pre-calarts
bfa-1 first semester | bfa-1 second semester
bfa-2 first semester | bfa-2 second semester

My classes!

Monday
Video Animation and Computers 9-12
Basic Perspective 1-4
Beginning Story Development 7-10

Tuesday
Color & Design I 9-12
Animation I (Computer) 8-11

Wednesday
No class! Whoowhee!!

Thursday
Life Drawing I 9-4 (yes, that's right. 7 hours.)
Animation I (Traditional) 7-10

Friday
Story for Animators 10-12

My animation cubicle!

Apparently, I won't be making a film this year. They've changed the structure of the program and instead of a 90-second short film, I'll be responsible for a 90-second computer animated 'performance peice'. I put that in quotes because I'm still not really clear what exactly that means. Also, we might be getting some guys from Pixar come down this semester to teach some workshops; HOW RAD IS THAT?! But you know what? Everyone is making a film anyway and so am I.

Cool things that have happened thus far:

• Dr. Ed Catmull from Pixar coming down to give a talk
• Seeing a pre-screening of The Incredibles
• Getting to listen to Brad Bird and Mark Andrews answer questions at the Q & A session after the screening
• Story presentation by Dreamworks
• Recruiting presentation from Sony Imageworks
• Mark Andrews coming down to give a lecture on storytelling (Oh my god, he's hilarious; I think I busted my gut)
• Being around so many amazing artists, students and teachers alike
• Dressing up as the overdosed Mia Wallace with a syringe in her chest for Halloween
• Waking up every fucking day and getting to attend CalArts for character animation

What I think of the classes:

Video Animation and Computers
This class isn't all that hard; it's just a lot of information to digest. In it, we learn the various video editting programs, how to use the patch bay and all the various other sorts of equipment. The teacher, Dave Lebow, is really nice and enthusiastic.

Basic Perspective
Boy howdy, do I need this class! My experience up until this point is only with figure drawing and (to a lesser degree) character concepts; I cannot for the life of me draw street scenes or cars or really anything relating to perspective. The teacher, Dan Hansen, worked at Disney for a gazillion years and is totally awesome. He's very mild-mannered and nice and spends the first half of class going over the lesson and then the second half of class going around individually to help us with our assignment for that week. He takes an interesting approach to perspective--he suggests that we draw the characters first and then figure out the perspective based on them. It's a philosophy that appeals to me.

Beginning Story Development
Ha! This class is awesome. It's basically a storyboarding class and the teacher, Theresa Pettengill, is a riot. She's a CalArts grad who now heads up Dreamworks' story training program. STORY IS THE MOS IMPORTANT THING!! You can have the most booooootiful animation but if the story is crap, the audience won't be interested. Just look at Disney's 2D feature releases over the past few years (excluding Lilo & Stitch, of course). Yeah. You understand what I mean.

Color & Design I
Another class that I need desperately. It's kind of sad that I was employed as a designer for five years prior to coming here and my design/color sensibilities are so bad. It's taught by Leo Hobaica and he's probably the most particular instructor I have so far. He's very specific with what he excepts of us and our assignments and, unlike all the other teachers, is a real stickler about class starting at 9a sharp. Show up five minutes late, expect him to be letting you into the classroom only after a terse reminder of when you are supposed to be here. But don't get the wrong idea; I really like him. Anyhoo, it's a very artsy-craftsy type class--we've painted color wheels and tint/shade charts, made articulated puppets, wire sculptures, flipbooks, maquettes. It's fun! The only downside is that the assignments tend to be very time consuming so I miss out on sleep. A lot. But it's worth it.

Animation I: Computer
This is the first year that CalArts is teaching computer animation from the get-go as a required class, hand in hand with traditional animation. We're not learning modelling, rigging, textures, etc. but are given pre-rigged models and taught to animate them. It's pretty challenging and I really have to fight the frustration of just wanting to draw it; there are just so many little parts and pieces you have to keep track of. The hardest part about the class, though, is the computer lab isn't large enough to accomodate everyone. We have to buddy up and share and, since there are no available lab hours, we have to do all our work in-class. That makes it really hard to really learn at the pace I'd like to be learning at. Despite this, though, I enjoy the class more than I expected I would and the teacher--Joe Ksander--is TOTALLY awesome!

Figure Drawing
Seven hour figure drawing class. Seven hours. Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds. I've found that they go by more quickly than the typical three hour sessions I'm used to. Perhaps it's because we take lots of breaks. Or because the longest pose is 20 minutes. Or because the models are super awesome and take really dynamic poses. Or because we're encouraged to exaggerate, stylize and characture what we see instead of copy directly. Or because everyone in the class produces amazingly inspirational stuff. Or because the teacher, Mike Mitchell, wears an eyepatch and there is no greater thing than having a pirate as an instructor.

Animation I: Traditional
This year's freshman animation class is being taught by Mike Nguyen who has worked on movies such as Beauty and the Beast and The Iron Giant. He's so enthusiatic and such a great teacher--I always come away from that class wanting to run up to my cubicle and animate, animate, animate! One of the things about him that I really like is that he doesn't hestitate to tell you what's not working with your stuff. I really can't stand it when teachers coddle their students. I take classes to improve, not go get an ego boost! We start each class by watching our animation homework on the projection screen, critiquing each one, and then he goes into his lecture for the evening. He shows us film clips, animates for us, acts for us and is all-around awesome.

Story for Animators
This is one of the hardest classes--no drawing at all! It's a writing class; even though I enjoy writing, it doesn't exactly come easily to me. The text we're reading is 'Story' by Robert McKee. In some ways, I feel it complicates the art of storytelling even further. For me, at least. It gives me too many things to think about and worry about and 'Oh my goodness, are there enough turns in my story? A controlling idea? An inciting incident?' But that's a problem on my side and not with the class itself. Overall, I think it has been very beneficial and it does gives me the tools to improve the story for my film which, at its genesis, was really nothing more than a situation. Plus, the teacher, Chris Meeks, is adept at explaining the concepts in the book and is so enthusiastic about the art of storytelling with the film medium.

How it all turned out...

I was sad when the semester ended because I really enjoyed all my classes and wasn't really looking for a break from them. I received high grades in all my classes and am really looking forward to the spring semester when I can really get deep into making my film.