Institute vs. College?
Katie
This coming fall, I'll be entering my junior year in highschool. I'm
thinking rather strongly about studying animation. As I gather more
and more college information, I'm leaning further towards going to an
Art Institute (which one, as of yet, is very undecided). My parents,
on the other hand, are convinced that employers frown upon them, and
highly recommend that I go to a four-year liberal arts school to
study. Can anyone please tell me some possible pros and cons about
going to either? Or, if you're studying animation at either,
possibly describe your experience at your school of choice? :)
Many thanks in advance!
-Katie
Maritza Cardernas
study at a four year liberal arts college or art institute, but this is
my experience. If anybody has a differing opinion, please feel free to
comment.
Liberal Arts college-depends on what type of art you are studying or the
school offers. If you study at a liberal arts college that has only FINE
ART as its major goal of study,( a school not offering Illustration at
all) then I wouldn't suggest going there.The school I studied at(Florida
Internatonal University) offered a Fine Arts Program. I took the basic 2d
design course and both basic and figure drawing classes. From there on I
had to take sculpture and other Fine Arts related courses. When it came
down to learning "brass tacks" drawing skills,I taught myself. These
colleges(FIU in my case) did not place emphasis on your drawing or
technical skills. They just wanted to see if you could create what they
call Fine Art without the placing much emphasis on a solid drawing
foundation.Also, I felt that my teachers were predjudiced towards
animation. One teacher said that how could anyone spend time doing the
same thing over and over(i.e. redrawing the animted character.) Another
teacher said that reason she did not like Animation( I think she met
Character Animation,not experimental) was that after the Lead Animtor did
all the beautiful gestures and line, someone came behind him and cleaned
it up. In other words, you could not see the tracks that the artist had
left behind.One teacher even told me that being an animator would hinder
my growth as an artist.
Art Institutes- I had a friend enroll in Ft.Lauderdale Institute of Art.,
studying in their Computer Animation track. I decided to seek them out.
Unlike FIU,I thought that this school would place emphasis on drawing
skills since Computer Animation had a solid basis in hand drawn animtion.
I also felt that since this was a Commercial Art school, that I would get
the necessary tools to enter a career in Animation. I was wrong. After I
looked at the school's syllabus, I noticed that the school only offered
one class in basic drawing,one in figure drawing,one in cartooning and
one basic animation technique. The rest of the courses pertained to
Computer Animation. Moreover,how to use computer animtion programs.the
admissions counselor took me around the campus and showed the me the
"cream of the crop" of student work. I was not impressed with what they
were doing. I asked the counselor if their were any student figure
drawings and she said no. She said that they did not emphasize drawing
that much since they were teaching Computer Animation.
I met one Florida Disney artist at my schools Career Day that said
something that stuck with me. (Please dont ask me who he is because I
only remember his English accent.) A Fine Arts teacher of mine asked him
that when you applied to Disney, weren't they interested to see that you
had a personal statement to say? The Disney animator looked at her, and
with some angst in his voice said that from his experience , nobody cares
what you have to say if you don't have the right tools to say it with. I
believe that you have to attend a school that can give you these tools
and also, show you how to use them.
What I suggest is looking up Disney's,PDI's,Pixar's ,Warner Brothers and
Fox's suggested colleges. If the big studios say they recruit from these
schools, then there is a good chance that the named schools are teaching
the required Animation courses.
Good choices abound!
mosh...@my-deja.com
Art schools in my opinion are a bit overrated, particularly for someone
interested in animation. If you are more into painting, fine art
drawing, and other abstract stuff I would probably recommend the art
school route, but Disney and other studios don't like to see stuff like
this. Also, drawing isn't really a science like math where you learn
tons of equations; it's a thing that you only get good at after tons
and tons of practice. And this is something you can do without
attending an art school. Also if you are unsure if you want to go into
a career in animation or art, you might be sort of closing off
different avenues. On the other hand the nice part about an art school
is that everyone there is very motivated and you'll have your time to
focus exclusively on art and not liberal art things which would be the
case at a non art school. I went to a liberal arts school and I found
that most of the other students weren't that motivated which sort of
rubbed off on me a bit even though I tried to avoid this laziness and
negative energy.
I have heard a lot of good things about cal arts so if you can get in
there I would recommend that. But if I were you I would consider a
liberal arts school which has a good art program. Check it out. Talk
to the teachers and students. See what type of art work is hanging
up. See if there's good facilities and make sure there's an adequate
number of students in the program. Make sure they offer a number of
figure drawing classes. A lot of the times art instructors at liberal
arts schools are just as good if not better than art instructors at art
schools. The really "great" teachers at art schools tend to speak a
lot of b.s. and get really abstract and hurt you more than help you.
Ultimately when you get into school it will come down to you practicing
on your own, attending figure drawing classes, going to open figure
drawing sessions, going to the zoo to draw animals, studying anatomy,
studying art work from other artists, etc., etc.
I realize I just rambled off a lot. If you have any questions feel
free to write back.
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