DePaul Game, Cinema, & Animation Summer Academy

05/30/2021

Veteran Disney character animator Brian Ferguson, Animator in Residence at DePaul, conducted a live character animation masterclass on Zoom on May 30. Here he’s demonstrating how to maintain structure when rotating Panic, a character he animated for the feature film “Hercules”. Brian also teaches in DePaul’s Game, Cinema, & Animation Summer Academy for high school students (July 19-23).

05/30/2021

DePaul Game, Cinema, & Animation Summer Academy instructor Brian Ferguson, a veteran Disney character animator and Animator in Residence at DePaul, will be conducting a character animation master class online. The live Zoom is free and open to the public at the link below.

06/15/2020

Study hand-drawn character animation with former Disney Animator and DePaul Animator in Residence Brian Ferguson, and Scott Roberts, chair of the DePaul Animation Program, at the DePaul Game, Cinema, & Animation Summer Academy for high school students - online July 6-17

Tracks include Hand-Drawn Character Animation, 3D Modeling and Animation, Game Design, Screenwriting, and Film & TV Production.

In the DePaul Summer Academy hand-drawn character animation track students will be introduced to the basics of classical hand-drawn character animation through live online demonstration and practice. The program of study will draw from DePaul’s college-level Animation Mechanics and Hand-Drawn Character Animation courses. Students will utilize character design and storyboarding to plan and produce an animated short film.

This section will be led by Brian Ferguson and Scott Roberts. Brian is a 23-year veteran Walt Disney Feature Animation animator whose filmography spans 15 feature films, several as supervising animator, including the classic animated feature films Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and Mulan. He’s taught character animation at DePaul for over 5 years. You can email Brian with questions at [email protected] Scott Roberts is the chair and co-founder of the DePaul Animation Program. He’s a cartoonist, animator, and artist, whose sculptures, video installations, animations, and comics have been exhibited internationally. You can email Scott with questions at [email protected]

To accommodate students from time zones across the country, the main hours of instructor lectures and instruction will mostly take place within a range of 11am to 3pm Central time.

Find out details and register at CDM.DePaul.edu/SummerAcademy

Music: 7th Floor Tango - Silent Partner
Support by RFM - NCM: https://youtu.be/8Myv4ggip_8

06/11/2020

Study game design with indie game designer and DePaul professor Mike DeAnda at the DePaul Game, Cinema, & Animation Summer Academy for high school students - online July 6-17

Tracks include Game Design, 3D Modeling and Animation, Hand-Drawn Character Animation, Screenwriting, and Film & TV Production.

DePaul’s game design programs are nationally recognized. The Princeton Review ranked our undergraduate program #28 on its list of the Top 50 Undergraduate Schools to Study Game Design in 2018, and Animation Career Review ranked DePaul #7 nationally in their Top 50 Game Design Schools of 2018.

In the DePaul Summer Academy game design track students will work in teams, along with students in the 3D modeling and animation track, to brainstorm, design, program, and produce assets for a 3D computer game. Students will have the opportunity to explore multiple roles in the game production process. The games will be designed and programmed using Unity and C #. At the end of the two week course students will have a fully functioning game.

This section will be led by indie game designer and game scholar Mike DeAnda. Mike earned his Ph.D. in Humanities and Technology from Illinois Institute of Technology. As a scholar-practitioner, DeAnda's research and game design practices centers on experimental approaches to designing games that center on marginalized communities and social justice. His games have been showcased at international events, including Meaningful Play, Different Games, Q***rness and Games Conference, and the Melbourne Q***r Games Festival. You can email Mike with questions at [email protected]

To accommodate students from time zones across the country, the main hours of instructor lectures and instruction will mostly take place within a range of 11am to 3pm Central time.

