Curriculum for Animation Degree

This course explores animation as cultural knowledge across Western and Non-Western traditions. Students critically analyze diverse animated works, examining how animation knowledge is created and shared through films, techniques, and industry practices. Through inquiry-based learning, students investigate animation's contribution to cultural conversations and artistic movements. The course examines technological innovation's impact on production and distribution while applying critical frameworks to analyze representation, power structures, and global access in animation systems. This course fulfills the requirement for FRM-118 Knowledge Making in the Creative Arts, Media and Humanities.

In this course, students will examine how historical forces have influenced the emergence of creative technologies and cultural production. Through the study of various artists, art works, and artistic movements, along with theories and philosophies of art, they will develop research questions, analyze, and apply critical frameworks to discussions of artistic practice. Students will consider how global power structures have affected and continue to affect the work of artists and scholars. Being the most theory-based course in the FRM block, ART 120 will bolster students' analytical understanding of activities in the cultural sphere, advancing their critical capacities that complement technical skills, artistic practice, and creative development. This course fulfills the requirement for FRM-128 Global Contexts in the Creative Arts, Media and Humanities.

The course provides students with opportunities to develop specialized projects in art, humanities, and media production. Students will apply critical frameworks, including theories, and use interdisciplinary methods to explore how culture is shaped by popular appeal, innovation, and mechanisms of power. Students will work individually and collaboratively to bring creative work-narratives, images, multimedia forms-and rigorous scholarship to complex challenges in varied contexts.

Students will use traditional drawing techniques to understand the concepts of form, volume, structure, anatomy, proportion, foreshortening, lighting and composition while realistically drawing the human form.

Students learn and practice essential art and design topics including the elements and principles of design, color theory and composition and concept art pipelines, while creating 2D digital art.

Students learn the foundation principles of 3D modeling and texturing while using quad modeling and physically based rendering techniques to create textured hard surface models.

Students learn the fundamentals of 3D animation while applying the 12 principles of animation to 3D character locomotion and object animations.

This course develops 2D animation skills through the 12 principles of animation. Students animate characters, objects, and environments with storytelling, weight, and personality while introducing students to industry workflows from rough animation to compositing. The class examines diverse 2D styles (traditional hand-drawn, rigged puppet, motion graphics, and hybrid 2D/3D) and their production across media. Students investigate emerging tools, technologies and current trends.

In Animation Studio I, students work together in small teams to conceptualize, plan and create an animated short film. While working collaboratively, students will experience the professional roles associated with the various stages of the production process. In the early stages of pre-production, each team will decide whether to work in 2D or 3D and will assess the needs of the production accordingly.

In Animation Studio II, students work together in medium size teams to conceptualize, plan and create an animated short film. While working collaboratively, students will experience the professional roles associated with various stages of the production process.