codeblack
November 20th, 2008, 04:43 AM
Hi peeps, I came across few posts on ucla's animation programs and few solid answers (much hearsay and mistaken assumptions). So I'm throwing my 2 cents in the ring and hopefuly dispell myths about ucla.
First, I will say Ucla's animation program is not for everyone, and the strange lack of third party information on the program on the net says something about program quality I think. The program emphasizes that you make whatever you want, however you want - scratching on film, puddles of ink, sand, dirt, clay, puppet, computer stick figure, screws and sawdust. If can you animate it - and even if you cant, you can make it there. The program is more heavily experimental that character oriented, and there is definitely anti-industry bias. While it the majority of the students there are more interested in character animation, I find that lack of any serious animation, design, layout or character design courses puts serious disadvantage on them. If you want serious fundamental skills you had better come in with them equipped. There is one decent fundamental course and it is optional. Vilppu's figure drawing class is, but it iis offered only 2 out of 3 quarters of year, and because of very basic level of students the class repeats the same basic content each year. Most students get frustrated with class and drop out in short order.
The portfolio reqs for the program are not very strict and so many students lack very basic fundamental drawing and composition skills. When you have to spend entire class on basic composition and perspective, there does not leave much time for more pertinent class informatoin. This affects student films and results in end-of-year shows where reps from the industry usually walk out in disgust half-way thru. Across town, the same happens to USC department screenings so maybe it is not unusual. Screenings really just end up as masterbation-fests.
Ucla is not a 3d school but then it is not 2d school either. It is a film program and what you learn is how animated films - usually the experimental or outsourced overseas variety - are made. The program strong emphasizes learning traditional skills before computer skills, but then fail to provide training in the traditional area so students are stuck up a creek without a paddle.
It is small wonder then that most of this successful alumni become instructors or professors in the field of animation. With exception of a few students decades ago, ucla's program has not put any alumni into animation in any top industry companies such as ILM, Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, PDI, Blue Sky, Blizzard or Blur but the instructors like to highlight the ones who have become independent directors. Links to the industry are at large are nearly non-existent. Job prospects go from Curious George to Nickelodean. Half the students just drop off face of the earth before ever finishing their degrees, vanishing with no a word. Or they are forced to pick up a menial job because they can no longer afford to put in much cash with so little return. The rest trudge forward taking 4,5, 6, 8+ years to graduate with no good degree. I am lucky I finish in 4.
If you have taken a real animation course, ucla ones are a joke. And computer classes - even crueler joke. You will learn more from a book and few dvd's than the class would teach in a year. The Film/TV dean even tried turning the department into only a video game program, and interdeparment politics are constantly mess. The facilities are minimal and strained because there is so little for going around. Compared to USC or other departments at ucla it is pathetic. The main reason is that ucla chairs of the program do not believe in soliciting donations to outside companies or industries. So there is no $$ for new equipment, and the poor maintained ones just get older and crappier. Most students rather use their home computers. The serious students spend most of time taking courses outside of the department at , the Animation Guild, and other ateliers in area.
They say a program should be judged by it's student work as well we the faculty. See ucla's website and student work to give you better idea of why industry often does not bother showing up to the end-of-year screenings. UCLA is a great place if you like to explore yourself and become next scratch-on-film-but-blind-from-toxic-chems indie film maker, join the crowds pushing to work for Canada's National Film Board, or maybe become a film producer/curator/production manager. But if you want serious chance as an animator at a studio in the vfx and animation industry, UCLA is definitely not where it is. But UCLA is good for peeps already very strong and solid in fundamental and core skills who just want to spend time making their own films, but then why bother paying a school for that? The classes would have nilch to offer you, and in the end you would feel dragged down by quality of the work around you. Combine rising cost of the UC system and extra professional fees the school collects, you can get a far better education from any small trade schools in area. Ucla's program might have give its students a chance 20 years ago, but in today's competitive industry students in program may be shooting themselves in the foot.
pros:
1. You can make whatever drivel you want
2. Access to ucla's excellent live action program (but you will be low priority on the waiting lists)
3. Optional Figure drawing courses by Vilppu (same basic course repeated once every year. Advanced classes are only available at the guild)
4. Required critical studies seminar courses - You will learn to think and write even if you donot learn to draw or animate
5. Good general overview of the animated film making process, you will not become very good at any one area but you will have an idea of how all areas work in theory.
