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Course Syllabus

Course: ART 2420

Division: Fine Arts, Comm, and New Media
Department: Visual Art
Title: Experimental Animation

Semester Approved: Fall 2018
Five-Year Review Semester: Summer 2024
End Semester: Summer 2024

Catalog Description: In this course, students will learn the potential of animation as a fine art medium and a mode of cultural production. While utilizing a wide range of animation techniques, concepts, and software, students are encouraged to experiment, creating individual and collaborative animation shorts. Students will analyze historically and contemporarily relevant approaches to experimentation in the field of animation and relate them to their own animated art works. Students develop a fluency in cinematic language, acquiring technical skills as well as critical vocabulary for discussing creative work, while exercising their artistic intuition and expressive instincts. It is recommended that the students entering this class have a fundamental understanding of traditional principals of animation and storytelling structures. They will be encouraged to use that basic knowledge in furthering their skills through innovation and experimentation with variety of techniques and materials, exiting their comfort zone of the cartoon tradition. A lab fee is required for this course.

Semesters Offered: TBA
Credit/Time Requirement: Credit: 3; Lecture: 3; Lab: 3

Justification: The moving image and its associated language is pervasive in both popular culture and the arts. Museums and galleries throughout the country routinely include experimental animation in their exhibitions and collections. In addition, experimental animation encourages interdisciplinary collaborations and approaches, redefining what this dynamic art form can ultimately be. The attitude of play, discovery, and pushing the boundaries, inherent to experimentation, creates curiosity and hunger essential to student’s self-expression, while supporting multimodal learning. The student-centered approach in this class provides students with a sense of agency while preparing them for entry into the practicing world of art.

General Education Outcomes:
1: A student who completes the GE curriculum will have a fundamental knowledge of human cultures and the natural world, with particular emphasis on American institutions, the social and behavioral sciences, the physical and life sciences, the humanities, the fine arts and personal wellness.  This course is designed to provide art and non-art major students an experience of a creative processes as apply to art of animation. It will expand creative abilities and historical understanding, along with socio-political sensibility, required for creating culturally-responsible animation. It will promote multiple approaches to understanding purpose of animation in our society, from entertainment, through marketing, to documentary and therapy. Investigations of human condition through culture, history, the physical, social and behavioral sciences is pertinent to the criticism and analysis of contemporary and historically relevant animation. Along with lectures, screenings, and discussions on history, theory, process, and content, the emphasis is on creation of digital animated portfolio, analyzed for formal and conceptual merit. This outcome will be assessed through student participation, portfolio, and a final project.

5: A student who completes the GE curriculum can address complex problems by integrating the knowledge and methodologies of multiple disciplines.  Each assignment will require students to create, share, and critique their work with peers and the instructor, as well as return and improve their work based on feedback received. Students will learn to show their work often, with the goal of discovering areas of improvement early in the process and increasing animation efficiently.


Student Learning Outcomes:
Principles of Concept: Students will learn to apply conceptual principles to a variety of experimental animation techniques and styles through the study of principles of animation, notions of time and space, along with the laws of physics and how they impact our visual perception of movement.  Students will reference their own creative concerns, artistic influences, and art education in creation of original and meaningful animated shorts. They will conduct in-depth research to develop original ideas for animation.Evidence of proficiency will culminate with a digital portfolio of animated shorts investigating the analog and digital animation techniques and principles, while creating meaningful and original content. This outcome will be assessed through student participation, portfolio, and a final project.

Material Proficiency: Students will be exposed to a variety of analog and digital mediums used within the realm of experimental animation.  They will navigate different approaches used in in capturing, creating, and presenting animated shorts. This proficiency and innovation in using material and media will be used to understand practical applications of visual language and storytelling in non-mainstream settings. Each student will be required to maintain a digital portfolio on an online platform, documenting their progress throughout the semester.

Historical Context: In addition to viewing works by animation contemporaries, students will study historically relevant animation works in relationship to socio-political situation and captured zeitgeist of the time.  They will analyze elements of animation history and their relationship to contemporary experimental animation. This knowledge and historical understanding, will assist them in informing creative communication through visual language of animation. This outcome will be assessed through student participation, portfolio, and a final project.

Critical Theory: Students will learn the process of critical analysis as it applies to creative, process-intensive, conceptual animation work.  Utilizing skills gained from presentations, lectures, class projects, in-progress and final critiques will give the student confidence and critical knowledge to evaluate aesthetics, visual communication, and conceptual merit. Individually and collaboratively students will create meaningful time-based works that engage audiences.

Process: Students will understand the importance of animation process and interdisciplinary approaches in creating experimental animated works. They will incorporate knowledge of traditional and alternative storytelling elements and strategies, cinematography, audio design, and fine arts fundamentals. Students will work with pre-production processes such as sketches, storyboards, animatics, and models to visualize projects. They will learn animation language and terminology necessary in comprehension of animation theory in addition to completing aesthetically successful and meaningful animation works. The creative processes demonstrated in the creation of animated shorts will be discussed and analyzed throughout the semester in student work, alongside historical and contemporary context. This outcome will be assessed through student participation, portfolio, and a final project.


Content:
Content:

This course will include lecture, discussion/critique, and studio lab time in the application of the following concepts:
• Creating experimental animation shorts to an audio track, using non-mainstream stop-motion and rotoscope animation techniques, concepts, and software.
• Understanding verity of approaches to lighting and set construction in stop-motion animation.
• Understanding fundamental compositing, rendering, and camera techniques.
• Researching contemporary use of experimentation in the fine arts as well as commercial practice.
• Understanding historical perspectives of cinematic process as well as contemporary critical issues in experimental animation
• Engaging in group critiques and participating in public screening of artworks.


Key Performance Indicators:
Portfolio 50 to 60%

Participation and Preparedness  5 to 15%

Final Project  20 to 40%


Representative Text and/or Supplies:
Each student will be required to have an external digital storage device and headphones.


Pedagogy Statement:
This course will be delivered via lecture, discussion, hands-on experience and feedback guided experiences.

Instructional Mediums:
Lecture

Lab

Maximum Class Size: 16
Optimum Class Size: 12