Education in Motion: The Evolution of Animation Education

The soul of animation cannot be taught. It is a mix of passion and talent, of kinetic knowledge, unshackled imagination and a profound understanding of human emotion. Of course, these are but the raw components of the craft, and without education and experience, artists may never reach their full potential.

Prior to the 1960s, animation was more of an underground education. It relied on mentors, rather than structured academia. Vintage masters such as Chuck Jones and Ollie Johnson took traditional educations in the arts and married them with firsthand experience in the ever-evolving world of animation. Others, like Tex Avery and Bob Clampett, learned much of their craft through a master/apprentice relationship with existing animators at their various studios.

When the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) was founded in 1961, with the vision and assistance of Walt Disney himself, animation education changed. It became more formalized with a greater attention to cross-pollination of the arts. Walt saw the school as a "CalTech of the Arts," where professional artists could train a new generation of creative minds. Ironically, while Walt's vision prized the gathering of a great deal of creative minds in one place, he never really wanted it to grow massive or impersonal. He envisioned a student body that "shouldn't be over 2,000," preventing it from becoming too unwieldy. "If a school gets too large, you lose an intimacy with the students," explained Disney, "they begin to feel they're just part of a big complex. I don't think you can create too well in a big plant. That's why I always tried to avoid bigness in the studio."

Animation director Seth Kearsley (The Goode Family, Eight Crazy Nights) graduated CalArts in the mid-90s. "I actually go to a Sunday life drawing workshop there that was started while I was attending CalArts so I can say with honesty that little has changed at the school from the day it was opened in terms of how the art of animation is taught. There may be more technology than when I was there, but it's still pencils on paper." Kearsley openly admits the importance of personal experience over lecture-based education. "The first two years out of school were more valuable than 10 years would have been at school," says Kearsley. "CalArts gave me the tools to get the jobs, but the jobs were the real education."

Even with notoriously high standards of artistic education, many well-known CalArts graduates were guided by mentors. The illustrious Brad Bird, a graduate of CalArts, worked closely with Milt Kahl, one of the infamous Nine Old Men of Disney Studios. In this way, the master would pass on the intricacies of the medium to his apprentice. Fellow animation legend Eric Larson ran a recruitment/training program at Disney in the '70s, leaving his personal mark on Don Bluth, Tim Burton, Glen Keane, Tad Stones and many others. When watching films like aRatatouille, it is not difficult to sense this apostolic succession.

With the success of CalArts, more and more schools began offering dedicated courses in animation. Founded in 1967, Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada, is well known for its history of traditional animation classes. Ringling College of Arts and Design in Sarasota, Florida, began teaching courses in computer animation, too, featuring Pixar animators as notable teachers.

The 1990s saw computers saw rise as a much more essential tool in not only animation education, but also the medium itself. As programs like Maya and Flash became key tools for modern animators, schools which lacked concentrated animation departments began offering studies in these electronic mediums. One such school was the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California, which opened its 'Digital Media' program in 1996. In a world once begotten entirely of pencil and papers, computers were forming vital cogs in the wheels of progress. 3D animation, once the experimental dalliances of such greats as Steve Jobs and John Lasseter, was becoming a core component of the industry. Of course, while the tools may change, the spirit of the trade does not. As Steve Ahn, storyboard artist at Fox TV animation, points out, "there was surely a lot of transition in the ways of approaching to make an animation, but I should say the animation's own core theory and method hasn't changed a bit. 3D, Flash, or even Sand animation, or Puppet, they all look different in outcome by what tool you choose to create, but you still need to apply your basic animation knowledge and theory to it."

In the year 2000, something interesting happened; The academic path of animation education took an unexpected turn back into familiar territory. Increasingly impersonal classroom lectures gave way to a rebirth of the concept of mentoring. The use of computers as a way of reaching out and connecting with talented members of the industry from across the world. This new vision of mentorship allowed for previously unheard of flexibility in education. In 2005, Animation Mentor School, the global online animation school, launched with five instructors and 350 students. Today, mentors from Animation Mentor are tutoring students in over 50 countries, with approximately one mentor to every 14 students. Using a proprietary software such as eCritique, mentors can correct individual frames of a student's work from anywhere in the world.

As the needs of our industry change, so do our methods of instruction. Although the tools may evolve, one thing remains constant – the passing of the Promethean flame of knowledge from one generation to the next. Be it the Nine Old Men critiquing the early works of Brad Bird and Andreas Deja in the early 1980s, or Sony Imageworks' Chad Sellers analyzing the works of an Animation Mentor student three states away next Friday, the heart of our education comes from personal interaction.

Mark Stuart is a video game designer, freelance animation writer, and all-around cartoon connoisseur.