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Choosing the Best Animation Schools

The field of animation is multi-faceted and complex, and the best animation schools will teach you expertise in a variety of subjects. Animation is also a highly competitive field. It is not enough to have a mild interest in animation. You need to have a burning passion for it, as you will be living and breathing animation, first in school, and later in a lucrative career. Not all animation art schools are created equal. It may help you choose to understand what the best animation schools cover.

• Drawing
• Animation Skills
• Technology
• Science

Whew! That’s a diverse group of topics. Let’s look at each of them in turn, starting with drawing. A love of drawing may well be what got you interested in animation in the first place. It is the rare animator who doesn’t love to sketch and doodle. Modern animation technology can cover a multitude of sins, but it cannot hide bad drawing! Good drawing skills are fundamental to the field, and animation art schools understand this. The best animation schools offer students a firm grounding in all aspects of drawing, including classes in life drawing, layouts, and even some classes in painting. It is vitally important to be able to understand the basics of art to excel in animating.

Next up are animation skills. These include storytelling, character work, acting, directing, design, and visual communication. Animation schools will also teach you key fundamentals of animation such as movement, timing, motivational forces, pausing to think, and so on. We told you it was a complex field, and this is all the more reason to choose your animation schools carefully. There’s more, too.

You'll need an excellent grounding in the technical side of things, also. You’ve no doubt heard the buzz about how new software is revolutionizing the industry. And you’ve probably also seen the amazing results of this in the latest animated film and television releases. But there is no way you will be able to learn about this technology on your own. Animation schools make it their business to keep up with all the latest advances in technology. The best animation schools will have as up-to-date software as the major movie studios. They have to, in order to keep and attract students.

Finally, you will want to look at animation schools that will give you a good grounding in science. Yes, science. Animated subjects are alive! They move and jump and leap and fall flat. Because of this, you must understand all kinds of fascinating things such as the effects of gravity, inertia, fluid dynamics, and momentum, to name a few. You’ll study in fields as diverse as mechanical engineering, physics, and math.

What a complex and fascinating field animation is! Even in this brief introduction, you can see the wide variety of topics you’ll be studying. Do yourself and your future career a favor and look for the best animation schools. Choose your school carefully, as graduates of the best animation schools nab excellent jobs very quickly.