The California Institute of the Arts, or CalArts for short, was merged by the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and the Chouinard Art Institute in 1961. Shortly after the founding of CalArts, Walt Disney introduced the school to the world as a fundraiser in the premiere of his famous film "Joyful Man". Today, the college has developed into a top school, not only cultivating numerous professional artists and animation and film and television talents, but also exporting a large number of excellent workers to Disney. In 2006, CAFA became the first film school to be recorded in the history of The Museum of Modern Art.

CalArts

        World ranking

　　 In the BAI World Academy of Fine Arts rankings released by Bevix International Kyodo, the California Academy of Arts ranks third in the world, and the animation major set up under the Film and Television Academy ranks first in the United States It is the master education palace that countless animators dream of. The school implements a small class teaching system, and each student is equipped with a teacher to guide the creation of personal works and career development. It's not hard to understand why CalArts The enrollment rate is only 28%, while the proportion of international students is only 17.6%. It is reported that these students (especially graduate students) are professionals who have become little known in their own countries.

        Major setting of CalArts College of California Academy of Arts:

CalArts has six colleges, namely, art, criticism, dance, film and video, music, and drama. It is one of the few American higher art colleges that has a department of criticism. Each art college has a large number of majors and is divided in detail, according to the 2016 U S. News ranking, The top ten majors are: Animation for Art Study # 1 Multimedia and Visual Communication # 2 Photography # 4 Pure Art for Art Study # 6 Graphic Design for Art Study # 7 Painting # 9

        CalArts, California Academy of Arts

　　 CalArts is most famous for its experimental film and animation majors, and has always been in a leading position in the advancement of animation technology, especially in the animation major. For the course categories, CalArts can be divided into character animation (only BFA) and experimental animation (both BFA and MFA). The former focuses on classic animation, The latter belongs to the pioneer direction The students here have to complete more than 2000 paintings in a semester. The intensive training has created solid basic skills. Even a random stroke has its purpose. In order to break the boundaries of traditional art, the college regularly invites guest lecturers from all walks of life to provide art teaching and guidance. The educational resources in the industry are unmatched and very professional. The famous ones, such as Tim Burton (Batman, Christmas Eve Horror and Brokehead Valley), John Lassiter (Toy Story), and Maurice Noble (he wrote Disney's first full-length animation "Snow White"), are CalArts graduates.

      CalArts Character Animation

Character animation majors are more like story design based on animated characters, somewhat similar to cultivating cartoon designers. CalArts has set up the most professional skills training in character animation majors. Teachers are all from traditional animation, CG special effects, and independent studios. Even they have to do their own work during the day, and can attend classes at night. In class, students learn by combining traditional and computer-generated creation methods.

       CalArts Experimental Animation

The experimental animation major is more avant-garde and progressive, and the creation method is not restricted to the tradition, but focuses more on training students to control the overall creation framework in the animation field. The course content also includes the experimental design of 2D, freeze frame, 3D animation production and other processes. After the basic courses are completed, there are also workshops for high-level expansion. Most of the tutors are famous independent animation short film directors, many of whom often participate in international film festivals, such as Paul Vester (director of "Abductees"), Susan Pitt (director of "Asparagus"). Portal: Experimental animation - listen to pratt animation sister talk about the types and characteristics of animation major

Some suggestions for students applying for CalArts animation major in art study abroad:

If you are applying for a role animation major, you should have strong ability to observe and sketch. Have strong creative painting skills, artistic originality and the potential to use continuous images to tell stories and shape characters. Schools like to see students' ability to observe and describe things in life. And I look forward to seeing the students' ability to describe things in a continuous way in their art works. Therefore, storyboard should be added to the portfolio, rather than just providing a picture. No matter how beautiful it is, it will not be accepted. The jury prefers unique and imaginative expressions in the applicant's artistic works, and accepts painting, traditional artistic works, 2D digital artistic works, computer works and other artistic forms.

　　 Suggestions on the preparation of overseas art works

Experimental animation has no explicit portfolio requirements. Students can also submit paintings, oil paintings, hand-painted paintings, storybooks, photography and other works of art forms in accordance with the preparation of pure art overseas works collection, and still want to express the uniqueness of their own art. It is recommended to submit video works or film works. If not, at least hand in a work that can show your visual ability. This can also reflect that the original intention of the school to set up this major is more avant-garde, because clear content requirements may limit students' divergent thinking. Experimental animation majors do not have high requirements for observing sketches, but prefer to see some interesting, unique and even weird works of students.

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