Podcast: Jason Ryan
Jason has become a well-known animation supervisor and teacher. We talked about how he learned animation, his transition from 2D to 3D, and his philosophies on animation education.
Podcast: How to Train Your Dragon
We talked with Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, two insanely talented writers/directors, about their film How to Train Your Dragon. We discuss story structure, character design, animation, cinematography, and much, much more!
Podcast: Ted Ty Talk Back
After a long delay, we are very proud to bring you the Ted Ty Talk Back! Ted sat down with us to answer YOUR questions about animation.
Podcast: Waking Sleeping Beauty
We talk about the Disney Renaissance with the people who lived it, and about their documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty.
Podcast: Avatar with Richard Baneham!
We are excited to bring you our "Avatar" podcast with Richard Baneham! Richard sat down with us to discuss his role as Animation Director on the film and to answer all of our questions about the animation process on "Avatar."
Site Maintenance
Aug 14th
Hi everyone, I just wanted to give you a heads up that I’ll be doing some maintenance on the site this weekend. If you come by and its looking funky, that’s why.
Thanks,
-Stephen
iAnimate.net :: The Character Animation School
Aug 9th
There’s a new animation school on the block!
iAnimate.net is a brand new online animation school designed for students at any level of experience and ability. The school is founded by DigiCel – creators of the animation software Flipbook – and is lead by famed animator and teacher Jason Ryan. There are many animation schools both institutionally and online, but iAnimate.net wants to bring something new to animation education. There are great features that everyone involved is very excited about, including us at Speaking of Animation. All four of us will be instructors at the school (some immediately and some later on). And a few of our previous podcast guests will be teaching as well!
The Basics:
- The full course load is six flexible 14-week semesters.
- All classes are taught by professional animators currently working in feature animation.
- Weekly live/recorded workflow lectures with Jason Ryan and other instructors.
- Weekly live lectures/Q&A with instructors.
- Weekly live critiques with instructors.
- Community forums where students can post work for peer/instructor feedback and discussion.
- Free and exclusive iAnimate.net rigged characters
- Free Jason Ryan Animation Webinars and Turorials
- Free Digicel Flipbook software
- Student Discount price for Autodesk Maya
How iAnimate.net is unique:
- Small class sizes.
The more one-on-one time you can spend with the instructor the better. That’s why class sizes will be restricted to 10-12 students. This also means enrollment will be capped when it reaches capacity. - LIVE instructor critiques by professional feature animators.
Where some schools provide prerecorded feedback from the instructor, all assignment critiques will be LIVE sessions. Students will interact with the instructor and ask questions, clarify notes, and discuss options, thus creating an environment similar to ‘dailies.’ These live sessions are also recorded. - Opt out of beginning semesters.
Jason Ryan personally reviews the demo reel of any applicant that wishes to skip ahead. He provides a realistic and honest assessment of the student’s ability and places them accordingly. - Less expensive.
iAnimate.net wants students to be able to afford to learn animation. Check out their site for tuition information and multiple payment options. - Course structure designed by Jason Ryan.
Jason has been teaching animation for over 17 years and knows how to create assignments that are both educational and challenging for students while pushing them to deliver their best work. - No Grades.
Many students focus too much on getting a particular grade rather than on improving their skills, and at iAnimate that distraction has been removed. This also makes it more like working in a studio since you get feedback on improving rather than a letter grade. - No minimum age requirement.
If you want to learn animation, you want to learn animation. You don’t need to reach a certain age to start improving your animation eye. - Group work.
The final semester is designed to simulate working in a production environment on a team of animators. With the guidance of the instructor, students will work together to create an animated short.
We are very excited to be a part of this new school and look forward to seeing it grow. Jason is incredibly passionate about teaching animation, so it is really wonderful to see this school come to life. We are honored Jason asked us to be involved and can’t wait for first semester to start! It’s going to be a blast and we know students are going to produce some really inspiring work. It will be an amazing experience for instructors and students alike, so we hope to see you there!
‘Plastic Animation Paper’ is now FREE!
Jul 26th
The 2D-animation software Plastic Animation Paper is now available online for FREE from the developers. They are no longer offering support, and it appears to be Windows only, but if that works for you then there are plenty of tutorial videos on the site to get you started.
Go experiment with it.
You can read the brief post about this decision and the future of the software, and download PAP Pro 4.0 for free at http://www.plasticanimationpaper.dk/
(thanks to Sandro for the heads up)
Something Left, Something Taken
Jul 26th
I really enjoyed this short and wanted to pass it along. The style is incredibly fun, and there’s even a behind the scenes blog! It’s really cool to see how they actually made this.
Something Left, Something Taken- Full Version from Tiny Inventions on Vimeo.
Megamind trailer
Jul 23rd
A four-minute trailer for Megamind has been released in tandem with its presentation at Comic-Con 2010!
