WoodburyStudioCourses

- Are the Sophomore, Junior and Senior studios all group projects or just

some of them?

Most courses in the first two years are skills related and are individual

projects. They are building towards the Sophomore Progress Portfolio that

is the prereq for the junior group project.

Sophomore Studio 1 is a traditional animation studio, building on the

skills learned in Animation Principles. During this same year students

will do stop motion animation and CG animation using Maya. The projects

are all individual projects at this point.

Sophomore Studio 2 is layout and BG. Some of the work is done on paper

but the final layouts and backgrounds are done digitally, mostly in

Photoshop although some of the faculty have taught some Illustrator in

this class. Recently we have added more color theory here. This class is

also individual projects.

Junior Studio 1 and 2 is a year long course that requires students to work

in a group of (ideally) 5 students.. They come up with a story and take

if through the full production pipeline. I don't specify content, only

production quality. I encourage them to come up with the story, decide

the look and then define the pipeline and tools needed to get that look.

All students know After Effects and Photoshop at this point. We teach

Toon Boom here, and they have the option of taking the Flash class during

the junior year. Teams generally mix traditional and digital styles based

on skills in the team and the art direction.

Senior Studio 1 and 2 is a year long project that can be individual or

group driven. Because they are conceiving and completing a 2 minute film,

even individual projects will have support from other students, but the

idea, the story, direction and art direction must all come from the

student. We do allow small teams of up to 3 to work on a project together

but they must all take clearly defined leadership roles. For instance one

student might storyboard and direct, one student do art direction and bgs,

and another be the animation lead. This year's senior studio has 3 teams

and 2 individual films I think, maybe 3 individual films.

- Is there dedicated workspace for each student for each of the three

studios?

Freshman and Sophomore classes that require traditional animation

equipment meet in the Freshman/Sophomore dedicated studio. It's open 24

hours a day but it's unlocked so anyone can get in and there are no

assigned spaces. Freshman and sophomore classes that require computers

meet in the computer labs which are maintained by IT and are shared with

other departments.

Juniors have a dedicated locked lab arranged as a bullpen. They assign

themselves seats, have places to lock up equipment and are required to

have a lap top at this point. The students all have keys to this room

which is available 24 hours. We have two macs with appropriate software,

a large format scanner w/PC, and a digital lunchbox pencil test system in

Junior Studio.

Senior studio has a locked dedicated lab arranged in cubicles. Students

draw desks by lottery but some desks that are specifically designed for

traditional animation are reserved for students doing traditional

animation. There is a pencil test system using Dragon Frame in the senior

studio and they are located right near the labs.