

Stick Man · January 24, 2008 07:11 AM

what on earth are you talking about this is the forum where we talk about stick figures you stiff dick

madflashter · January 24, 2008 07:36 AM

i'm talking about learning to draw stick figures, limp dick.

rtil · January 24, 2008 08:43 AM

http://schools.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pro...c=United+States

Thor · January 24, 2008 09:00 AM

It all really depends on what branch of animation you want to get into.

Cal Arts is the premiere 2D animation school. New York University's animation head is the famous John Canemaker; I'm pretty sure they also teach traditional stuff as well, but when I visited a couple years ago they had a really nice G5 lab, which means that they probably teach Maya too.

I'm still a sophomore at UMass Amherst (BFA Animation/IT minor expected), and as far as my personal experiences go, UMass's professor of animation is a cal-arts graduate (grad school... she trained with Jules Engels. I think he choreographed and animated the Dance of the Mushrooms in Fantasia, but don't quote me on that), and Hampshire College has a very strong 3D program (the teacher was a director at Rhythm and hues, and a technical director at Pixar for a couple of years). If you make it to Computer Animation 3 at Hampshire, you're going to be working on a full scale production with a team (which I'm told is very odd to have at a school, which makes it unique. It's very fun in any case.).

Otherwise, I'd talk to professors and hit up some books on what positions are needed for a cartoon. Not everything is character animation, so if you find that you can't stand moving a character around, maybe you'd be better off making layouts, backgrounds, effects, etc.

madflashter · January 24, 2008 09:47 AM

thanks for the link rtil, and thanks for the reply thor... i'm into 2D character animation, and my only experience is in flash. i'd be happy staying with flash, as it seems that flash is pretty mainstream, even for television cartoon production. of course most of that is fairly crappy cartoon network stuff... but i've got faith. i don't know anything about maya, so i guess i'll google that in a moment.

somebody here was talking about samurai jack recently... so i'm acquiring seasons 1-4 right now for a bit of inspiration =D anybody know what program was used to produce it? it looks kind of... flashy ;-)

cal art, eh? i love california! i'll do some research, this is plenty of food for thought. thanks

R. Wappin · January 24, 2008 03:42 PM

If you want to get into CalArts you're gonna need a really strong portfolio. They especially like to see lots of life drawings.

rtil · January 24, 2008 04:00 PM

apply early also. people think it's hard to get into these schools because you need to be a good artist - it's half and half. the other reason is that they get a lot of applicants and can only accept so many people per teacher. if you apply early you're in good shape.

MRat · January 24, 2008 08:24 PM

Quote from: rtilapply early also. people think it's hard to get into these schools because you need to be a good artist - it's half and half. the other reason is that they get a lot of applicants and can only accept so many people per teacher. if you apply early you're in good shape.

That is almost word for word what a Professor at Sheridan told me.

Anyway, you could always come up here to Canada if you want to pay less for school itself. Sheridan is pretty much impossible to get into unless you know someone there though. I'm applying anyway and crossing my fingers.

I don't know about Americans schools, but here in Canada, everywhere except the Vancouver Film School pretty much tells you EXACTLY what they want in your portfolio. This many life drawings, this many of them male, this many animals... blah blah blah. It's insane because each school asks for something COMPLETELY different.

My big concern about getting accept are my perspective drawings. They're disgusting eyerape that and I should be hung just for drawing them. Most schools ask for one corner of your room 2-Point 5 ft horizon line, and then the opposite corner same specs. It's a nightmare for me, who was never taught proper perspective drawing in my drawing classes. It was all still life and anaomy drawings. A few croquis.

ANYWAY fact of the matter is, you have to take what they want, and show them that you have alot of life to breathe into tight requirements. The schools want you, want me, want everyone to get it, but they'll only take the ones who show that spark, but they'll definitely look for the spark and want it to be there in each portfolio.

Good Canadian school include (not limited too): Seneca College, Sheridan Institute, Vancouver Film School, VanArts. Agonquin College's program is actually pretty good apparently, but the teachers are assholes, and they have little reputation at all, so you'd go to learn, not to get a foot in the door.

That's my input.

Thor · January 24, 2008 08:59 PM

I was actually initially rejected by UMass's art program, actually, but I made it into the school. I had to work my way into the art program (the one time DeviantArt was useful; I had most of my good works up).

