The ZON Digital Animation Advanced Lab at UT Austin is offering a unique eight-week summer session on digital animation designed expressly for adults with advanced animation experience.  The labs, which begin June 8 and run through July, 2011, will be held Mondays and Wednesdays, one course for three hours in the morning and one for three hours in the afternoon.  One additional Friday session will feature guest speakers who are specialists in various areas of digital animation.  All labs will take place on the UT Austin campus.

The cost for participating in all three labs is $1,250. Though the deadline for applicants was April 15th, the program has a few spots still available.  The Labs run similar to a normal university summer school course and are priced to cover technology and instructor expenses.  Summer film programs around the country often exceed $3,000 in total fees. The ZON Digital Animation Advanced Labs offer students and professionals an affordable, singular opportunity to advance one's animation skills and experience. Applicants must be students or professionals in the field of animation. The selection of eight participants per course will be made jointly by ZON and UT Austin. Applications must send:

• CV
• Objectives in participating in the program
• Portfolio

to RTF professor Sharon Strover at: sharon.strover@austin.utexas.edu

ZON DIGITAL ADVANCED ANIMATION LAB DETAILS

Animated Project Conception - Lab 1
June 8 - July 27th
Mon/Wed, 9am-12pm
Instructor: Geoff Marslett (bio at bottom of page)

Geoff Marslett will teach Animated Project Conception and Management. Students will develop a short animated project. They will learn the basics of animated film writing, character design, storyboarding, animatic creation and project management. Though they will only produce a "proof of concept" sample during the class, they will write and plan for the entire animated short.  Next they will focus on designing compelling characters and developing the style in which they will animate their finished short. We will use Flash, Photoshop, and After Effects to create individual styles of animation for each student. We will also explore stop motion and rotoscoping techniques.  Finally students will use compositing techniques to bring all of these elements together into one cohesive project. We will work on text designs for credits and titles. We will also go over rendering into specific formats and finishing out the the short in a professional manner.  The final week of the course will also focus on bringing the two halves of the workshop together allowing for integration of work done for Ben Bays and work done for Geoff Marslett to be merged into one finished film.

Compositing and Image Integration - Lab 2
June 8 - July 27th
Mon/Wed, 2pm-5pm
Instructor: Ben Bays (bio at bottom of page)

Ben Bays’ class will address the integration of image, video and 3D surface: compositing and projection in Maya and After Effects.  Students will explore the projection of texture onto 3D forms and learn how to leverage those techniques to create matte paintings, facades and digital environments.  A second component of the course will focus on translating the human performance into 3D with Matchmoving, Tracking, Rigging and Deformations.  Students will capture performance footage and use tracking data to build articulated skeletons for use in 3D animation.  The third component of the class will examine building spatial volumes and physical simulations: clouds, fluids, rigid body, soft body and cloth.  Students will create procedural simulations and explore advanced materials/particle rendering.

Animation Techniques:  Visitors and Modules - Lab 3
June 10th - July 29th
Fridays, 1pm-5pm

The class will meet on Fridays for enrichment lectures from various specialists in certain areas.  Austin has a wealth of excellent animators who will visit the University to share their techniques and ideas. 

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GEOFF MARSLETT is a native Texan who took a circuitous path to filmmaking, studying mathematics, philosophy, art, science, and languages at St. John’s College (1996) before returning to Texas to pursue an MFA in filmmaking at UT (2001). In addition to making films, Geoff currently teaches in the RTF Department at the University of Texas at Austin.  He has directed fourteen short films and a half dozen segments for other directors’ television and film programs, and been fortunate enough to collaborate with a wide variety of artists, filmmakers, and musicians along the way. His critically acclaimed Monkey vs. Robot screened at over 30 festivals worldwide, was distributed theatrically, and ultimately broadcast on HBO, PBS, and Univision. His most recent short, Bubblecraft, premiered in 2006 and served as a laboratory for developing his own unique animation process and style. Geoff wrote software specifically for animating this film and later co-wrote an expanded version of this software for his next project, MARS.

MARS is a feature length rotoscoped, sci-fi, romantic comedy which he completed in March 2010. Geoff was the writer, co-producer, director, and character animator on MARS—which proved by far the most complex artistic effort he has undertaken and easily the one he is most proud of. MARS continues to screen worldwide at festivals and has just been acquired for limited theatrical screenings and worldwide television and VOD distribution.  In 2009 Geoff was named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine. His teaching was also recognized in 2009 when he was awarded the University of Texas’ Board of Regents’ Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award. He has written (or co-written) four feature length screenplays and is beginning pre-production on a new feature this spring. You can check out www.swervepictures.com for updates on his work, or the details of other projects he has produced, shot, or otherwise helped out on.

BEN BAYS is an Austin, Texas native who has produced a variety of motion graphics, digital paintings, animation and virtual worlds for commercials, shorts, features, series and interactive media for over a decade.  His work has been shown on television, in theatrical release, on various consoles ranging from the Gamecube, PS2, XBOX, GameboyDS, iphone, and PC.  His specialty in interactive media has always been virtual worlds.  From concept artist to environment lead to art lead on a variety of projects: isometric pre-painted backgrounds, full 3D environments, 2.5D platformers, even tile based destructible environments. Currently, he is the In-World Composite Director at Videoranch,  A persistent 3D world that delivers live, real time content of live music and video performances.  He currently teaches Motion Graphics and Visual Effects and Computer Animation and 3D Modeling (Maya) at UT as well as Modeling and Surfacing for Video Games (3DS MAX) at Austin Community College.  His passion is, and has always been creating virtual worlds and awakening that passion in others.  He firmly believes 3D, effects, compositing and digital painting are techniques that can be learned by anyone and loves to be a part of that.