Find out details and register at CDM.DePaul.edu/SummerAcademy

Music: 7th Floor Tango - Silent Partner
Support by RFM - NCM: https://youtu.be/8Myv4ggip_8

06/10/2020

Study 3D modeling and animation with TV/feature film animator and DePaul professor Josh Jones at the DePaul Game, Cinema, & Animation Summer Academy for high school students - online July 6-17

Tracks include 3D Modeling and Animation, Game Design, Hand-Drawn Character Animation, Screenwriting, and Film & TV Production.

In the DePaul Summer Academy 3D modeling and animation track students will learn the basics of computer animation and modeling using Maya. Along with students in the game development track, students will work in teams to brainstorm, design, program, and produce assets for a 3D computer game created in Unity. Students will design, model, and texture creatures, vehicles, and environment objects, and learn how to import them for use in a working game.

This section will be led by Josh Jones, animator, film maker, and Associate Professor at DePaul University’s School of Cinematic Arts. He received a BFA from Syracuse University in Computer Graphic Arts, and an MFA in Animation from The University of Southern California where he created the student Academy Award-Nominated film “A Short Lifetime's Poem of Memory.” As a stop motion animator at Will Vinton Studios, Jones animated on 8 episodes of the 3 time Emmy award winning show “The PJ's,” and the 2 time Emmy award winning UPN show “Gary and Mike.” Following his stint as a puppeteer, Jones found renewed interest in his electronic roots, and went on to work as a CG animator in feature film and television. He has animated for studios and clients including Fox TV, Fox Kids, Warner Brothers, Crystal Sky, Creative Visual EFX, Skyler Animation Studios, Oregon Public Broadcasting and National Geographic. You can email Josh with questions at [email protected]

To accommodate students from time zones across the country, the main hours of instructor lectures and instruction will mostly take place within a range of 11am to 3pm Central time.

Find out details and register at CDM.DePaul.edu/SummerAcademy

Music: 7th Floor Tango - Silent Partner
Support by RFM - NCM: https://youtu.be/8Myv4ggip_8

06/10/2020

Study screenwriting with Hollywood screenwriter and DePaul professor Brad Riddell at the DePaul Game, Cinema, & Animation Summer Academy for high school students - online July 6-17

Tracks include Screenwriting, Film & TV Production, Hand-Drawn Character Animation, Game Design, and 3D Modeling and Animation.

A SCREENWRITER is the first casting agent, the first director, and the first editor on any project. Without his or her vision, there is no blueprint for the crew, and no dialogue for the cast. An expensive camera and elite editing software cannot make a great movie from a terrible story, because it all starts on the page. Whether you want to direct, shoot, edit, act, or produce, knowing how to create a good story and tell it well, will make you a better filmmaker.

The DePaul Summer Academy screenwriting section will focus on teaching students the fundamentals of screenplay format, visual writing style, character development, and narrative story structure. Students will complete a number of creative writing exercises that will develop their individual voices and allow them to begin practicing the craft of cinematic storytelling. By the end of the Academy, students will have written the first draft of a short screenplay. Daily activities will include conversations, interactive story-breaking, team exercises, short individual projects, and daily screenings of films and TV shows. No screenwriting experience is required.

This section will be led by Brad Riddell, a screenwriter and director who has written films for Universal, Paramount, MTV, and Fox. His first film was American Pie: Band Camp, and he is currently writing a skateboard comedy for Tony Hawk’s 900 Productions and Branded Pictures Entertainment.

To accommodate students from time zones across the country, the main hours of instructor lectures and instruction will mostly take place within a range of 11am to 3pm Central time.

Find out details and register at CDM.DePaul.edu/SummerAcademy

Music: 7th Floor Tango - Silent Partner
Support by RFM - NCM: https://youtu.be/8Myv4ggip_8

06/04/2020

Find out about DePaul University's 11th annual Game, Cinema, & Animation Summer Academy - RSVP to attend a LIVE Zoom info session Monday, June 8, 1pm Central/11am Pacific/2pm Eastern
https://tinyurl.com/y9kwvocx

05/25/2020

This event is for DePaul students and alumni, but participants in the Summer Academy are welcome! When you RSVP note that you've registered for the Summer Academy and you'll receive a Zoom link on Wednesday.

