Animation Mentor (AnimationMentor.com), an online character animation school created by animators for animators, has unveiled its new winter term curriculum for January 2009, and has released a new version of its state-of-the-art online campus that allows students learn directly from professional animators from top studios including Disney Animation Studios, DreamWorks, Industrial Light & Magic, Pixar Animation Studios and Sony Pictures Imageworks.
The new curriculum incorporates feedback from students, ideas from mentors and input from industry professionals. While maintaining the core elements of the program, Animation Mentor has incorporated more training in developing body mechanics expertise. This new course content is designed to better teach students how to overcome the inherent challenges in animating body mechanics, avoid common mistakes and allow them to better apply advanced concepts and complex acting choices to their characters.
In addition, the school has added a polishing and portfolio class that will give expert guidance from mentors to help students select their best work, polish it to perfection and create a winning demo reel. The new portfolio class will involve learning the ins and outs of getting a job in the animation industry from professional recruiters and other industry experts.
The new curriculum will no longer offer the two short film classes offered in previous years. These courses will be offered as electives in 2009 to all Animation Mentor graduates upon completion of the new program.
Animation Mentor’s online campus leverages a hybrid of Web 2.0 and next generation technology to give students and mentors the most powerful tools available for remote learning. Within the virtual classroom, mentors are able to easily view and critique student work and host real-time Q&A sessions. Here, students also download lectures on demand by industry experts on all aspects of production, and interact with other students and mentors in the same way they would on popular social media sites such as Facebook. The new release of the online campus is designed to upgrade the functionality of the online campus and enables even faster uploads and downloads of digital content, and more intuitive navigation, documentation and reporting of student work.
Animation Mentor is participating in SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles, Calif. this week. Event attendees are invited to visit booth 1401. To learn more about Animation Mentor events at SIGGRAPH, go to www.AnimationMentor.com/siggraph.
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