If you attended the seminars in animation hosted by Idefagskolen, you got a nice intro to the animator's world. If not; we got it summed up here! And; we got an interview with the Flash-master at Idefagskolen.
Article written by Mads Mobæk aka Xterminator, photos by Helge Øyvind Hoel
The seminar
The basic flash seminar went of at 18:00 Wednesday, with about a hundred attendants. The topics were: An intro to flash and animation, basic design principles, steps in making a flash animation, and a round with Q&A followed by some tips. For you who didn't attend, here is a stripped version of the seminar (and the interview with Bjørn-Magne written as an article in between):
Animation basics
Every animation builds on 11 (or 12, some say), basic design principles, as timing, ease in/out, staging, anticipation etc. For example: to illustrate a heavy object you should animate it to move slowly. A light one should move faster. And a person, who walks, will never have his head on a straight line. It will hump up and down. Generally; study people. See how they talk, how their arms move when they walk, and their face expression when they're mad. Then go home and animate it! Experiment a lot. It's the idea who counts.
Learning curve
Strong-willed persons should be able to complete their first animated movie within 24 hours. That one will be fairly easy though, but add a month and you're likely to be pretty skilled in Flash. The important thing to remember is that Flash is not the tricky part. It's understanding the principles in animation itself, and making things look and feel right which will cost you most time.
Getting started
To get started, buy yourself a book dealing with flash and animation, such as: "Flash MX for TV and Video", "Flash 5 cartooning", "Animators survival kit" and "Illusion of Life". Or if you're at The Gathering - take a walk and maybe you'll find someone who can teach you.
If not, schools are another option. At Idefagskolen for example, a year with multimedia will get you up and running. Classes consist of 24 students, and admission is based on interviews ? not your grades - so there is hope for everyone. At least those with 106000NOK for studies :-)
No skills above turning on a computer are required either, so basically, everyone can be an animator if there's will enough.
Opportunities
Educated in Flash, you can get work within web design, advertising, television, game development and animation studios to mention some.
Name: Bjørn-Magne Stuestøl aka: Shagrat (note; this is the winner of the wild compo at TG03, with ”Cows with guns”)
Age: 24
Background: He has always enjoyed cartoons. Both drawing and reading, but it's in the four last years he's learned animating them. At high school he studied “Tegning, form, farge”, and continued with one year in multimedia studies and one year in 3d design at Idefagskolen, where he now works as a teacher.
Favourite cartoons: Pondus, M, Naruto and Trigun.
Favourite movies: Spirited Away and Osama Tesuka's Metropolis
Name: Dagny Helen Nymoen Age: 16 Knowledge demo/3d/flash: None If I could, I would: Make a perfect 3D boy I could admire for ages.
Name: Anders Lassen Age: 18 Knowledge demo/3d/flash: Delphi Best own production: "The Limit" at Norwegia 2002, 2nd place If I could, I would: Make a RPG/computer game in general.
3D animation
For those interested in bigger stuff than Flash, Idefagskolen also hosted two seminars in Maya, which is a famous 3d development software also used by the big guys in Hollywood. A combination of Maya, and you mastering Maya, is being God in the digital world! You can produce almost everything your imagination is capable of thinking about. Cool? Yup!
There is one obstacle in the way though. And that's the entry level. It is a few floors higher than Flash, so you'll have to spend some years mastering it. But when you do - the possibilities are endless!
Start animating today :-)
Name: Preben Hertzberg Age: 16 Knowledge demo/3d/flash: 16 Best own production: Weapons in 3dsmax
If I could, I would: Make an animated movie or computer game.
Name: Christoffer Wolter Age: 20 Knowledge demo/3d/flash: None. Only draws on paper. If I could, I would: Make a better cartoon than Naruto
Name: Asbjørn Bydal Age: 18 Knowledge demo/3d/flash: Beginner in 3dsmax on hobby basis.
If I could, I would: Contribute in a large movieproduction.
