Sunday, June 8, 2008

Calarts Journey


Once again my correspondence with Ash has proved useful for my blog. I figure i should probably start to post things about my calarts experience so why not start at the beginning:
[excerpt from an email to Ashlee, sorry for the rambling]
I first heard calarts mentioned on this podcast that talked all about famous animators and animation and stuff like that. It seemed in every interview the school would always come up. So when my dad and i scheduled our California schools tour i made sure he put it on the list, not sure at that moment in time of how big of deal the school was. I actually went to California with the idea that UCLA and USC were my best choices. I was wrong. UCLA basically told me not to go there. They said that there program wasn't as good as Calarts. I thought to my self "dang how good is calarts?" USC was impressive but more as a regular school, or a film school, than an animation school. We then went to calarts. Cal arts is 45 mins north of LA in Santa Clarita/ Valencia California. But the area is nothing like LA. It is crazy green there and very suburbian. If you drove by the school you might miss it at first glance because of the trees surrounding it. Calarts is a small arts school started by the Disneys in the 1970's. The idea of the institute was to have all of the arts under one roof to promote a very collaborative environment. It has two animation programs experimental (twitch) and Character animation. I'm doing the character. The atmosphere of calarts can only be described as "artsy". The school is very hippie like in the way that they let you experiment a lot with your art and that they for the most part let you live any lifestyle you choose. The dorm rooms are co-ed, the entire campus (except for the dorms) is dog friendly and the school is clothing optional. That's right you read that last part correctly...clothing....optional. In other words if i wanted to i could wake up and decide it wasn't worth the effort to put clothes on that day and just go to school nude. I won't, but i could.
I don't know what else you want to know about it but if you have any more questions about it just ask.

3 comments:

Stacia said...

Hi! I have been accepted into the BFA acting program and was just curious what your take on the program is? Or if you have any friends who are in the program that could talk with me about it.

Thanks

yebkamin said...

Have you looked on facebook? I'm sure you would be able to find some people in that program.
But i've heard it's pretty good. Calarts in general is very experimental so i'm sure that the acting program has a similar feel. I'm not the best source though.
Here is a link to the acting class of 2012 on Face book http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?sid=8c5b2d02405bc145ed141318b28bc6f6&gid=12550627185

Anonymous said...

Heey!! :) What about the film program?? I`m from Mexico so I don´t have first hand information. Are you still happy in animation??
carisakura@hotmail.com

What I wish someone had told me before I came to Calarts

  • Get a coffee maker of some kind
  • For your first year don't worry about making a GREAT film. Just make a film.
  • Sketch
  • Make a portfolio, portfolio
  • Don't pull the "all-nighter" just to pull the "all-nighter"
  • Schedule in Breaks
  • Take an english 101 class
  • To get anything done with administration you need to ask more than three times.

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