Are you serious about becoming an animator? Have you been thinking about joining Animation Mentor? What are you waiting for? Now is the perfect time! Sign up for Winter Term today to lock in the current low tuition rate as it will increase starting January 1, 2007. All you have to do is apply and pay a $500 deposit by October 25, 2006 to secure the current low rate for the entire 18-month program! This promotion is only applicable for Winter Term 2007 which starts January 8, 2007. Sign up today and save!

For more information on 2007 Tuition and Fees, please see our CATALOG.

Check the new video about what mentors and students have to say about Animation Mentor!

The Animation Mentor Student Showcase premiered at Comic-Con 2006 with an amazing response from fans, onlookers and studio representatives. The best thing about the Animation Mentor Student Showcase is that it shows work that has been done 100% by our students, some of which came to the school with no prior animation experience!

Animation Mentor student Matthew Garward recently received and accepted a job offer at Industrial Light & Magic. We at Animation Mentor are very proud of him and wanted to ask him a few questions about the interview process, his reaction when he was accepted and tips he has for other students about the interview process. Also, some of the animators at Industrial Light & Magic discuss what Matthew can expect on his first day of work.

Animation Mentor:
What inspired you to learn animation?

Balqis Al-Ateeqi:
It makes me happy! It's fun and it's entertaining and imaginative and creative. I've always loved art in general, but all the drawing and painting I ever did felt static and isolated. Animation on the other hand is an art form that is meant to be shared and enjoyed with others. Besides, what other art form incorporates speech, drawings, puppets, images, color, music, story, song and plot combined?! I guess you can say what inspired me to learn animation is the genuine appreciation and love for it that I've always had. It has always moved and entertained me and I guess I want to move and entertain people while satisfying my creative urges as well :)

Guido Muzzarelli: My favorite character I animated is Templeton the Rat, because he is a sassy character voiced by Steve Buschemi. There's a character in a current show I'm working on that also has sass.

View an excerpt from a forum thread at Animation Mentor. Students have the ability to ask a featured mentor about their own animation career or any other animation related questions. It is one of the many features offered exclusively to AnimationMentor.com students.

There is nothing that will add more life to your scene than contrast. Contrast makes a scene fun. It gives it interest. It imbues it with a sense of immediacy and power. Contrast draws an audience into your scene and locks their attention. Without contrast, the world is flat. It's boring. Robotic. A scene without contrast is like being forced to listen to a monotone voice over and over, while a scene that has been carefully constructed to make use of contrast opportunities will pop from the screen.

This month's book showcase is "Folk Pop" by Martin Hsu. Martin is currently a character designer for Nickelodeon Animation Studios. The book is a collection of sketches and illustrations he has done over the past year.

Did you know that Sony Pictures Animation, which is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, was created in 2002 to produce computer-animated films. Their first feature-length film, "Open Season", opens this month and they are already working on their next film, "Surf's Up."

The Animation Mentor Report is your inside guide to US movie releases and the visual effect companies who made movie magic.