Calarts portfolio.

[joanart]

Hello, I am a high school student and I am going to apply for Character Animation at Calarts (California Institute of the Arts). I am also going to apply for scholarship. I know that drawing is very important for the portfolio.
I have made 2 stop motion short films which have participated in several film festivals around the world and received some awards. Is this important? Is this a plus for being accepted and getting a good scholarship?

Thank you.

[look]

Can you post samples or links to your works?
I would think the stop motion animation would help, especially you've recieved awards for it.

[Hitsu//San]

And if you want to craft a car is important if you know how to craft a boat?

Probably yes.
But you're good at drawing? Do you know how animation works? Are you good at rendering?

[joanart]

Yes I know, I am saying that I have made 2 movies, so I know how it works very well! I know traditional and CG animation.
I am good at drawing too. I cant post the movies for personal reasons but I can post some drawings. I have 2 years to finish the high school so this summer I am going to start life drawing. Here are just some of my drawings.

[Hitsu//San]

Currently i see that you're someway good at copying, drawing from mind it's a completely different action.

Anyway as i said probably your movies really are a plus cause working on something like stop motion teaches you the basics of frame sequences. I think you must work more on drawing characters anyway cause is what you're going to do for a long time if you get in Calarts.

[Shorinji_Knight]

For the most part the work is pretty solid. You do have a few distortion issues in a couple of them. The cityscape is by far the most impressive. Second to that is the hands. The portraits are all a little too dark and could stand another highlighting pass. The Michael Jackson pic along with the Marilyn Monroe are the two weakest in your portfolio. Minor negatives aside this is still a good fine arts portfolio. If you keep pushing yourself you'll be ready by the time you graduate. And yes any awards that are art related will help with getting scholorships.

[Jason Manley]

Calarts will not care for any illustration or fine art like that as much as animation studies. The key to their animation program is "animation". So doing movement studies, quick gesture drawing, and work that resembles an animation portfolio will help a lot. The honest truth is you need to show work that shows that you are studying animation. I showed up there years ago and they flipped through all my drawings in two seconds and said..lets see your animation work. It really is that simple. The reality is you need to begin to focus on animation studies outside the work you are doing in school.

However, I believe animators should also learn to illustrate as the animation industry (especially the 2d animation industry) has ups and downs and going into a program with an illustration slant can help round out your skills.

Good luck!


Jason Manley