6. Small program, few students
7. Access to ucla's other programs and classes in the humanities, sciences, liberal arts, etc
8. Campus and social life can be great. Beer night anyone?
9. Near the center of the entertainment industry
10. Nearby to other better sources of education such as , Otis, Animation Guild, LAAFA, ateliers
cons:
1. You can make whatever drivel you want
2. No traditional, fundamental training in basics as composition, color, etc
3. It is a animation program without the animation (animation classes are cruel joke, character/fx animation non-existent, character design courses lack, etc)
4. Many required courses - critical studies seminars & adobe flash classes that are just a waste of time if you would rather learn animation, drawing and design
5. No worth while in-depth classes in any one area. Pay $150+ at animation guild and get better education in 3 hours than in a quarter at ucla
6. Grad school is for networking ! Great to hand your no-paddle canoe to the next student stuck up the creek. Few alumni graduate & fewer ever make it into industry, and the faculty connections are very lacking.
7. Equipment old and poorly maintained. Department prides itself soliciting no donation or equipment from industry.
8. The program is not well known and overshadowed by live action Film/TV program. Animation is not worth a mention even in the school's own monthly pub.
9. The computer classes a joke. The 3D classes - shoot me plz.
10. You might waste the years of your life digging deeper into debt struggling to get degree, as many alumni here have. Save time and money and spend 4 years getting real bachelor's at a real art or animation school.
Please attend UCLA's programs if you want to produce student work like:
http://www.art.ucla.edu/gallery/2007-08/UG-Scholarship07.html
http://www.art.ucla.edu/gallery/2007-08/UG-Juried08.html
http://design.ucla.edu/gallery/undergrad_gallery.php
http://www.art.ucla.edu/gallery/2007-08/mfa_1.html
http://www.art.ucla.edu/gallery/2007-08/gradstudios_spg08.html
http://animation.filmtv.ucla.edu/students/
First, I will say Ucla's animation program is not for everyone, and the strange lack of third party information on the program on the net says something about program quality I think. The program emphasizes that you make whatever you want, however you want - scratching on film, puddles of ink, sand, dirt, clay, puppet, computer stick figure, screws and sawdust. If can you animate it - and even if you cant, you can make it there. The program is more heavily experimental that character oriented, and there is definitely anti-industry bias. While it the majority of the students there are more interested in character animation, I find that lack of any serious animation, design, layout or character design courses puts serious disadvantage on them. If you want serious fundamental skills you had better come in with them equipped. There is one decent fundamental course and it is optional. Vilppu's figure drawing class is, but it iis offered only 2 out of 3 quarters of year, and because of very basic level of students the class repeats the same basic content each year. Most students get frustrated with class and drop out in short order.
The portfolio reqs for the program are not very strict and so many students lack very basic fundamental drawing and composition skills. When you have to spend entire class on basic composition and perspective, there does not leave much time for more pertinent class informatoin. This affects student films and results in end-of-year shows where reps from the industry usually walk out in disgust half-way thru. Across town, the same happens to USC department screenings so maybe it is not unusual. Screenings really just end up as masterbation-fests.
Ucla is not a 3d school but then it is not 2d school either. It is a film program and what you learn is how animated films - usually the experimental or outsourced overseas variety - are made. The program strong emphasizes learning traditional skills before computer skills, but then fail to provide training in the traditional area so students are stuck up a creek without a paddle.
It is small wonder then that most of this successful alumni become instructors or professors in the field of animation. With exception of a few students decades ago, ucla's program has not put any alumni into animation in any top industry companies such as ILM, Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, PDI, Blue Sky, Blizzard or Blur but the instructors like to highlight the ones who have become independent directors. Links to the industry are at large are nearly non-existent. Job prospects go from Curious George to Nickelodean. Half the students just drop off face of the earth before ever finishing their degrees, vanishing with no a word. Or they are forced to pick up a menial job because they can no longer afford to put in much cash with so little return. The rest trudge forward taking 4,5, 6, 8+ years to graduate with no good degree. I am lucky I finish in 4.
