Paying for animation college

I'm a super newbie on this site as well as to animation but I did get some advice from Dana Terrace, an AMAZINGLY talented animator/director working in the animation industry (I highly reccomend searching her up and looking at her work.) 

Anyway, this is what she said to me via Tumblr, the question I asked her was "I was wondering if the Art school you go into matters in terms of future careers? I've been told that unless you get into one of the big name schools (Calarts, Sheridan, etc.) going into Animation is risky."

Her reply was really helpful for me... Maybe it will help you out too! 

"Man! I wish I could find the people spreading that rumor and give em the ol’ one-two. (You can pretend that means whatever you want.) 

NO! It doesn’t matter what school you go to! People I work with everyday, people who’ve hired me, can’t even remember where I went to school. In fact, a lot of working artists I look up to didn’t even go to college. A lot of the artists I’ve been freelancing either never went to college or went to one I’ve never heard of! All that matters is the work and that that work is visible and accessible online. So good for you for making a tumblr! You’re on the right path.

If specifically animation is what you want to get into (whether hand drawn or 3D) it might be worth going to school for bc that’s such a specialized subject. However there are so many great, cheap, online alternatives for learning such things! (Schoolism! Animation Mentor! 11 Second Club! to name a few…) It just takes a bit of research to find these places. And to be clear I’m not saying you shouldn’t attend college. No one will know your situation better than yourself, just throwing out options that might be worth exploring! 

I won’t lie, getting into the industry on your own IS harder when you’re not starting from a place like CalArts which is only a 30 minute drive from all the big studios. However it’s not impossible and I find I really like artists who don’t come from ‘well-known’ animation schools. They tend to do think of things differently and that can be really valuable in storytelling. Good luck on your journey! Hope this was helpful.  "

Schools don't matter, what matters is:

• Your Ambition
• Your Skills
• Your Network

In no particular order, but your Ambition is the precursor to the other two.

Never Give up, Never Surrender! Good luck.

3D Scanning for VFX in Film, Games and VR

I think Animation College is a pretty good place, and many students dream of studying there, I live in London and help students with writing laboratory work, you can read more about my work on my page.