Introducing Frame by Frame
Or, “What I learned in class today…”
I always have trouble with the firsts. The first page of every sketchbook is always blank. I wait until I’m well into a new film to tackle the first shot. The first post on a new project is the hardest to write. I was thinking of giving a lot of extensive background on how this publication came to be but… in order to just get this post out there and move on to the actual good stuff, I’ll just give you the TLDR.
A lot of people teach animation now. You can take animation classes from kindergarten to your grave, thanks to the ubiquitousness of digital photography and a whole lot of enthusiastic animators wanting to share their love of this magical medium.
Because so many animators are diving into teaching as a way to pay the bills, and make the world a better place, a lot of us are boot-strapping our way through learning how to actually teach the stuff we’ve picked up intuitively in our artistic training. We teach the way were taught, run into problems because our students are different than we were when we were students, and then start the arduous work of discovering our own teaching style and methods that work for our particular situation.
So here’s my idea: instead of this generational reinventing of wheels, let’s collect all those minor epiphanies along the way and share them with each other. Take ’em, or leave ’em. Everyone’s batch of students is going to need something different, but particularly for those just starting down the academic pathway, establishing some best practices for animation pedagogy, will grow up some of those budding animators not only into better artists, but eventually better teachers themselves (when their time comes).
So, pedagogues, what did you learn in class today?
