At NYU, John Canemaker encourages students to broaden their scope of specialty and study live-action as well as animation filmmaking.

John Canemaker • Director of the Animation Program, NYU
John Canemaker is a tenured full professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and, since 1988, Director of the Animation program there. His personal animated films are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and are distributed on DVD by Milestone/Image Entertainment. He is the author of nine books on animation history, including his latest, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair (Disney Editions, fall 2003).

In today's economic environment, students in all disciplines must broaden their horizons. The enormous expansion of the animation industry in the last decade includes not only TV series and theatrical features, but the Internet, games and special effects for live-action features. Digital technology has merged live-action and animation — a fundamental shift in aesthetics pointing toward a new art form and a re-defining of animation itself. New York University Tisch School of the Arts offers a balance of introductory and advanced 2D and 3D computer techniques alongside traditional drawing and visual communication skills (such as Life Drawing, Storyboarding, Action Analysis, Stop Motion, among others). Animation-focused students are also encouraged to partake of the Film Department's multiple offerings in Scriptwriting, Cinematography, Editing, Sound Design, Acting and Cinema History classes. A university is a place of exploration where students develop not only technical skills but a sense of themselves as creative individuals. To land that all-important entry level position, a "calling card" film project should be an expression of who they are and what they have to offer as artists as well as a showcase of their varied moving image-making skills.

Interning with New York companies and networking with alumni and other professionals is important to Miroslaw Rogala's animation students at CGIM/Pratt.

Miroslaw Rogala • Ph.D., Professor and Department Chair, Computer Graphics and Interactive Media, Pratt Institute, New York
Miroslaw Rogala is an internationally recognized interactive media artist. His work is represented in exhibitions in 42 countries and permanent collections, including the Lyon Biennale, ZKM Multimediale and Center for Art and Media, The Brooklyn Museum and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. He researchrs and lectures globally in the area of Interactive Public Art and artist/(v)user (viewer-use) participant relationships.

With the explosion of new techniques and applications in the last several years, the Computer Graphics and Interactive Media Department at Pratt Institute has greatly expanded our course offerings to reflect and address these innovative methods and skills. Our curriculum improvement has coincided with the economic downturn — we have made an overhaul at the moment when the market became more competitive. As an adjunct to introductory courses, we impart a variety of advanced, special topics courses. For example we offer character design and modeling, character animation, motion dynamics, 3D for the Web, 3D game graphics, non-narrative animation, animation production-team, advanced lighting and texturing.

As the market changes, we rotate through these courses, and keep adding new courses. In addition, we offer non-computer graphics animation courses through our university’s Media Arts Dept, including cel animation, stop-motion animation, character animation, etc. We have become much more specialized at precisely the moment when this is needed most. Our faculty reviews portfolios and provides students with feedback, including simulated "interviews" with students to prepare for interviewing situations. Within the classroom, emphasis is placed on the importance of professional presentations/practices, making students aware of the competitive nature of the field and providing each with the means to compete. Depending on the direction in which students want to go, we distinguish between commercially viable work and approaches that could be considered more "fine art."