During a time when students cannot go to school, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and recent events have further highlighted the dramatic inequity and racial injustice of our system, the LA Promise Fund’s ArtsMatter program is connecting young black and brown students with entertainment executives and providing them robust media arts curriculum.
The LA Promise Fund and Paramount Pictures are giving 200 elementary and middle school students from L.A. County first-hand exposure to the entertainment industry, the field of animation and SpongeBob SquarePants!
A virtual learning program has been developed to teach the animation process, while also incorporating timely social emotional learning and writing skills. Members of the Paramount Animation team have created video tutorials explicitly for these students and this program. Videos address a diverse set of topics including character design, voice casting, and cinematography.
As the culmination of this learning program, students will be conducting virtual “pitch meetings” in which they present their original concepts for new animated characters and stories to executives and creatives from Paramount Animation.
Students will all be rewarded with a screening of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (watch the trailer here), and select students will have the chance to take their creations to the next level by translating their work into three-dimensional renderings using the professional program, ZBrush Core. Free subscriptions for students have been provided by Pixologic.
The program will feature Paramount Pictures’ President of Animation Mireille Soria and Senior VP of Animation Katherine MacDonald.
The student presentations will be held Wednesday morning, June 10 via Zoom.
