Everyday reports on the U.S. job market sound a dire cry: unemployment is up and the number of people searching for jobs is at a record high. Animation has been as hard hit as any other sector of business, and to compound matters, it wasn't so long ago that studios were punch drunk on the bags of money animation could bring in. The Lion King intoxicated the corporate fat cats in the mid-'90s and the powers-that-be spent with wild abandon. Animators were even the subject of bidding wars! Well, Dorothy, it's not the '90s anymore and the animation employment marketplace has taken a drastic downward turn.

Animation World Magazine investigates how the animators navigate and survive the harsh realities of the narrowing job market. Students expect higher education to free their minds and souls and enable them to perfect their drawing technique and storytelling abilities. But how do they learn the skills for securing a job and a career upon graduation? On a very practical level, students have trade tech expectations of their schools. They need to learn how to find the job opportunity that will let them apply all the knowledge they've accumulated. We turned to five respected animation department heads, some of whom are also artists in their own right. We asked them quite bluntly, "What are you doing to prepare your students for job placement?" There's no doubt that every prospective animation student and those presently attending animation programs will be interested in their responses.

At CalArts, Frank Terry offers students a Visiting Artists Program to hear professional artists speak as well as a Corporate Presentation Program where companies describe their needs. Drawing by a CalArts student.

Frank Terry • Director of the Character Animation Program, CalArts
Frank is currently the Director of the Character Animation Program at CalArts. He received his BFA from the Chouinard Art Institute and focused on advertising commercial production, animated documentaries, titles and entertainment specials. Frank has been based on the west coast since the mid 1960s.

The Character Animation Program here at CalArts, has, by its design and past history, been very connected with the animation industry. While we certainly are not a trade school, we are an art program that expands four years of traditional art study into the understanding of the process of animated narrative theater, or acting animation. To this extent, the fundamental focus of our curriculum has not had to change.

The '90s, however, have brought many side channels to the industry, which we have responded to. We have honed the curriculum in many directions, entrepreneurial understanding being included! Our curriculum is set up to not only instruct "acting animation" but seriously reinforce the student's understanding of "visual problem solving" for all acting requirements — for all job markets. Games have one set of needs that are different from those of graphic novels, or of feature films, TV series production is different from advertising or theme park design. And yet our curriculum can and does support the needs of the student to be ready for opportunities in all these areas. Additionally, we are also aware that students need to be ready to "carve out their own territory," and to that extent, even entrepreneurial studies are no longer outside the parameters of acting animation.