The DePaul Animation Program and
the School of Cinematic Arts Visiting Artist Series
present

A Live Zoom Visit with
Adventure Time Lead Designer and Storyboard Artist
Andy Ristaino
May 27, 1:30 PM Central Time

Character designer, storyboard artist, and cartoonist Andy Ristaino is best known for being former lead designer, character designer, and storyboard artist on Adventure Time. He began working on AT during its second season, and most recently contributed to the upcoming HBO Max’s Adventure Time: Distant Lands specials. Andy won an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation in 2013 for character design.

If you are at all interested in animation visual design and storyboarding, this talk is for you!

RSVP required, and you will receive the Zoom link the day of the event, Wed May 27th.
https://tinyurl.com/ybnbz9uq

05/19/2020

The 11th annual 2020 DePaul Game, Cinema, & Animation Summer Academy will be ONLINE and available to students across the US!

Due to the continuing Coronavirus pandemic and in the interests of the health and safety of students and faculty we’ve made the decision to conduct the 2020 Game, Cinema, and Animation Summer Academy entirely online.

The Summer Academy faculty, which is comprised of the same full-time faculty who teach in DePaul's highly ranked programs, have restructured our curriculum to adapt the five tracks to live online participation, and to take advantage of some advantages this provides. One of the most frequent comments that we’ve received from previous students was that they wished the Summer Academy could last longer than one week. Following the structure we’ve used for in-person instruction, meeting all day for five days, would result in burnout if done online. Offering the program online will enable us to expand to two weeks—weekdays July 6th through July 17th—with less intensive meeting schedules and a lower student-to-instructor ratio.

Students will have more time to work on more substantial projects and receive increased one-on-one feedback from instructors, at a projected 12:1 student to teacher ratio. Teaching assistants will be available online for extended hours during the day and night to assist students with problems and offer suggestions. We’ll have several assistants on call to help resolve online technical issues. While we regret that students won’t have the same opportunity to build friendships in person, we’ll work hard to create a virtual social environment for all involved.

To accommodate students from time zones across the country, the main hours of instructor lectures and instruction will mostly take place within a range of 11am to 3pm Central time. Students will continue supervised work on group and individual projects during the afternoon and early evening, with troubleshooting and feedback available from TAs and instructors. With this revised structure students will have additional time to work on more substantial projects and receive increased one-on-one feedback from instructors.

The number of students admitted into each track will be limited:

Film and TV Production: 36 students
Game Development: 24 students
3D Modeling and Animation for Games: 24 students
Hand-Drawn Character Animation: 24 students
Screenwriting: 24 students

The tuition for two weeks of the new online program will be $1,250. Seats in each track will be reserved on a first-come, first-served basis upon receipt of a non-refundable $150 deposit. Full payment is due on June 15th, 2020. Seats reserved for unpaid students will be opened up on June 16th. If any open seats remain we will continue accepting students through June 26th, 2020.

A number of full and partial scholarships will be available, based on a combination of financial need and the quality of student application. Scholarship application details can be found online.

In order to participate in the Summer Academy, students will have equipment and software requirements, depending on the track they choose. Details are below, and can also be found on our website at CDM.DePaul.edu/SummerAcademy

Please email any questions to [email protected]

Summer Academy track hardware and software requirements

In order to participate online students in all tracks are required to have a computer equipped with a we**am and microphone.

Hand-Drawn Character Animation

Students will be provided with a two-week license for TVPaint professional animation software.

Students will need some method to draw in your home using a tablet/pen computer setup. These are available for as low as $60 (see details below).

Recommended pen-based options:

The iPad Pro won’t allow you access to TVPaint, so it isn’t recommended.

• Tablets: Among the least expensive quality tablet options is the Wacom Intuos CTL4100, available for $60 from B&H, and $70-80 from Best Buy, Walmart, or Amazon. The Huion 1060Plus is another good option, available for $83 from Amazon.

