A candid and pertinent question indeed. Thank you David. Yes. Even though not everything at AM worked exactly in the way that I had anticipated, my expectations of the program were exceeded in almost every regard, including value for money. Having a great mentor for the first class definitely played a significant role in my positive experience, as did my ability to put as much time into the assignments as I felt necessary: Personally, I don’t think that I could get as much out of the program as I am if I had to hold down a full-time job at the same time. But there are many students who do just that who that are doing fantastically well—far better than I could under those circumstances.

The quality of the training is very good indeed. Perhaps most importantly is how diverse the sources of information are. To name a few: weekly video lectures with Bobby, Shawn and Carlos (that include brilliant little cuts to many other pro animators who touch on that week’s subject), video citiques from your own mentor, access to hudreds of other mentor critiques, interviews with professional animators, Q and A sessions with some of the animation talent behind Madagascar and Epsiode III. Plus, you have very useful feedback from the other students. That’s a lot! It would have been very easy for Bobby, Shawn and Carlos, to just stick their own lectures on a series of DVD’s, flog them on the internet for $120 each, make a forum for people to chat on and call it a day. Instead they really went all out to make this as comprehensive a program as possible, and I think it’s largely due to this diversity in content and sources that makes AM as great a learning experience as it is.

Is it working? Have I gotten any better at animation? I believe that I have. Do I think if I spent that much time animating the same exercises without the rest of the AM program and training, I would have improved to the same degree? No. Absolutely not.

But I don’t want to leave anyone with the wrong idea: Like a big digestive system, you only get out of it what you put in. So if you think that all you have to do is sign up, watch a couple of video lectures, and wait to become a decent animator, you may be in for a disappointment. It’s hard ferkin’ work for sure, and can be deeply frustrating (every AM student I have communicated with has admitted to experiencing this in one way or another).

Personally, I’m signing up for some more of it. If you are a prospective student and have a specific question, feel free to drop a comment in here. Otherwise, see you in a week for Class 02.