Making animation — with lessons from Walt Disney and Tim Burton

Making animation — with lessons from Communications and Art programs join to offer new animation courses as digital media curriculum expands.

Students with a love of animation should be excited by two new courses that gives them the chance to take their imaginative storytelling into the digital and academic realm. This curricula venture joins the Communications and Art departments beginning this summer with Disney to Burton: An Animation History that traces the evolution of the medium through the 20th century. A second course for Fall 2013 in Digital Animation is a hands-on workshop for creating such animated stories.

“This fusion between the two programs makes perfect sense,” says Prof. Paul Thaler, chair of the Communication Department. “We are hoping that this is just the start of cohort programs that gives students more opportunity to explore new and innovative courses such as animation.”

The Animation course takes students through the processes of conceptualizing characters and story ideas before creating their adventures through digital technologies. “Animation is growing as a wonderful narrative form,” says Thaler, “and now students will have the chance to unleash their imagination and talent in such story telling.”

Professor Geoff Grogan, a distinguished mixed-media artist and cartoonist, and the chair of the Art Department, will be teaching the animation history course this summer and in the Spring 2014 semester. “(These courses) will provide students who are interested in animation a context for understanding both technological and conceptual developments in the field across its 100 year history.”

For comic enthusiasts, Grogan’s over-size “art-comic work,” “Look Out! Monsters,” “fandancer” is included in the collection, “Abstract Comics: The Anthology.” He has also co-published and contributed to “pood”, a critically acclaimed comic anthology, and currently is working on a webcomic, “Plastic Babyheads from Outer Space,” with fantastic creatures about to invade planet Earth. Grogan’s work has also been picked up for syndication.

The summer animation history course runs May 28-June 7, Mondays and Thursdays from 1:00-5:00 p.m. The digital animation course is slated for the fall semester, Tuesdays at 10:50 a.m.-1:20 p.m.