Kalamazoo Valley Community College’s partnership with the Kalamazoo Animation Festival brings top software companies to campus. Courtesy of Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

We have developed the Kalamazoo Animation Festival International to help Midwestern students gain insights into the professional world. Software companies like Adobe, Alias, Discreet and Newtek have partnered with us to present seminars.
Kalamazoo Valley Community College
Kalamazoo, Michigan

We’ve had a long-standing agreement with Alias (through several different parent companies). We moved from SGI to Windows in one lab, but most of our other labs are Apple platform. We developed at RIT software called Frame Thief, which is now marketed in the industry. We serve as a beta test site for lots of various software companies.
Rochester Institute of Technology
School of Film and Animation
Rochester, New York

What do you think about industry concerns that schools need to stress more technique than technology?

We think it is great. There are too many “gearheads” out there with no foundation skills in the arts.
Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Marc Barr is happy to teach technique to “gearheads.” Courtesy of Middle Tennessee State University.

Well, they are parts of one whole. While technology constantly changes so does the approach to how things get solved. Students must have general knowledge of production -- that is the foremost reason to enroll in a program.

They should also have access to technology; if not, they are in the wrong school! Both parts are [equally] as important.
Fiction Lab Animation School
Mexico

The School is redesigning course studies away from technology ... and even technique, to content development dressed as case problems and real-world goals. Students act in combination on story development to work with the filmmaking and audio departments. The goal is working toward “high impact” mini productions ... with greater attention to sound and live photography. Learning every step of the standard software package is no longer a consideration.
School of Communication Arts
Raleigh, North Carolina

We believe good artists are the foundation of this field and this has been reinforced by our contacts in the industry. Our workshops focus on both technical expertise and aesthetics.
Florida Atlantic University
Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Please describe recent outreach training programs with industries inside or outside your country.

We’ve worked in a production capacity with some area studios, with a group from Israel, with some private individuals and we maintain an excellent relationship with a video game developer in New York state.
The Animation Academy

Please help…in eliminating the term “training” from the conversation on educating people that must operate in a world of color, composition, timing, choreography, making beautiful or fantastically horrifying visual magic come to life before our eyes.
CalArts
Santa Clarita, California

SKILLSET is trying to develop more collaboration between industry and education in the U.K. For example, providing work experience for both students and lecturers (who may have been out of industry for a while), getting practitioners to donate lectures and organizing mentors. Our own course liases with industry in the following ways:

All staff are part-time and do freelance work in the industry, all students are allocated a mentor who is a practicing animator, our external examiner is an animation director with Aardman and keeps an eye on us, we run a live project with Cartoon Network…, we go out and meet people from industry and talk to them about current developments, we send out a weekly e-newsletter to graduates about jobs, competitions…and employers often contact us when they are looking for staff.
London Animation Studio