My visit to the Ringling School of Art and Design

as best that I can describe...

Well driving in to the north side of Sarasota I was told that Ringling is in the ghetto. Obviously the people who have told me this have never been to Tallahassee. Sure it is not in the richest part of the city, but it is by no means what I would call the bad side of town. The road it is on has all kinds of cafe's and art related stores and small galleries. ( I think I saw a "gentlemen's" bar along the way, but I wasn't really sure) anyways When I got to the campus I found it to be everything I imagined it would be (because I have had it described to me before) it was a beautiful Sarasotian day. It is a relatively small campus (compared to Florida State University where I have been the last 5 years) almost like a large highschool. I walked around for awhile with my wife before my meeting, just to kill time and in the 30 minutes we were there we met 3 students and a fine arts teacher. All of them were very friendly and told us how great it is there and how mch they love it. Then I went to meet with the Associate Dean of Admissions. We walked into the Keating Building where we were going ot meet her and saw the student displayed artwork in the lobby. There were very impressive pieces on display. My favorite of course were the two TV's they had showing student animation projects. In the information room we met a few people and got the new Ringling Curriculum Book. It is awesome. I read through the whole thing while we were waiting and got really excited about the descriptions of the animation courses.

We got to meet the Associate Dean (who was very nice) and she took us on a tour of the campus. We started out just walking around the main areas, past the basketball court (which is a cool thing to have in the middle of an art school), the dorms, and some classes. After a quick stop into the photography building, we went straight to the new computer animation building. In one word...AMAZING! They have some of the best equipment I have ever seen in a computer lab. It is all the best of the best and it looks so slick too. I could definately see myself working until 3am in there (good thing I bought a Ringling hooded sweatshirt from the bookstore!). We walked into a room where there were a lot of people watching some rough animation films and I was told that this was one of the Senior Critiques where the teachers help the students solve problems and create better films. I had mentioned something to the associate dean about talking to Ed Gavin on the AWN forums and so she pointed him out to me as the tall guy in the front row wearing the green hawaiian shirt. Right before I left the amazing and talented Mr. Ed "animation" Gavin came out to say hi to me and my wife. Let me just tell all of you he is even nicer in person then he is here. It is funny because he (Ed if you see this) was nothing like what I pictured (just different, not bad at all :) ). I guess the avatar personality has developed a picture in my head ha ha ha. He told us we had to go see the 2D animation desks they recently acquired from Disney's former 2D animation department. So we headed over to the Jotrous 2 building where we found what was to me the most exciting thing about the whole trip. A building with every inch of the walls covered in character designs and drawings of people, creatures, and all kinds of other things. Then we saw the rows of animation desks. They were very impressive. Some students were in there working on some stuff and there was a sylvester and tweety cartoon running on a tv at the back of the room. It is hard to describe, but imagine a long class room with animation desks encircling th walls edge to edge. It was just really neat to see. That concluded our tour, but we then went back to look over my portfolio.

So after the tour I sat down with the Associate Dean and we talked about why I wanted to go there and a little bit about me and my situation. Then I showed her my portfolio. Now I can't be certain, because she told me she doesn't have any say in the admittance to the Computer Animation Program, but...she did like my work and said it was the kind of stuff that the selection board usually looks for. I filled it heavily with life drawings and observational stuff. I included a few other extras and 2 master copies, but the majority was figures, hands, feet, and animals. I also included a CD of all the pictures. i was a little worried because most of my figures were female, due to my limited access to people willing to take their clothes off for me. I had a few drawings from a drawing 1 class and a couple more from a figure drawing workshop I went to. But the majority were just from carrying around a stack of computer paper on a clipboard. My own hands were covered extensively and a trip to the local zoo was also very helpful. I reccommend drawing animals at the zoo. It's fun, different, and cheap. The Assoc. Dean told me she was very glad I didn't have any anime or giant robots and that kind of stuff. My wife suggested that I show her the originals because i had them in a portfolio in the car. I believe this helped because the Assoc. Dean was able to see the works in their original size and format. Some pieces were poster board sized, but were shown just as big as the rest of my stuff in my portfolio I turned in. (oh and my wife was able to run right out to the car and come back very quickly because parking doesn't seem to be any trouble at all). I concluded my interview by talking about my academic accomplishments, test scores, and GPA's from high school and college. Overall I felt like it all went well. I was very excited to be there and I really like the whole environment.

Reccomendations for others planning on going:

Bring a well formatted portfolio.
Also bring original works if possible, you can keep them in the car until it is time to show them.
DRAW FROM LIFE DRAW FROM LIFE DRAW FROM LIFE
leave your anime and comic book character drawings at home.
Draw from life, but also include a little extra flavor (color, collage, landscape, original characters) But keep this very limited. A page at most for anything other then life drawing.
Dress nce. Be yourself, but don't look like a homeless highschool student.
During your interview talk about anything you have done that can relate to your desired major and anything you have done that you are academically proud of (GPA, Test Scores, Honor Roll, Dean's List [the good one :) ]posistions you've held, clubs, organizations, etc.. it is your chance to shine and they aren't going to pull it out of you. You have to show them.)

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that has been given to us." ---Gandalf