Educators

At the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, we have been pioneers in designing new paradigms for learning by structuring experiences that require interdisciplinary expertise and knowledge, and which place animation at the core of these discoveries. This panel will present content and results from animation projects that are designed around the concept of interdisciplinary collaborations. The panel will describe methodologies and strategies that support such interdisciplinary endeavors while engaging students from varying disciplines, and creating experimental and evolving animation content.

This panel explores concept development strategies for the animated short film, focusing on three different genres; narrative, non-narrative, and commercial animation. The panelists will discuss how ideas are formulated and the challenges that the animator/director faces. Issues such as effective communication (both visual and verbal), targeting the audience, using metaphor, experimentalism, client/director negotiation, divergent and convergent thinking, story and character integration, expectations and preconceived notions, conflict/resolution, etc. will be explored. Both innovative and practical approaches to developing successful ideas will be presented as well as how these concepts can be visually articulated in a meaningful way.

How do you develop an animation program within a small conventional visual arts department? A strong foundation in drawing, understanding 3-dimensional space, lighting, composition, narrative structure, and character development are a few components that come to mind. What if you are the sole faculty within an animation concentration? In this example curriculum, an existing illustration emphasis was converted to include 2D and 2.5D animation, with limited 3D. While it continues to evolve, can a model such as this serve students appropriately for the animation and video game fields?

Today's college students are different than previous generations; they have always had technology at their disposal. Educators of all disciplines can learn methods and ideas of how to reach out to the gamer generation. The "Gamer Generation" is changing the student lifestyle, therefore changing the classroom. Presenters will share their experiences in the classroom and the strategies they have found to be most effective and why. Technology has changed the way these students view life and how they learn - today's teachers need to know how to teach these students.

An introduction to 2D vector image technology with animation structures in animated feature film production. Using the film To the Top of the World as a case study, Mr. Valente will encourage participants to think about how the new technology leads to a new approximation of the animator to the director and a new philosophy of work in a studio structure. The work of the animator is changing, as is the approach the director takes to the animators. Also, for the first time in animation history, the scene becomes the focus of the production instead of the traditional production plan.

This workshop will discuss an education plan designed to train students and studio staff in the new technologies. Also covered will be hardware and software design changes, budget transformations, and time of production.

Where the "meshing" of traditional animation and design principles and GUI-driven 3D animation applications are concerned, it's all about how you approach the problem. Having your mind "tuned-out" to either approach, in even the slightest sense, will have a tremendous negative impact on the imagery you create when producing 3D animation sequences. Both elements demand your fullest attention, for without a strong understanding of the traditional principles your students will never produce great looking imagery, engaging stories, and beautiful motion. On the other side of the coin, students will never be able to translate stunning design or animate eye-catching motion if they don't have a strong understanding of the software application they are using.

Truly, teaching and creating great computer animation is a fine balancing act. If you want your students to experience greater success as they enter the computer animation industry, you must find that balance and develop your curriculum and project workflow around it.

This session will discuss first activites for an introductory animation class. In an interactive format, we will experience ice-breaker exercises and consider ways to teach creativity. We will describe designing effective short introductory exercises to introduce students to the animation process and create group collaborative short pieces. Case studies of successful beginning animation projects, designed for animation majors and non-majors, will be screened and discussed.

The presentation will explain how to create 2D/3D animation shorts using the absolutely free animation pipeline. It will go into details with examples of which tools to use for each challenge faced by animators. The tasks that an animator has to do in pre-production, production, and post-production areas will be explained/demonstrated. We will review our experience developing our "Mancandy" animation tutorial DVD that our target audience (students who are in animation or interested in animation) would find useful. We will show the audience how to download or get the software and begin working with it.

Because animation is such a laborious art form, it is essential to understand your story/film/commercial first through a series of still images called storyboards. Aubry Mintz will take you through the process of brainstorming an idea and developing it into an animatic. Aubry will be exploring how to convey acting, shot selection, timing to a beat, adding sound, recording music, and making a clear “pitch” so the investors will want to produce your project. 

Ellen Besen and Aubry Mintz will explore the farthest reaches of creative animated storytelling by presenting key sequences from a variety of animated films, each of which tackles the story from a unique angle.

Some of the most interesting approaches to story are those which come at it from an unexpected direction. Building up excitement about a character who hasn’t yet appeared on the screen and at the same time making sure that we will remember her name by engaging the audience in a subtle guessing game. Exaggerating a real life dilemma to the point that it becomes impossibly absurd. Using rhythm as a character which bounces around the scenario and always ends up with the character who holds the reins of power. Animation is full of such inventive storytelling techniques, some which make use of purely animated qualities and others which would be innovative whether they were applied to animation or live action. Join us for a lively demonstration and discussion.

This session will discuss first activities for an introductory animation class. In an interactive format, we will experience ice-breaker exercises and consider ways to teach creativity. We will describe designing effective short introductory exercises to introduce students to the animation process and create group collaborative short pieces. Case studies of successful beginning animation projects, designed for animation majors and non-majors, will be screened and discussed.

As instructors, we all have something in common; we have the privilege and responsibility to guide our students toward the fulfillment of their aspirations to enter the animation industry. The question is how do we actually do it? Are there things that we can do to help our students to navigate the waters where entering the animation industry is concerned?

The answer is a resounding, “Yes!” From project selection to portfolio development and budgeting to freelance networking, we can guide our students down the path that will not only help them get that first position in the industry, but facilitate their continued successes in the animation vocation.

Drawn by the potential for spontaneity, many animators are exploring inventive ways to create animation at warp speed, as this panel discussion will reveal. From the extremes of Guerillamation & Dumpstermation (take your animation production to the STREETS!), to multi-layered, quick and dirty, under-the-camera personal techniques, to experiments in audience participation/theater-sports style animation filmmaking, to winning strategies for the Cartoon Challenge, breaking and more established approaches to the fastest forms of creating animation will be discussed.

Give your students a competitive advantage that will help them throughout their career - teach them the art of networking. Find out how networking leads to better jobs with higher pay and how networking accelerates success. Join Pamela Kleibrink Thompson, career coach and recruiter, and meet new people at KAFI. Pamela will lead you in entertaining, energizing, networking exercises you can share with your students.

From staging to choice of props, animated performance is composed of many parts. This panel will explore these various parts and consider how to make them add up to a compelling whole.

This session explores conceptualization and production processes in contemporary digital animation and audio. Topics will include experimentalism, innovation, non-narrative idea development, audio and image relationships, and digital aesthetics. The presenters will showcase and discuss a variety of contemporary animations produced by animator/composer teams and by individual artists creating both sound and visuals. Lillios, an electro acoustic composer, and Mitchell, an abstract animator, will also discuss concepts and techniques related to their own collaborative time-based experimental work.

Animation and music means so much more than adding a soundtrack to visuals. This panel, which brings together animators and composers, will explore the many facets of this extraordinary relationship from multiple points of view. Up for discussion are topics such as the many ways music can be created for animation, from traditional to experimental approaches, and the varied roles it can play within animated productions.

Erik will briefly discuss the practical and philosophical foundations of his practices in teaching creativity. Most of the presentation will be a demonstration requiring the entire audience’s participation in spontaneous experiential exercises of the type used to teach a class called “Creativity” at Grand Valley State University.