Right now, it does seems to me the University is highly reliant on the Norman rig though (which was Pixar’s class idea, if I’m not mistaken), I have mixed feelings about this, but at the end of the day I think if the University cold provide some more new rigs, it might show they are at least taking some initiative to do some little things about their animation program? I have been hearing this suggestion going on for sometime but nothing has been done so far. I personally prefer the idea of students making their own rigs… But I have seen real nicely modified Norman rigs still so it’s not entirely that bad. Just, well, you know, original rigs would sometimes stand out more in demoreels.

Let’s hope when the semester starts, the University has some new things in for the students.

Thanks for the Pixar instructors that once step foot into AAU, I do think AAU animation course do owe a lot to them for what the students have today.

The school claims an 80% placement rate which I’m not necessarily questioning, but they really do not emphasize the fundamentals of the art enough. To learn character animation they need EVERY STUDENT to be able to go through a pixar-like class. That’s truly how the this is taught. Right now AM is looking cheaper and a better prospect for an actual job every day. I kinda of wish I cold afford to go there now, but it’s out of the question financially. Hopefully by the end of this year I’ll have a decent reel to show for all my work and expense following this dream. I wish I could have taken a class with all the great teachers on this blog it would have helped me a ton

First, I’m a graduate of New York University, where I learned filmmaking, so it’s obvious which road I took at the start. And I certainly understand the very serious need to work and pay the bills.

I have been in the business for quite a few years, and I learned a long time ago what it’s like to get and lose jobs. When you get a good job you feel awesome. You lose it and you feel terrible. I decided to stop putting my self worth in the hands of a company. Since then I have ALWAYS had personal projects going. Even as a parent with a full time job, I still make the time to inch something along. Two years ago I had a short in the Siggraph Animation Theater, and my next short is well underway. It makes me feel like an actual artist. I take the work to the audience, not some nameless portfolio reviewer.

By the way, would one of you guys tell Guilherme Jacinto to finish that short of his.

Andrew is right in the thinking that only the creme of the crop make it into the pixar classes, because the school and some of the instructors even pushed that idea, and it bred the idea that if you didn’t get into that class, you somehow didn’t have the talent to work in the animation industry, and because I had some instructors even tell me I should have been in the class, and didn’t get in and even watched one of my friends get into the class, that thinking even snaked its way into my head, and I’ve spent the past year in a kind of a burnt out slump because I didn’t think I was good enough.

But let me make it clear that I do not blame the school or the instructors for my slump. There have been numerous other factors for my slump that all played a part, it was just that I lost my drive and chose not to animate when I should have been animating. But that aside, I think the school did wrong in puffing up the pixar classes that it did create such attitudes, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s the sole cause of the attitudes of students.

I totally agree that the AAU needs to make some necessary changes, coming up with a standardized cirriculum and pushing the students to be more creative as opposed to working simply on just shots, however, I do agree with JD Haas that those are important as well, because with the time constraints of classes and what an undertaking a short film could be.

But at the same time, I also think your schooling is largely what you make of it. I will say I had a great learning expierence, it wasn’t without it’s flaws (the biggest being that too many of my instructors were cheerleaders and didn’t truly critique the work), I didn’t learn until I had a year of school left, that it was better to animate arms in FK. But at the same time, I learned alot because I asked questions, I wanted to make sure that I got as much information about how my animation could be better. It was also a great way to get to know the instructors and that is also something I didn’t see a lot of students do. In fact I remember a lot of students just complaining about the schooling and not really doing anything about it, their thinking was that an A was owed them for showing up. And that bothered me. I’d ask them if they’d talked to the instructors and/or their advisors and most that I’d talked to would say “No.”

I learned a great deal from the majority of my instructors, especailly the ones that cared, JD Haas, Shaun Featherstone, Jason Patnode, and my Portfolio class instructor who worked at ILM whose name I can’t remember off hand. They cared about the work we did and were honest. Not enough teachers were honest with their students with their shots and especially some of those that really had no business being animators. You don’t tear people down but too many were given, what I think was too much of a false hope with all the cheerleading.

Thanks for the article.

On to my point: Pixar has such a huge name at the moment, they are well-positioned to push their own agenda at the undergraduate level. Aside from starting their own school, they could potentially partner with a school to create an animation department, where they could write their own curriculum and graduation requirements. Think of it…the “Pixar School of Animation at the University of…(insert name here).” I can’t imagine a school scoffing at that.

As for the animation students clamoring to work for some benevolent corporation with benefits, none of them will last forever. Create your own way, make your own films, find your own voice and your audience will come…