A Couple Good Reads

A couple interesting articles popped up today.

First Animation Mentor, (the cleverly designed internet animation school) has finally announced their prices and class schedules. I think the idea behind Animation Mentor is pretty brilliant. But I'm slightly biased because I'll be one of the instructors (part time). Seriously, animation is a skill. Like any other skill the best way to learn is to be taken under the wing of someone who's already doing it. But in animation, the only way to do that is to work at a major studio. And the only way to do that is to know how to animate, but to learn to animate....it's a catch 22. Animation Mentor is a great solution. LINK

Also Jim Hill Media has a great article by Josh Edwards abut the upcoming animated feature films that are coming out in 2005: "Robots," "Madagascar," "Chicken Little," "Cars". That's a lot of animated films in one year. Personally I hope they all do amazing in the box office. There's an argument that the public has a limited amount of money to spend on animated films, so only one or two may be successful. I'd love to see that argument buried by having all of these films do well in the box office. I like the idea of having more, good, animated films come out every year not less. I think the public has an apatite for animated films as long as they're done well. I think the problem that films have had in the past is they all look and act alike. My hope is that all these films are different enough from each other that the public can recognize the differences between them.

I found the article to be a good read, check it out: LINK