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MillimeterDream Job: Art School 2.0
Jul 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Kristinha M. Anding
Animation Mentor prepares students for the real world of animation.
Michelle Meeker, a freelance animator and mentor with Animation Mentor, critiques a student assignment online using eCritique, a proprietary program that allows teachers to interact with students and comment directly on their work.
Bobby Beck believes that animation education should provide a personal experience. Having taught animation classes at bricks-and-mortar art schools, the professional animator — whose résumé includes stints at Tippett Studios, Disney, and Pixar — grew frustrated with the impossibility of providing individual attention and critique in classrooms filled with 30-plus students. And after viewing numerous demo reels of potential hires at Pixar, he also came to believe that traditional art schools were failing to prepare students for animation jobs. To meet the needs of those students wishing to specialize in character animation, Beck and fellow animators Carlos Baena and Shawn Kelly founded Animation Mentor, the world's first online accredited animation school.
Animation Mentor students, who range in age from 18 to 35 and hail from 57 countries, log into the site and watch video lectures featuring the school's accomplished professional mentors, download a character, and then complete the assignment du jour. Then students upload their work, and mentors give each pupil feedback using a proprietary tool called eCritique, which allows mentors to communicate through a video feed in one window while illustrating specific points directly on students' work in another. Finally, students meet 1 to 2 hours a week with their mentor in a live question-and-answer videoconference. All animation is created through Autodesk Maya.
“We try to give them 100 percent of the lecture, 100 percent feedback on their work, and 100 percent question-and-answer time so that they can follow up,” says Beck, who serves as CEO and president of the school. “When we were teaching in a traditional setting, we could only do one of those things really well.”
Beck and the Animation Mentor team built the site's platform, now in its third version, from scratch. He says they “employ everything,” using a Flash Media Server to stream videos online, Java, Adobe Cold Fusion, and ActionScript 3 to create mentor tools. Students are also able to enjoy a school community through online social networking with their peers as well as through student counseling and tutoring services.
Beck says he hopes to add shorter courses to complement the core 18-month animation program, now in its third year and boasting an enrollment of 700 to 800 students. “Our mission is to provide the most personal and fulfilling learning experience on the planet,” he says. “We are dedicated to that mission. And we truly feel that we are making it personal.”
Visit www.animationmentor.com for more information.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.