For those of you who don’t know, I’m enrolled in Animation Mentor, and I’m just about to wrap up my 2nd quarter (term? class?) there.
While I normally try to refrain from personal posts on this site (please try to ignore the 36 personal links in the right column over there), I do want to talk about my experience at “The Ment,” since I do get questioned about it from time to time.
The degree that I have in computer animation is from a chain of schools that you’ve probably heard of. I’d prefer not to mention the school by name, but chances are that if you live near a major city, you have one close by. The reason I’m not trying to name names is because I found my time there to be less than perfect. In fact, it was far from it. I vividly remember sitting in a Maya class, as an instructor took us through a Maya modeling book on how to build a spaceship. In other words, he wasn’t “teaching,” he was simply reading out loud. When a student would ask a question, this professor would then have to consult the glossary of the book, hoping that a key term the student mentioned in their question(s) could be found there. If not, he would tell the student he would have an answer for them next week, which was sort of like trusting a heroin addict to “have the money for you next week.”
I wish I could say that, at this particular institute of learning, this was the exception rather than the rule, but it really wasn’t. Now, as with anything in life, education is what you make of it, and there was some brilliant work that came out of the school. The problem is that it had little to nothing to do with what was taught, and really just a matter of sheer talent overcoming subpar teaching.
Upon graduation, I packaged up my little demo reel and sent it off to companies, convinced that I had no shot in hell at landing a job in computer animation, and boy was I right. Not with that reel at least. So here I was, having graduated with honors, as a member of the Dean’s list, with nothing to show for it but a demo reel that I even laughed at when I watched it.
In other words, saying I had a degree in animation from that school was worth about as much as a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering applied physics from Jiffy Lube.
So when the chance to join up with Animation Mentor sprung up some months back, I was somewhat reluctant. I didn’t want to get burned again by a school that wasn’t accredited and had no real proven track record. However, once I looked at the student showcase for the first time, I couldn’t sign up fast enough. Absolutely everything contained in that showcase was better than anything I had done before, and I wanted to see if I could match that level of work.
Having no true animation experience, other than the one class in 3D animation I took at my former school, I had no idea what to expect. We started out animating a bouncing ball, a standard for early animators, to learn timing, weight and arcs. From there we progressed to a ball with a tail, then a ball with two legs (essentially two tails), and then something clicked…
I started to realize how each assignment was building on the previous. They didn’t just throw us in with a full-featured rig and say, “Make it do stuff,” as was the case at that other school. Instead they showed us how everything relates to the same principals of animation (developed and outline by the 9 old men), and got our feet wet a little at a time. After the ball with legs, we got a ball with legs and a torso/head. Next came arms. Suddenly, before you realize it, you’re working on a full-bodied rig, yet what you’ve learned keeps it from overwhelming you.
It’s an amazing structure, and one that continues to build, with full fingers and toes, and then a fully functional facial rig. All the while, somewhere deep in your mind, you’re still animating that simple little bouncing ball. Not only that, but you’re animating using the principals that have been introduced to you over time throughout the course. You aren’t just making an arm move, but you’re making that arm move with overlap, and you’re tracking your arcs, and you’re concerned with weight. Again, this is all done without you even realizing directly that you’ve started to focus on these things.
It can be intense at times, but you never ever feel like there is an assignment that you can’t accomplish. Not only that, but in later classes you get a “pick list” that allows you to choose your level of difficulty for your assignment, which helps you to stay in a comfort zone of sorts.
Outside of the class structure, AM has done an excellent job with their “campus.” Though the school is online, I’ve had FAR more interaction with students then I ever had at previous schools (I’ve also attended a University). From the forums, to a 24 hour chat, to feedback that students can leave on each assignment, to the weekly live Q&A with my mentor, I have had no shortage of people to bounce ideas and questions off of.
I know it sounds like I’m being paid to write this stuff about The Ment, but I’m really not. For aspiring animators, this school is everything it bills itself as, and it keeps getting better. This is not 3 guys with a laptop running an online school that you see advertised during daytime television. This is the real deal, and far more rewarding of an experience than other schools that charge 5 times as much.
My ultimate goal is to make the switch from the technical side of life to the creative one, and I have no doubt that, with the help of Animation Mentor, I can (and will) succeed.
At some point, once I’m all finished with this quarter, I’ll post my progress reel, so that you can see my stuff first hand. In the meantime, I highly suggest you swing over to The Ment’s website and check out some of the work.
You’ll be glad you did.
Animation Mentor
