Animators of 'Happy Feet' and 'The Lego Movie' to offer university degree
If you're an budding animator, you've definitely heard of Animal Logic.
The Australian digital production studio is home to the creatives behind movies like Happy Feet and The Lego Movie, and it's decided to start molding the type of savvy animators the industry will need in the future.
Animal Logic has helped design a new year-long postgraduate degree, a Master of Animation and Visualisation, which will run from 2017 at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). Fifty students will delve into digital animation, visual effects and computer-generated imagery, all with the guidance of a real studio -- one that's currently hard at work on Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2.
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Animal Logic's head of production Ingrid Johnston told Mashable Australia the studio has a long tradition of promoting training and development. "What we're really trying to do is build a cohort of students who are industry-ready," she said.
Generally, animation graduates are at an intern level when they complete their degrees, she explained, so the new course is designed to reflect a real studio environment where students can work collaboratively as well as develop their technical skills.
The A$45,735 ($34,769.81) course will be taught in a purpose-built campus studio with meeting spaces and review rooms, UTS Animal Logic Academy.
Ultimately, the degree aims to build technical skills for effects and animation techniques that may not yet be fully developed, such as virtual reality and augmented reality.
"It's not a course designed to have people come out and just work for Animal Logic," Johnston said. "There is a focused on augmented reality, virtual reality and games, as well." She also suggested students could work with big data, whether for storytelling or research and future projections.
UTS vice-chancellor Attila Brungs agreed, telling Fairfax Media the course's "studio study" model was designed to foster such innovation. "UTS is trying more and more to link with industry, to create skills that don't even exist yet," he said.
According to Johnston, Animal Logic will be involved with selecting the first student group, but they won't necessarily need an animation background. "It is the people who we could imagine working at Animal Logic or any studio in Australia," she said. "We're trying to build the industry here and the talent base for the industry as a whole."
Although the studio makes no promises about employment, you never know. If you're good, you could end up working on upcoming Animal Logic project, Alien: Covenant.
Getting this beautiful head right won't be easy.
Students must apply by Oct. 28, 2016.
Ariel Bogle was an associate editor with Mashable in Australia covering technology. Previously, Ariel was associate editor at Future Tense in Washington DC, an editorial initiative between Slate and New America.