Don't fret if you don't make it into the program at first. If it's a bigger school, go in as undecided and then work your way into the department.

Gerkinman · January 24, 2008 10:28 PM

I went to the cheapest animation school in the world, its called "The Self Taught School Of Trial And Error"

I guess thats why i fail

adamant · January 24, 2008 11:36 PM

are there good animation schools where i can learn how to do good animation and socialize with normal people?

Gerkinman · January 24, 2008 11:55 PM

Quoteare there good animation schools where i can learn how to do good animation and socialize with normal people?

I dont think animators that are normal people exist, so no.

Quoteis anyone here a professional animator or have you studied animation in a school? any experience working in a studio?

Im a professional, tho i work in advertising, doing TV and web commercials and such. I never went to school or anything like that, but rather spent a few years teaching myself while working weekends to supoort the habbit. I got the job over a few people with masters in animation purely because i had practical experience in churning out animation in really short amounts of time, and because of my ability to take verbal abuse, which is very important when you trying to finish something by a deadline with a bit agency looming over you, business people are mean people. Advertising isnt particularly fun, but then i guess what aspect of animation would be thesedays, animators are slaves to writers, they dont animate what they want for themselves. Im sure alot of people get into animation thinking they will be having non stop fun, then they find themselves depressed and bored when it settles in that they are just a tool with no real say in what they are doing.

If you want to do animation and enjoy it, either do freelance music videos and such, or get a different job and animate in your free time for pleasure.

Thats my 2 bob anyways.

MRat · January 25, 2008 04:20 AM

Quote from: GerkinmanIf you want to do animation and enjoy it, either do freelance music videos and such, or get a different job and animate in your free time for pleasure.

That's if you want to have fun now. If you work the grind for years and years, AND animate on the side get shorts into a festival maybe, get your name out, then you have some muscle to negotiate with a studio, maybe get them to back a feature of your own creation? That fact is, as an animator you have to work, long, hard, to little or no gratitude until you force your way through.

Thats the impression I got, anyway. I've been doing freelance for a year and have had 2 commissions, and one was a commercial for the restaurant I work at. So maybe I'm not the best judge.

rtil · January 25, 2008 04:35 AM

i think the only job you'd never have to work hard at to be successful in is buying and selling on craigslist

MRat · January 25, 2008 05:42 AM

Quote from: rtili think the only job you'd never have to work hard at to be successful in is buying and selling on craigslist

i more meant that people will shit all over you for ages until that one person says "hey, wait a minute, do that again. yeah. yeah i like that!"

madflashter · January 25, 2008 10:33 AM

well i guess i'm one of those overly ambitious types that wants to write\direct\animate my own large scale production... i mean technically that's what i'm doing now, just at a much smaller scale than I'd like to. it's only in the hobby stage right now. okay, maybe more of a compulsive hobby. i work 2 jobs, go to school, and animate. i have a lot of strength as a creative writer, and yes i guess my dream is to really write and direct my own large-production, possibly movie-length cartoon. so far i have very little formal art teaching (two basic classes) and zero animation instruction. but i've been busy teaching myself everything from paint to flash since windows 3.11...

so i guess in order to get into one of those really good schools i have to put together a portfolio... which i could do, but it would take a while. Definitely not this or next semester. And I'd have to take a lot more art classes. On the other hand I could just continue on the road i'm on.. which is basically a starving student cartoonist, and maybe, possibly, eventually get discovered? yaayy... :-p

speaking of gullible, what about making money from success on newgrounds? i mean krinkels and adam phillips have to be making something off of their newgrounds fame, right? is it possible, or am i naive?

R. Wappin · January 25, 2008 04:11 PM

Krinkles and Adam Phillips both get sponsorship money from Tom Fulp. I have no idea how much though.

MRat · January 25, 2008 09:05 PM

Quote from: R. WappinKrinkles and Adam Phillips both get sponsorship money from Tom Fulp. I have no idea how much though.

So does JAZZA :/

rtil · January 26, 2008 07:04 PM

i'm not sure how much money they deck out to people on average, but let's look at it this way. a cartoon worthy of a newgrounds sponsorship has to have a good deal of work put into it. i'd imagine most of them take anywhere from 3 months to 2 years of solid work. for a movie, $1,000 is rather steep. for games, i don't know. but even if it was something like $20,000, there are far more efficient ways to make money, especially if you're working by yourself.