Animation for 16 to 18 Year Olds Short Course
Course description
Course overview
It's never too early to start a career in animation, and strong drawing skills are one of the best ways to begin. This course will introduce you to the basic tools, technical skills and fundamental principles needed to succeed in the animation industry.
By developing these core skills, you'll build a solid foundation that supports high-quality character animation and prepares you to adapt as technology in the industry continues to evolve, helping you preserve the quality of good character animation.
Who this course is for
- Students aged 16 to 18 with a passion for animation, including beginners
- Students with good level of English
Key information
Learning outcomes:
- Learn the 12 basic principles of animation.
- Understand ways to adjust and improve your animation.
- Learn how to work on a light box with animation paper.
- Shoot your own animation on a line-tester.
- Build a small portfolio demonstrating key animation skills.
- Gain an insight into the animation production process.
- Understand more about character and background design.
Topics covered:
Animation:
- An in depth look at the 12 Principles of animation, including film-clip analysis and practical exercises. All students will receive 1-1 feedback and advice.
- Getting to grips with tools of the trade including working on a light box, rolling and flipping animation paper.
- Shooting your animation on a line tester.
- (Please note: although we will be using paper, the animation skills taught are transferable and can be used with any software or method of animation).
Design:
- Adapting your own character drawings into animation-friendly designs.
- How to adjust and improve character designs.
- Creating strong poses and facial expressions.
- An introduction to background design and drawing in perspective.
Production:
- An overview of the animated film-making process.
- An introduction to storyboarding and visual storytelling.
Portfolio:
- Advice on building a portfolio to show to animation course leaders and companies.
- All topics will be backed up with hand-out sheets and the viewing and analysing of animated films.
This course is for all abilities:
We will be working roughly and having fun. A high standard of drawing skills are not required. More advanced students will be supplied with additional exercises, meaning that all levels of experience are catered for.
For practical information about our kids and teens courses, take a look at our kids and teens information hub. This includes details of our policies on safeguarding, food allergies, learning requirements and online study.
Materials
- USB stick or other means of saving your work at the end of the week
- If possible, please bring a camera or camera phone to record the process of making the work, and the outcomes.
Everything else needed to complete the course is provided, but please feel free to bring any current sketchbooks or materials you enjoy using.
Tutor
Kate Sullivan
Kate Sullivan is an award-winning animator/designer/director and documentary filmmaker. Since graduating from the Character Animation PG Cert (now MA) at CSM, she's worked on a wide variety of high-profile content. Clients include Cartoon Network, BBC, Ch4, Zeekay Junior, CITV CBeebies, CBBC, Google and NBC. Recent work includes designing and animating titles, credits and establishers for BBC2's Upstart Crow, character animation for Doctor Who and films for renowned journalist, Misha Glenny. As an independent documentary filmmaker, she has won many awards and gained much critical acclaim. Her work has been displayed in galleries and film festivals around the world. Kate is currently creating an animated documentary project about the creator world's first computer generated cartoon character.Book a course
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