Tips to Choose the Perfect Flash Animation Course

Flash animation is the latest craze amongst youngsters. This has motivated many of the younger generation to pursue a career in animation. This field has a lot of potentials provided a candidate chooses the right animation course. In fact, there are a number of colleges and universities offering Flash animation degrees.

It is important that students enroll themselves in institutions that are credible. You have to select an institution that offers specialized animation courses. And these courses should offer job opportunities. With the successful completion of such courses, you will be able to prove your animation skills in Flash web design.

A quality animation course will develop both your theoretical as well as practical knowledge. You will be a successful animation artist only if you choose the right animation course. It is no use learning something that offers no job opportunities. Choosing the right course will make you a skilled animation professional.

1. Does the Faculty Have Industry Experience?

Before choosing a animation course, it is important to ascertain whether the teaching staff at the institute has relevant industry experience or not. There are some institutes that hire inexperienced staff. They might have sound theoretical knowledge but have dearth in terms of practical experience.

If faculty members have no industry experience, they won't be able to explain the practical aspects of animation. Experience professionals are aware of the latest developments that are happening in the field of animation. And the knowledge can be imparted to the students.

2. Is the Course Job Oriented?

You should choose a course that offers lucrative job opportunities after its successful completion. There is no use in learning something that offers no job prospects. In fact, you have to opt for courses that help you to grab high paid jobs.

There are some basic questions that you should ask before choosing an animation course. This will help you in opting for the right one. Let's have a look at the questions:

• Will I be able to work on live projects while learning the course?
• Will the course offer job opportunities?
• Does the institute have any placement cell?
• What is the pay package of students placed through the institute?
• Is there campus recruitment?

Once you have the answers to the above questions, you will be able to decide which course to choose.

3. Quality Course Content

People believe that with advanced technologies in place, there is no need for animators to be adept in the art of drawing or sketching. This is the greatest fallacy that people have. A talented animator is one who has sound drawing skills, and without it, one cannot become a successful professional. This is the reason students should choose a course that teaches you the rudiments of drawing and sketching.

Go for a course that teaches basic drawing, use of color, sketching of figures and still life, and story boarding. However, the main course content should offer detailed lessons on flash animated presentation.

4. Is the Institute Located Near the Industry?

Before enrolling for a course, ensure whether the institute offering the course is located in the vicinity of the industry. This is important since there are studios that recruit candidates only from local institutions. Besides, if your faculty works in any of these animation studios, he may assist you in getting an internship in it.

After reading the article, you now realize how important is choosing a right animation course. It will only sharpen your theoretical knowledge, but also enhance your practical skills.

Different Work Profiles of an Animator

Most of the people entering the animation industry have the preconceived notion that the industry is all about creating feature films such as Finding Nemo, Shrek, Toy Story, etc and leave quickly when they realize that’s it not so. CG or computer graphics artists therefore land up doing other things rather than making Pixar or Disney blockbusters.

So why do we call them CG artists and not animators then one might ask? An animator is defined as a person whose only job is to animate whereas a CG artists job description entails much more such as texturing, modeling, rigging, lighting or even rendering.

A texturing artist creates the textures or so called ‘skin’ to wrap a 3D model whereas a 3D modeler is someone who creates the 3D models to fill up or populate the scene either with objects such as buildings, people, vehicles, etc. He or she is basically creating a space where he or she can manipulate a mesh to create a coherent structure thereby creating a suitable 3D environment.

An animator does not just have to animate a character. He also has to look into special effects, camera movements, mechanical action, etc; put it simply anything that moves. Whereas a lighting artist, is responsible for setting up the lights for a particular 3D environment for a scene to give it the look and feel to what the animator wants. Lastly, a render wrangler is a person who is in charge or a render farm and makes sure that all frames of the 3D image are generated properly by the computers. These are the various job descriptions of different roles in a typical 3D production house. The most in demand are obviously the animators and are also one of the most competitive jobs to get into.

Overview of the Indian Animation & VFX Industry

India has come a long way in animation since the 1930’s when DadasahebPhalke made the first stop-motion film. Animation is the creation of moving pictures or images with the help of specialized software. Whereas, VFX refers to the creation of visual effects also referred to as VFX by combining real life images with animation using specialized software. Animation & VFX are used not just in film & television but also in gaming, education & medicine apart from other interesting uses. It is expected that the Indian animation industry will swell to about 60 billion rupees by the year 2015. 

Even though the global market for animation and gaming stands at USD 122 billion dollars the Indian animation industry only has a small portion of this. In recent times, global players such as Disney & Cartoon Network have set up shop in India and major Hollywood production houses constantly outsource work to companies such as Tata Elxsi, Red Chilies & Reliance MediaWorks however still the industry faces challenges. 

The advantages that the Indian animation/VFX industry brings is that of cheap labour and lower costs of production however motion pictures do not generate as much revenue as the films of the west. For example, Disney’s ‘Frozen’ crossed USD 500 million dollars and is still going strong at the global box office whereas India’s top grossing animation film from 2012 ‘ChotaBheem’ could only garner INR 5 crores at the box office. The perception is mostly that in India the mass market doesn’t see animation as a film worth watching on the big screen. That being said a major chunk of revenues for such ‘brands’ come from merchandising deals still the revenue is not even close to a Pixar or DreamWorks production.

India has seen its fair share of animation ‘duds’ as well. Yashraj Films foray into the space with Roadside Romeo in the last decade barely broke even. Disney-UTV’s 2012 30 crore animation magnum opus ‘Arjun: The Warrior Prince’ was another disappointment. So where is the Indian animation industry lacking? Industry insiders feel that firstly, it should be granted industry status and be given SOP’s and grants by the government as they feel that the sector generates a fair share of foreign exchange for the government. Secondly, they feel that taxes & duties should be waived off or reduced on the import of high end computers & equipment that the animators use. Lastly, the quality of animators needs to become better. Even though many institutes have sprung up across the nation however very few of them are a part of a university; they operate as fly-by-night operators in major cities. Therefore quality of curriculum, content and delivery varies from centre to centre. Although a lot of them have international partnerships, very few actually enforce them.

Once these challenges are met the sector can see a surge in revenues as well as becoming an interesting job opportunity for the country’s emerging creative youth.

2D and 3D animation techniques, animation courses, Courses in Animation, Degree in Animation, 

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