Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's finally happened! The first class of Bill Plympton's University of Animation (we started as a school and ended as a university. How's that for progress!) has graduated. Don't believe me? My diploma's below:
Some may not consider this to be much of an accomplishment but those people never made a funny, 30 sec. film in 14 weeks while holding down a day job! About five of the fifteen students had completed films (completed meaning fully animated, color, sound and music) for the final class with several more in various stages of production.
I can say without hesitation that I found Bill's class to be immensely helpful. Since he's doing exactly what I want to do—making a living from independent animated films—the class was full of vital information. I feel more confident pursuing this path as a result of this class. And I even got an original Bill Plympton drawing:
Bill did this in front of the class as a demonstration of drawing purely with shadows, no lines. Everyone in the class left with some sort of Plympton drawing. There were jokes about selling them on eBay but I doubt that's going to happen. We're all too much in awe of Bill's talents to part with our precious drawings.
I'm satisfied with my film although I felt I crammed a little too much story into 30 seconds. I just need to tweak a few things—a character's arm is wonky; credits need to be properly phrased—and then I'm going to enter it into film festivals, starting with the Red Stick Animation Festival. Their deadline is Jan. 4, 2010 so I need to get the film completed and entered by then.
Tomorrow—more about my festival plans…and my next film!