The Gnomon Workshop of Hollywood, in collaboration with Design Studio Press, has released seven new training DVDs by concept designers Feng Zhu (STAR WARS: EPISODE III), Harald Belker (SPIDER-MAN) and Carlos Huante (VAN HELSING). These titles focus on design process, ideation, digital rendering and client presentation.
Gnomon alumnus, Dave Pascuito has designed a new Website for Gnomon School of Visual Effects. The new site features one-click navigation, lots of student images, expanded instructor information and very clear descriptions of the numerous training options available through Gnomon, which is located in Hollywood. Check out www.gnomon3d.com.
High school seniors and international students interested in education for a career in animation are now invited to apply for scholarships from The Art Institute of California - San Francisco (www.aicasf.aii.edu). Students may apply the scholarships toward tuition in the school's bachelor degree in Media Arts & Animation.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has produced its fifth high school teaching kit to promote understanding and appreciate the art of animation. The kit is being mailed to 18,000 high schools throughout the United States will all production and distribution-related costs to be paid by the Academy.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary year, Video Symphony, a TV & Film College and Career Center in Burbank, California has been awarded National Accreditation by Washington, D.C.'s ACCET (The Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training.)
The Gnomon Workshop has partnered with Design Studio Press in the production of analog training DVDs. Leading concept designers from the film, game and industrial design industries will share their techniques in an effort to inspire and educate artists around the world.
The Gnomon Workshop has released five new training DVDs by Ryan Church, one of the industry's leading concept designers and a conceptual art supervisor for STAR WARS EPISODE III. On each DVD, Church masterfully executes a digital painting, while sharing his insights into his own creative and technical process. The focus of these lectures is not on software, but on the fundamentals of design, composition, lighting, material indication, storytelling and workflow.
The Gnomon Workshop has released three new training DVDs by feature animator Cameron Hood (lead character animator on DreamWorks' SHARKTALE). Focused on both the aesthetic and technical art of digital character animation with Maya, these four titles contain more than six hours of instruction, lecture notes and project scene files. Students new to animation, or artists transitioning from 2D to 3D, will benefit from these titles.
Toonz Animation India (TAI), with its 2D Animation Academy at Technopark in Thiruvanathapuram and the Animation School in Kolkata, will start a state-of-the-art 3D Animation Academy at its Technopark premises, it was reported by the BUSINESS STANDARD. The proposed academy will offer a six-month 3D animation course.
Kaydara and Mexico's EuNoia Animation School announced the successful completion of the facility's first 10-month course specifically dedicated to teaching professional animation software. Driven by MOTIONBUILDER, Kaydara's award-winning character animation software, EuNoia is Mexico's only certified training center to offer artistic and technical courses on the industry's leading animation and effects software.
The Art Institute of California San Francisco has expanded its Game Art & Design degree program, hiring Marc Sherrod as its new full-time Academic Director. Sherrod will be involved in curriculum and faculty development, coordination of the schools Program Advisory Committee from the game industry, student guidance and other aspects of game education at the school in for its game-related degree programs, designed to provide entry-level talent for the $10.3 billion computer and video game industry.
Alias Systems announced the release of another learning tool in its popular education series. StudioTools Techniques| Exploring StudioTools examines the integrated 2D/3D sketching and modeling features and many other design workflow enhancements found in the latest release of its computer-aided industrial design (CAD) software, Alias StudioTools 11.
dvGarage teams up with the Gnomon School of Visual Effects up to make Maya more accessible to new users. THE MAYA LAB: VOLUME 1 provides a visual step-by-step introduction to the powerful but sometimes complicated application.
"We get requests for step-by-step training," explained Gnomon founder Alex Alvarez, "but we wouldn't be able to cover everything that we do if we built this kind of training day to day. It's really a daunting task to get it right."
Video Symphony, a TV, Film and DVD Digital College and Career Center, has launched another in a series of year-long 3D Animation and Visual Effects course programs.
"Today, nearly every movie, TV show and commercial turns to 3D magic and visual effects for everything from dueling spaceships, fiery explosions, and slime-dripping aliens, to animated breakfast cereal, and cars that drive on water, said Video Symphony's president Mike Flanagan.
