Teaching 3D animation
Here are a few show reels of my students work. These are students that I have taught animation anywhere from 6 months up to a year depending on the level of the students. They all start from scratch, which means bouncing balls and learning to thumbnail all the way up to complex dialog shots that go over ten seconds with multiple characters.
It's amazing work. (Props to my students for their hard work and diligence. They are certainly better than me compared to when I was a student. LOL) Especially for the short amount of time these students had to complete these shots I'd say they did a smashing job.
I take great pride and joy in teaching my students to become the best in their field not just in terms of animation skills, but also in terms of social and communication skills as well and I've made it my mission to make a curriculum that supports this trifecta.
It took over 3 years (teaching full time) to come up with this system and perhaps I will write about that on another blog post.
On this post, however, I thought I would share some insights about my personal experience thus far on what it's like teaching 3D animation.
Hmmm.......where shall I start?
I guess the first thing I would like to point out is YOU LEARN A LOT FROM TEACHING.
Duh! That's a no-brainer right? But I didn't realize just how much until I committed to teaching full time for a long period of time.
I would highly recommend any animator to teach(full-time) in a committed environment for at least a year or two if you really want to know deeper about what you've been applying to your field when you were working all those long hours and never had a chance to organize your know-hows and logic regarding your skills.
Because let me tell ya, WOW! You learn sooooo much more just by organizing and writing stuff down so you can present them to people so they can understand it without any background knowledge.
A common example would be the 12 principles of animation. This is one of the first things you learn as a student and when I first had to teach this I am embarrassed to admit that I too didn't fully understand all of the 12 principles clearly. So, I had to go over my dusty notes from back when I was a student and do more research thoroughly before I felt comfortable teaching them. Hey don't judge, I'm being honest here.
So, needless to say when I had to make a new curriculum from scratch and relearn everything that I had back in school and further develop them with tips and tricks I had mastered while working in the field so it would be easier for students to understand, I too became a well-informed and clear-headed, overall better animator as well.
It's amazing. It really is. So again, if you want to become a better animator.......TEACH. Period.
The second thing I realized is that students these days are fundamentally different from back when I was a student and not in a good way.
We live in a seriously polarized world these days where it's common view that you're okay with not understanding other people or groups and hating is the new "cool" apparently. I'm sure every teacher from every generation would say the same thing, but for me it really feels like that now.
In other words, students these days are very ill-prepared when it comes to communication skills and empathy. The ability to sincerely understand one another is a joke these days and not having to look at people and just using smart phones all day isn't helping either.
Why this is important is because when you work in a studio or company you work with other people. And if you don't have a hive mindset to some extent, the working environment can become easily hostile or worse fake.
This goes for every branch and level, from all the way up to the CEO or Board of Directors down to the contract workers or secretaries who bounce from pay check to pay check.
Everyone matters. But, it seems like the general vibe in the industry is that everyone is only looking out for their own agendas and gain.
You can say that this is nothing new. The world has always been that way, but I grew up in the 80s and I've been in the industry long enough to know that it's getting worse and there is a real issue with people lacking a general understanding that as the world population grows.......it shrinks and we need to learn to better understand and communicate with one another or things will get messier and meaner.
This is also why I grade students not only in their skills as animators, but also as professionals working with other people. (the trifecta that I mentioned before, communication and social skills)
Another thing I found was that TEACHING FOR A LONG TIME CAN BE DANGEROUS in a sense that you might find yourself in a rut if you teach the same thing over and over and over.......and over again.
You might wonder (if you haven't had experience teaching yet) why would this be an issue?
Can't you just teach differently or continuously evolve your curriculum so you don't find yourself in a rut?
Yes! You can!
But, that shit is hard!
Ok, let me back up.(sorry for the profanity, but sometimes.......the word "shit" explains a lot) What I meant to say is that it takes a lot of (unpaid) time and effort to build a curriculum and it takes even more dedication to make a great curriculum that constantly evolves and changes with the students according to the era.
Especially, right now, in the year 2017 with new smartphones and all kinds of tech gadgets coming out and updating on a yearly basis, it's hard to keep up with change.
So, what happens is you pour all your energy and time into building this curriculum and system of teaching that the students love and you love and they learn, grow and get jobs from and that's all great & awesome.
But then what happens is if you are good at something and that in turn makes you teach more students which in turn makes you have to focus more on quality control. In this case, specifically, maintaining the same quality of results or portfolios that your students produce regardless of the number of students you have.
And that's friggin hard! I MEAN REALLY HARD.
Any teacher can attest that the level and quality of education can and probably will be jeopardized if the ratio between students & teacher grow apart extensively. Ergo, the more students a teacher has to teach or focus on the less the overall outcome from the students will be.
So, it's logical to assume that as you grow and try to maintain this system or curriculum, it will be considerably harder for you to change thus evolving your ways continuously while maintaining the same level of results for your students.
But then you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again and it kills your creative vibe. Not to mention your skills might diminish and that is like slowly digging your own grave.
Too many times have I seen old teachers, professors who have lost their way by becoming "out-dated" from teaching the same routine again and again until finally they are nothing more than figure heads that have about the same influence to the students as the sculptures or photos(memorabilia) surrounding them.
So what do you do? You adapt.
I take online courses at night to stay updated about my teachings and try to work gigs here and there part-time to stay in tuned with how the job places operate and what skill levels are necessary to work in them. (Not to mention I love working in the field being apart of making something unique and universally entertaining)
I think this is the hardest and most challenging part about teaching.
The most rewarding part about teaching is seeing your students develop and grow as professionals and human beings.
The fact that you had (hopefully) a positive impact on this person to go out there and conquer the world, so to speak, is an immensely rewarding feeling and it does in a way make you feel like you've made some sort of a dent on this world in your own way.
The reason I started teaching however is a bit of a Debbie Downer. I started teaching because I no longer had faith in the industry to provide me with a well-paid, long-term job position with some sort of retirement plan.
Maybe I'm looking way into the future, but if you think about it and how the industry is rapidly changing, it's not such a far-fetched reaction.
Most jobs nowadays are contract based. Many studios are opting for tax-cheap alternative studios abroad for hire.
I mean there are literally no jobs as an animator that gives pension plans or any sort of retirement options to it's employees in the CG/Animation industry. (At least not that I know of)
Maybe if you're a professor at a university with tenure, but that's very, very rare and not really a practical career option to pursue.
So there you have it.
My experience of teaching in a nutshell. Hope that helped or inspired you in some way. If not, that's cool too.
Thanks for reading. ^^
Till next time.
-David Jang-
