When I signed up to the Art Institute Online, I already had a clear idea of where I wanted my career to go. I'm not aiming to be an animator with Pixar or warner Brothers, though I certainly wouldn't mind either of those jobs. All I want is to make a decent living producing my own art. I know that it can be done. The brothers Chaps make a fine living producing the Homestarrunner cartoons and selling merchandise. To do this, they produce a wide array of entertainment items to keep coming back to their site, including puppet shows, music, computer games and so on.
Coincidentally, this is exactly what I want to do. I want to make animated movies, short cartoons, video games and more. I know that there are a lot of career options out there. I could be a webpage designer, a media ad designer, a point-of-purchase ad designer, or could hold any number of animation positions, such as 2-D animator, 3-D animator, layout artist, storyboard artist (great job for a cartoonist!), concept artist, background animator, or even an inbetweener (Not the most glamorous animation job, but I'm sure it pays the bills) and I'd be fine with just about any of these jobs. But my ultimate career goal is to work for myself as the czar of a multimedia empire. I'd also accept jobs in the fields of mad science, fantasy magic and superheroing, but the AIO doesn't offer courses in those.
So in the absence of career paths involving insane amounts of power, I hope to develop my animation skills to the maximum possible profficiency. Among the skills I hope to be able to acquire:
- Familiarity with and ownership of advanced animation software. Computer literacy is the best starting place for this.
- The wisdom to choose new production software with a discerning eye. Many of my classes, such as digital imaging and advanced software, will be able to help here.
- The ability to assemble an efficient animation team through knowing and recognizing needed skills for any given project. I'm hoping to learn this in my fourth-year classes.
- Ability to create smooth 2-D animation quickly, from 2-D animation classes, obviously.
- Knowledge of 3-D animation techniques, such as 3-D modeling and textures.
- Production of visually engaging environments. I do not know whaich class will help me with this.
- The skill to achieve excellent sound quality and synchronicity in an animated work, which I hope to pick up in digital editing.
This is, of course, not an exhaustive list, for the simple reason that I do not know yet what skills I may need and what I can take away from this program of study.
The lecture titled "Filtering my thoughts" states that for me to really absorb the material, it has to be important to me. I don't think that will be a problem. I wouldn't be shelling out thousands to attend this school if I did not genuinely want to learn these things, and I believe that you can see from the fact that I am a week ahead of the class that I am passionate in my desire to learn them.
-Oren Otter