Jeff Lew, creator of the popular KILLER BEAN series of 3D animated shorts, released a three-part series of instructional character animation videos in secure, high-quality DivX video on Nov. 11, 2003. Available for download and purchase on www.divx.com and www.jefflew.com. LEARNING 3D CHARACTER ANIMATION WITH JEFF LEW provides step-by-step instruction for creating great-looking animation.
NFB will be hosting its second annual Animation Hothouse, designed to help nurture the talents of emerging animators. Six promising filmmakers from across Canada will be given 12 weeks to create extremely short animation, from concept to release, with the full support and assistance of NFB creative experts at the NFBs English Animation Studio. This years Hothousers are Marielle Guyot and Thea Pratt, Montreal; Kevin Langdale, Vancouver; Amy Lockhart, Vancouver; Megann Reid, Calgary; and Howie Shia, Toronto. The project began on Nov. 3, 2003 in Montreal.
The College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit is accelerating its animation and game design curriculum with the appointment of Eduardo Batres, Gary Schwartz and Ben Ridgway as associate professors in the Department of Animation and Digital Media.
REALVIZ, a leader in image processing software development, is now offering a range of its flagship products at special discounted prices for the "financially challenged" student population. The company is also offering a dedicated "Student Pack," which consists of REALVIZ Stitcher 3.5, for the creation of high-quality panoramas for the Web, film, print and 3D; ImageModeler3.5 to measure and create 3D scenes using photographs; and SceneWe@ver, which brings 3D into panoramas.
Oregon3D Inc., The Center for Visualization Technologies, announced its first road show and online training classes. The road show and online classes, entitled The New Features of 3ds max 6, is taught by industry-acclaimed Discreet certified instructor, Gary M. Davis. The two-day courses and four-part series will present an overview of new additions and enhancements to the 3ds max tool kit.
Dates and locations for The New Features of 3ds max 6 courses are as follows:
Cartoon Network and The Prince of Wales Arts & Kids Foundation announced the launch of cARToon netWORK ARTWORK, a partnership designed to get children involved with the arts, and discover connections between all art forms. Workshops will be designed and led by artists from different fields including Richard E. Grant, Siobhan Davis, Quentin Blake and Benjamin Zephaniah.
Epic Games, co-creator of the award-winning UNREAL game franchise, announced the details for their inaugural Unreal University, the first intensive workshop devoted to learning how to create mods using the Unreal Game Engine. The university will take place on Nov. 8-9, 2003 at North Carolina State University. Unreal University is being sponsored by Epic Games, NC State's Center for Digital Entertainment, NVIDIA, AMD, Alias and Atari Inc.
The Gnomon Workshop has released four new training DVDs by concept designer Feng Zhu. Focused on the traditional and digital techniques of the concept design industry, these four titles contain more than eight hours of instruction. Feng's clients include Lucasfilm, Disney, Blur Studio, Electronic Arts, GT Interactive, Origin Systems, Microsoft, Film Roman, Universal, Warner Bros. and Sierra. Feng has been teaching production design at Gnomon for two years.
With the appointment of five high profile industry leaders and four additional department promotions, Vancouver Film School (VFS) has stepped up its strategy for entertainment production training.
The new appointments announced by managing director Marty Hasselbach include:
Larry Bafia, head of 3D Animation & Visual Effects. Bafia previously served as a commercial animation director at PDI/DreamWorks, where he directed for Coca-Cola, Sega, Intel, Kraft, Circle K and Saturn. He also worked as sequence lead animator on ANTZ, BATMAN & ROBIN and A SIMPLE WISH.
Magnet Media Inc., as part of its award-winning Digital Media Training Series, has shipped self-paced training DVDs for Apples Final Cut Pro 4 and Adobes After Effects 6.
eyeon Software has endorsed Oregon3D as the premier, professional training center for Digital Fusion, eyeon's 2D compositing and special effects solutions. The first training center in the U.S. to offer continuing courses on Digital Fusion, Oregon3D's 10,000-square-foot facility provides the working surroundings and equipment used by professional creative artists in the film, game, TV and visualization industries. Oregon3D's first series of eyeon classes will start by winter of 2003.
