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Education/training

Ministry approves new advanced diploma: Concept Art for Animation and Video Games

Unique in North America

Government approval to allow Max the Mutt Animation School to offer a new four-year advanced diploma called "Concept Art for Animation and Video Games" is so new it still has bureaucrats' fingerprints all over it.

DAVID CHILTON

[ 2007-07-18 ]

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Maxine Schacker, director at Max the Mutt, says the Queen's Park's OK only arrived July 4, so the course will start September 2008. However, she also says that the Toronto school has an early application procedure and will start taking applications the first week of August this year.

All Max the Mutt programs share a common first year, and gaining admission to the new program won't be easy. First, numbers will remain low. "Seventeen students (in the class); that's the absolute maximum," Schacker says about the new venture.

Applicants must also submit an essay on themselves, including information about their goals and ambitions, their major interests, their favourite books, and their experience in group or teamwork. They'll also need a character reference from a teacher or employer.

And then there's their art portfolio that must include such work as five paintings in watercolour, acrylic, gouache or oil; five drawings of objects in their environment -- a toy truck on a floor was the example Schacker used; a drawing of their own hand; pages from sketch books; a drawing of the interior of a room and another of a neighbourhood.

Applicants also need a high school diploma, Schacker continues, and points out Max the Mutt programs attract a lot of university graduates. There's an international flavour to the school too. There will be 12 to 14 overseas students enrolled this year in Max the Mutt's three other programs out of a school total of 62.

The cost of the new program is $38,000, and tuition payments can be spread out over the duration of the course. There will also be refunds for students who discontinue the program.

Schacker says the new diploma is unique in North America and is aimed at people who want to be concept artists in the fields of animation and video gaming. "It had to be a four-year program because there's a lot to learn," she says.

Goran Delic, for many years a concept artist and senior production designer for Nelvana Studios in Toronto, will lead the new program. In addition to his work at Nelvana, Delic has also done illustrations for newspapers, including the New York Times, has written graphic novels and is an illustrator for Universal Pictures.

Like many college programs -- public or private -- Max the Mutt's four-year diploma was developed with direct input from the gaming industry itself. Some of the Canadian companies consulted include Rockstar Toronto, Pseudo Interactive and Vancouver's Electronic Arts.

As for students' job prospects following their graduation from the new program, few industries seem quite so robust. Lance LeFort, talent relations manager at Pseudo Interactive, says, "Our industry is going crazy right now."

There's no saturation in the job market, LeFort continues, and he expects the industry to remain every bit as good as it is now.

Canada's two biggest job markets are Montreal "and Vancouver is just a West Coast phenomenon," says LeFort, who also points out the Toronto and Ontario markets are growing as well.