If you have taken a real animation course, ucla ones are a joke. And computer classes - even crueler joke. You will learn more from a book and few dvd's than the class would teach in a year. The Film/TV dean even tried turning the department into only a video game program, and interdeparment politics are constantly mess. The facilities are minimal and strained because there is so little for going around. Compared to USC or other departments at ucla it is pathetic. The main reason is that ucla chairs of the program do not believe in soliciting donations to outside companies or industries. So there is no $$ for new equipment, and the poor maintained ones just get older and crappier. Most students rather use their home computers. The serious students spend most of time taking courses outside of the department at , the Animation Guild, and other ateliers in area.
They say a program should be judged by it's student work as well we the faculty. See ucla's website and student work to give you better idea of why industry often does not bother showing up to the end-of-year screenings. UCLA is a great place if you like to explore yourself and become next scratch-on-film-but-blind-from-toxic-chems indie film maker, join the crowds pushing to work for Canada's National Film Board, or maybe become a film producer/curator/production manager. But if you want serious chance as an animator at a studio in the vfx and animation industry, UCLA is definitely not where it is. But UCLA is good for peeps already very strong and solid in fundamental and core skills who just want to spend time making their own films, but then why bother paying a school for that? The classes would have nilch to offer you, and in the end you would feel dragged down by quality of the work around you. Combine rising cost of the UC system and extra professional fees the school collects, you can get a far better education from any small trade schools in area. Ucla's program might have give its students a chance 20 years ago, but in today's competitive industry students in program may be shooting themselves in the foot.
pros:
1. You can make whatever drivel you want
2. Access to ucla's excellent live action program (but you will be low priority on the waiting lists)
3. Optional Figure drawing courses by Vilppu (same basic course repeated once every year. Advanced classes are only available at the guild)
4. Required critical studies seminar courses - You will learn to think and write even if you donot learn to draw or animate
5. Good general overview of the animated film making process, you will not become very good at any one area but you will have an idea of how all areas work in theory.
6. Small program, few students
7. Access to ucla's other programs and classes in the humanities, sciences, liberal arts, etc
8. Campus and social life can be great. Beer night anyone?
9. Near the center of the entertainment industry
10. Nearby to other better sources of education such as , Otis, Animation Guild, LAAFA, ateliers
cons:
1. You can make whatever drivel you want
2. No traditional, fundamental training in basics as composition, color, etc
3. It is a animation program without the animation (animation classes are cruel joke, character/fx animation non-existent, character design courses lack, etc)
4. Many required courses - critical studies seminars & adobe flash classes that are just a waste of time if you would rather learn animation, drawing and design
5. No worth while in-depth classes in any one area. Pay $150+ at animation guild and get better education in 3 hours than in a quarter at ucla
6. Grad school is for networking ! Great to hand your no-paddle canoe to the next student stuck up the creek. Few alumni graduate & fewer ever make it into industry, and the faculty connections are very lacking.
7. Equipment old and poorly maintained. Department prides itself soliciting no donation or equipment from industry.
8. The program is not well known and overshadowed by live action Film/TV program. Animation is not worth a mention even in the school's own monthly pub.
9. The computer classes a joke. The 3D classes - shoot me plz.
10. You might waste the years of your life digging deeper into debt struggling to get degree, as many alumni here have. Save time and money and spend 4 years getting real bachelor's at a real art or animation school.
Please attend UCLA's programs if you want to produce student work like:
http://www.art.ucla.edu/gallery/2007-08/UG-Scholarship07.html
http://www.art.ucla.edu/gallery/2007-08/UG-Juried08.html
http://design.ucla.edu/gallery/undergrad_gallery.php
http://www.art.ucla.edu/gallery/2007-08/mfa_1.html
http://www.art.ucla.edu/gallery/2007-08/gradstudios_spg08.html
http://animation.filmtv.ucla.edu/students/