Hi Nathan, senior animation student here from CCA.

 

I honestly don't see 2D coming back to the mainstream. You can totally go at it from an "indie" angle like Chomet, Plympton, etc. but really, don't see Pixar for example making a 2D film any time soon.

 

For 3D, right now, Ringling is probably the best. For 2D, Calarts is still king. You do have other great schools like Sheridan and SVA around the country and more popping up as animation gets more popular.

 

You don't have to be good at drawing to be good at animation, unless you're doing 2D, even then doesn't really matter as long as you understand your poses, where your weight is, and have a reason for that drawing to exist. Of course, it helps if you're a mini Glenn Keane, but really...doesn't matter, especially if you're in 3D.

 

As for CCA, it's a great school that gives great scholarships- much more than Calarts, Ringling, SVA, SCAD, and many other schools will give you- if you qualify, you can even get a full ride and study under pixar/disney animators, board artists, people who've sculpted at ILM, worked animatronics with Disney, and we even had Mark Andrews teaching here for the longest time. Right now, he's not teaching, but another former pixar story artist is.

 

So I would definitely consider CCAC, especially if you get some scholarships to come here. If you're going to be paying the same though, and it's between Calarts, CCA, or Ringling- I'd personally do Calarts. If you're dead set on 3D Ringling's the better choice. I will say though, the program at CCA is growing quickly and the talent is as well (really stoked to see how it'll be in just five years), every incoming class I've seen comes in with an even stronger beginning skill set.

 

Any questions- shoot.

This post was edited by Michael Barquero at December 1, 2012 12:23:25 AM PST

Jon Paramel said:

How are the class sizes? Big? Small? Just curious, what's your "focus" anyway?

Class size range. Animation I and other classes like that can get pretty big (tops at 16 I believe). Then, there are classes like Visual Storytelling and Game Design that stop at 8. That of course fluctuates since not all classes get filled up (so you can have a clas of about 5 people) on the flip side of that, sometimes a teacher will write an "override" slip and let more people into the class that's "allowed" but it's usually just one or two people more, sometimes three. Overall though, pretty small classes.

 

My "focus"? Storyboarding. Remember, though, there really aren't any tracks or guidelines, you pretty much have to make your own. Which really means, putting more time in storyboarding, giving yourself assignments, looking for help online, etc. Especially given the fact there's only one class in the school that deals with visual storytelling, and a bunch more with "animation", but such is life; gotta make the best of what you have.

 

Good Luck on applications guys! 

Jon Paramel said:
Thanks a lot for the great insight Michael! Right now I have CCA and SJSU on the same spot for backup. A question: What kind of animation does CCA focus on? I really wanna do character

Anything you want man.

 

Since the program is so new, we don't have a "thing". We're not the best for 3D like Ringling, we're not the "best" for character animation like Calarts is, we're just an animation school; do whatever you want. It really is that loose.

 

We got people that really are into modeling, some that even want to go into VFX, we got a number of people (including myself) that are more into storyboarding, some even want to specialize on character design and previs work.

 

CCA doesn't really expect anything out of you and their requirements for graduation aren't many; take your humanities, two 3D classes, storyboarding, character design, junior seminar, two senior theseis classes, and have something done for the Animation Show which is this school wide event where they show some junior work and all senior work; that's pretty much it.

 

So if you're into character animation, great man. We got the guy who animated Triton from The Little Mermaid; you're in good hands. Just ask him any questions you have, e-mail him with any concerns and let him know you're really interested in character animation. 

 

If you're into storyboarding, Mark Andrews man! Samurai Jack? The Incredibles? Toy Story 3? Spiderman?! yeah man, ask him questions like there's no tomorrow while in class and you'll get all the knowledge you need.

 

Modeling? Ask the Gaming Design teacher everything you want to know. 

 

My point is, whatever you want to do, even if it's more experimental stuff; we got a teacher who makes a living doing it.

 

Yeah, it kind of sucks that there's no core structure and that no one really cares about you or your work, but hey, that's life. Overall, it's a pretty good school especially if it means graduating with half (sometimes even 1/3 or 1/4 even 1/0) the debt than had you gone to Calarts or Ringling.

 

As for AAU, as much flack as it gets from random people on the internets, I agree; lots of talent coming out of there. In fact, many of our Animation teachers (from Pixar) have graduated from there. I do have a feeling though, those people would have been good going to any school. To be completely honest, I think that's true for any school: you get out what you put in.

cca junior here, if you're looking for affordable schools, definitely send a portfolio out to cca. They gave out the best scholarship from all the schools I applied to (~11). 

 

We probably don't have the best facilities but we got some mighty fine professors. Most of them are from Pixar, (our visual storytelling prof is Mark Andrews), we also got guys from Tippett, EA, old school Disney, people who've worked on stuff like Celebrity Death Match, The PJs, Robot Chicken and more.

 

So if you want knowledge, you'll get it here. You're going to have to be pretty self-motivated though cause no one will be keeping tabs with you. Except maybe your Junior Review which is made up of a panel of industry pros (Dreamworks, Pixar, Tippet, etc) who will look at your work and critique everything you've done since the beginning of time and talk to you about your future, etc. (I've heard it's pretty nervewrecking).

 

As for Gen Ed. classes, any accredited school you attend will require those classes. Which is why I would recommend going to community college first, get your maths, literature, philosophy, psychology, et cetera out of the way for a fraction of the price and then go to art school. Keep practicing your art, take some gesture classes while in CC, maybe some painting, drawing and shoot, you might have a better chance to get a really good scholarship to any art school you apply to in about two years (they go by quick! don't fret!)

 

Then when you get to art school you can take all the awesome classes you want (like glassblowing!). Talk to advisors from whatever schools you're interested in to check out what classes will transfer though. Don't want to take a class for nothin'.

 

You could also do what some (really very awesomely talented) people have done in the past and push as many as those gen ed. classes as you can out of the way, take your animation classes and get hired to a studio before you graduate and screw Ethics 101. I wouldn't recommend that though.

 

Or just apply out of highschool, I've seen some freshman work that have come out of highschool and they're pretty awesome.

 

If you guys really want all Pixar teachers, there's always the Animation Collaborative right in front of the Pixar (which beats CCA in terms of distance by nine minutes!). 

 

Oh! and CCA does have dorms, we also don't have a food plan so if you just want to live off ramen and save money, then go for it! wouldn't recommend it!

 

Looked into the school a few years back and seemed pretty awesome. Their admissions department is super nice and they seem to have solid foundations program (most schools in the middle of the USA do). Also, this guy went there: http://www.andrewchesworth.com/ So, they're doing something right?