< ECU Directory

Vanessa Schwartz

Lecturer

Availability:

Education:

MFA Experimental Animation
California Institute of the Arts

Bio

Vanessa Schwartz is an animator and educator whose films have earned international recognition. She received her MFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts and won multiple honours, including a 1994 Academy Award nomination, a Student Academy Award and Best First Film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Vanessa worked as a 3D character animator on Antz at Pacific Data Images (now DreamWorks) before moving into teaching. She has taught animation at several California institutions and now teaches gesture drawing and animation at ECU, where she has also led life drawing workshops for Pixar employees.

Courses

Course Name Department Course Code Term
Foundation Studio Courses FNDT 165 26/FA

Description

Foundation Core is an introduction to a breadth of conceptual, technical and disciplinary approaches that includes 2D, 3D and 4D disciplines. Exploring different forms of conceptual and material-based inquiry, this studio course focuses on the understanding and articulation of core values shared across contemporary art, design, and media disciplines. Foundation Core emphasizes practices and concepts that provide a solid platform for any of the degree-focused studio cores offered in the second semester.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.

2D Animation 2DAN 205 26/FA

Description

Students research and explore aspects of drawing to facilitate observation, production, and individual development for all aspects of animation. In this course, students will establish basic skills and knowledge of drawing techniques for interpretation within the rectangular format of animation. Students will learn through practical exercises, life drawing, setups, slides, video, and outside class projects to encourage ongoing individual development. Aspects of line, shapes, values, rhythm, sequential continuity, perspective, spatial effects, composition, and time will be explored.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.

Animation ANIM 300 26/FA

Description

This course explores the principles that give short animated film stories cohesion, structure, meaning and the power to communicate, with the goal to enhance the telling of the students' own stories through animated film. Students undertake creative and critical methods to engage various approaches to story development. The course explores traditional and non-traditional story forms, while exploring the relationships of message and audience, genre and structure, character and performance. Story-making approaches include storyboarding, beat boards, research, observational journaling, proposal writing, pitches, and assorted experimental approaches such as flow charts and mapping. Students gain the ability to employ various structures, genres and methods for the purpose of crafting effective stories for short animated films.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.