2012 Animation conference for animators
2012 Animation conference for animators
3/23/12 Brand Yarhouse
3/23/12 Brand Yarhouse
Embedded Files
Webinar: General membership meeting discussing standards in animation criteria for Nasad 02/18/2012
I attended this discussion in Burbank California at the animation guild through a Webinar live conference feed. The feed allowed for about 40% of the conversations to be heard at best and at worst was a mix of discordant noise. Despite the conditions, I sat through the 2 hour discussion.
The basic goals where to create a general criteria of learning outcomes for all types of animation including 2D, 3D, experimental and special effects that could be used for assessment by Nasad. The meeting was an introduction to the issues with additional meetings planned along with online resources and discussions. The next scheduled meeting is for SIGGRAPH 5-9 of August.
This discussion was an attempt to toss out ideas in an effort to start to build the conversation. A number of ideas where presented in the round table discussion. None of these are conclusive but only represent the opening dialog of a continuing discussion on how best to prepare students with the proper skill sets to be able to animate in a variety of mediums and uses.
Chad Erekson from Salt Lake Community College put forth their criteria:
Chad Erekson from Salt Lake Community College put forth their criteria:
Demonstrate a competent application of foundation drawing and design skills.
Demonstrate a competent application of animation principles in a time based visualization
Illustrate a working knowledge of quality visual storytelling.
Engage in collaborative production development practices and interdisciplinary experiences.
Exhibit a working competnency of both the arts and technologies involved in a least one specific area of the discipline.
oTher thoughts
oTher thoughts
Animation Drawing skills: learning perspective/ volumes and shapes/
Drawing is one method to observational study for movement, weight and process.
Understand the fundamental language of design and drawing.
Animators don’t need to know in depth color theory but the basics.
What the animation artist needs to get out of drawing is different then for other artists.
Life drawing should include short session poses focused on Line of action and gesture.
GENERAL LIST OF IDEAS OF WHAT IS NEEDED IN ANIMATION EDUCATION:
Silhouette
Cinematic language
Story structure
Theme
Communication
Exploration
Revision
Anatomy
Rapid sketch
Thinking
Animation History
Bio Mechanics
Observational anatomy
Saving files, working on a network. Organization. Naming conventions for files.
ART AND THE TOOL: Pencil versus the default of the computer. Pencil lets you work with the surface - to break the surface. The computer lets you default without thinking things through. The sketchbook shows a thought process. You see warts along with the pretty stuff.
CRITICAL THINKING AND ART HISTORY: Learning about art movements, design history. Instead of studying objects, they learn the language of design. They can work faster because they understand the movements and connections with history.
You want to be a novelist, you know the references, Animation students, they want to make animated films but don’t have any knowledge of what came before. That’s crazy.
Game play is focused on cinematic style lock, stock and barrel.
A lot of talk about shapes. And students being able to see and work with visualization.
What differentiates students with training in animation from those with out:
In other countries, the business thinking is that computers are magic buttons that spew out animation. New animation companies spring up overnight and guys have 10 days training, No matter what job they are hired for, rigger, lighter, animator etc. It usually takes 2 years before the company starts going out of business because they don’t have the language or understanding of principles of animation and the work looks like crap.
One suggestion was that we have to get away from thinking about just the pencil as an avenue to learning to critically see. Boil away the traditional ideas of pencils or whatever and give the principles of animation to students in some other way. An example would be Machinima – she can’t get a student to draw the boards but give him Machinima and he can give her great boards. Separate the ideas from the tools. Film makers recently used Machinima to tell the visualization of the pacific theater during WW2 for Asian American vets. An example I found: http://www.goforbroke.org/multimedia/machinima/MISBridgeToANewJapan.asp
CONCERNING MAYA:
Students come in with free Maya doing the basics (bouncing ball etc.) The software is out there. They don’t always have the art. How much of instruction in Maya is teaching the tools or the skills? At least 7 weeks before they get the tool. Sculpting experience is important. All Maya students take stop-motion so they understand physical use of camera before they open Maya and have to figure out lens length. The studios still create maquettes (hand sculpted models) before 3d modeling.
CINEMATOGRAPHY ON INDUSTRY:
- The studios wants to see drawing again, they want to see sketch books.
- The studios want to know if artists know specific programs now, as apposed to general knowledge of computer and being trained on the job for specific computer program.
- The students coming out today have to be able to do lot of different things.
- Concerning reels, students should create two reels one as a generalist for small companies and a specialist reel for the big ones.
Google Sites
Report abuse