While studying an animation course, there are experiences you and other animation students all over share. Some of them include times when we first applied for the Animation course at uni, spent tons of time carefully constructing a portfolio, bit our nails through the interviews, and opened up our acceptance letter with bated breath. The moment you arrive in the studios and sit down at the work stations, you know your life is about to change dramatically: You’ve done it. You’ve successfully become an animation student and below are some of the things that come along with your accomplishment.
1. You have a very heavy workload. You find yourself envious as your flatmates plan to go out for student night, even if you know you have a 9am class the next day. You have to reluctantly turn down offers to hang out or go into town because there’s always an assignment deadline approaching (and your storyboard is barely started). You find yourself in the library and animation studios at odd hours, falling asleep at your desk with theory textbooks or animation tests in front of you. Fortunately, your classmates are right there beside you, and at least it’s only a short walk over to the campus bar for a drink afterwards.
2. The chances of you actually booking out a medium-sized graphics tablet is one in a thousand. Perhaps not literally, but you can expect to see genuine amazement on the faces of students at all stages of the course when they walk away with a medium instead of one either too big to carry or too big to draw on. May the odds be ever in your favour (not to mention you have to deal with the horror of not having your USB lead on you).
3. You kiss goodbye to ever having a decent night’s sleep (and if it does happen, you’re likely sleeping through a class). You tend to have at least one class a day, and if you’re unlucky enough to have a full scheduled day of lessons which are then followed up by hours of overtime in the studios, it’s natural to fall asleep in the strangest of places. Forget going out mid-week! Student night is a no-no. If you aren’t in bed by midnight, chances are you aren’t waking up in time for that all-important lecture tomorrow.
4. If you understand how Maya works and actually enjoy using it, you’re probably regarded as some sort of extra-terrestrial by your peers. The 3D animation and modelling software Maya is considered by many to be the industry standard, and once you tinker around with it, you realise why. At least three times a day, you’re fighting the urge to slam your head against the keyboard and call it quits because your character’s rig isn’t responding to your furious clicking, you can’t figure out how to insert certain keyframes and the program has already crashed on you twice. If, by some miracle, you understand what you’re doing, expect to hold some sort of godly power over your peers.
But it’s not all that bad!
5. The people on your course are just as nerdy as you. The majority of your course friends are into the same western cartoons or anime series as you and they’re pretty much guaranteed to have seen a Studio Ghibli movie at some point. When you bring up some obscure anime or 90s cartoon that only ran for ten episodes, chances are at least one other student (or lecturer!) knows which one you’ve just referred to; they will also probably then dive into a deep discussion with you (no guarantee they’ll be singing its praises though). Anime movie nights are a given, cartoon recommendations are thrown around left right and centre, and during late nights or weekends in the studios you’re all singing your hearts out to Part Of Your World as you work.
6. Many of your lectures and assignments require watching your favourite films and cartoons. It’s true, you have to analyse them critically later, but how many classes require you to break out your DVD copies of Howl’s Moving Castle or Steven Universe? Getting to discuss your favourite shows from a critical perspective can actually be really fun, and it’s an interesting way to discover which of your friends are familiar with your favourite shows and films. The downside? Discovering how bigoted your favourite animation studios have been – and still can be to this day. Really makes you think twice when you’re watching a few classic Disney films for enjoyment later on.
7. Your lecturers are straight from the industry themselves. Although this isn’t always the case, there’s a decent chance that you’ll recognise various projects that your lecturers have worked on in the past from your own childhood. For example, one of my lecturers used to work on Bob The Builder around the time that I was growing up watching it. You get to have a laugh with them about the show itself, ask questions about life and work in the industry, and even see cameos of your favourite cartoon characters in animation test examples (here’s looking at you, Spud).
8. Animation has been and always will be a team effort. At the end of the day, you’re all suffering through confusing animation programmes or sailing through animation tests together. You’ll always have friends or adversaries practising by your side, but there is a real feeling of kinship when it’s 11pm and you and two others are frantically scribbling away on your tablets, trying to do the best you can before the building closes for the night. Friendships are forged under great hardship, and never has that felt so true to me than as an animation student while we all hurry to complete tasks with each other. And if you get overwhelmed, lecturers and older students will always have your back.
Animation is a collaboration, and being an Animation student at Falmouth University is like a big, messy, stressed out family.
Frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.