Link to B&H (availability may be limited) https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1491563-REG/wacom_ctl472k1a_one_creative_pen_tablet.html

• Interactive pen displays: Wacom’s least expensive Cintiq-like display is the Wacom One, available for $400 on the Wacom site. Other inexpensive options include the Huion, YiyNova, and XP Pen tablet.

Link to Wacom One https://estore.wacom.com/en-US/screens/screens-displays/wacom-one-dtc133w0a.html

• Pen-based computers: If you want a computer/pen combination, we strongly recommend the Surface Pro (I use a Surface Pro for all of my animation and comic drawing, and I actually prefer it to a Cintiq). The 5th generation Surface Pro starts at $750, and the 6th generation starts at $900.

Computer requirements

Windows: Vista, 7, 8 & 10, or newer

Mac: Lion (10.7), Mountain Lion (10.8), Maverick (10.9), Yosemite (10.10), El Capitan (10.11), Sierra (10.12), High Sierra (10.13), Mojave (10.14) & Catalina (10.15), or newer.
Processor: any dual-core processor
RAM: At least 2GB
Free hard drive space: 10GB
The performance of TVPaint Animation is only dependent on speed and amount of available RAM, hard drive speeds, and number and speed of processor cores.

There is no need to invest in an expensive video card to make full use of TVPaint Animation.

Screenwriting
Students will be provided with a link to free screenwriting software.

3D Modeling & Animation (Game Art)

Software Requirements
Autodesk Maya (Free) https://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/maya
Autodesk Mudbox (Free) https://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/mudbox

Hardware Requirements

Microsoft® Windows® 7 (SP1), Windows® 10 Professional, Windows 10® version 1607 or higher operating system

Apple® Mac OS® X 10.13.x, 10.14.x, 10.15.x ¹ operating system
CPU: 64-bit Intel or AMD multi-core processor
8 GB of RAM (16 recommended)
4 GB of RAM on Video/Display Card (Gaming card or Workstation card is ideal)
Monitor with 1920 x 1080 resolution or greater
15GB hard disk space for software installation and project space
3 Button Mouse

Game Development

All software used by the Game Development track will be free and downloadable by students.
Unity Hub and the 2020.1 version of Unity Editor https://unity3d.com/get-unity/download
GitHub https://github.com/ and GitKraken https://www.gitkraken.com/
Some kind of text editor such as Atom https://atom.io/
Students may also want access to Autodesk Maya (Free) https://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/maya

Hardware requirements:

Minimum requirements Windows macOS
Operating system version Windows 7 (SP1+) and Windows 10, 64-bit versions only. High Sierra 10.13+
CPU X64 architecture with SSE2 instruction set support X64 architecture with SSE2 instruction set support
Graphics API DX10, DX11, and DX12-capable GPUs Metal-capable Intel and AMD GPUs
Additional requirements Hardware vendor officially supported drivers Apple officially supported drivers

Film & TV Production

Software Requirements
Adobe Premiere Pro ($31.45 for one month subscription) https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html

Camera
Phone with video recording capability
(camcorder or DSLR w/video capability recommended)

Computer Hardware Requirements
Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit) version 1803 or later
Apple macOS v10.13 or later
CPU: Intel® 6thGen or newer
8 GB of RAM (16 recommended)
2 GB of GPU VRAM on Video/Display Card (4 GB recommended)
Recommended graphics cards for Adobe Premiere Pro
Monitor with 1280 x 800 resolution or greater
8 GB hard disk space for software installation plus additional 30 GB space for media
(on computer or on an external hard drive)
Sound Card for Windows: ASIO compatible or Microsoft Windows Driver Model
We**am and microphone

07/12/2018

Cinema and Screenwriting students took a trip this afternoon to see the DePaul Cinespace. Film sets, professional equipment, and a guided tour were all highlights of the trip. Students also learned about Project Bluelight opportunities, saw sets in the midst of construction, and learned about the accessibility of the Cinespace's vast collection of professional equipment.