In this 12 week course, students will learn how to animate from the ground up! Beginners welcome, no experience required. We will work through the 12 Principles of Animation in order to better build our vocabulary and train our eyes to understand what makes an animation great, and how we can incorporate what we see into our own stories. 

Week One- Squash and Stretch. We will emphasize speed and momentum, weight and mass in this week.

Week Two- Anticipation. Characters must prepare for an exaggerated movement.

Week Three- Staging. How to present an idea so that it is completely clear to your audience what you're trying to communicate about your character. 

Week Four- Straight Ahead vs. Pose to Pose. We will practice two different types of animation and learn which is better for what circumstance.

Week Five- Follow Through and Overlapping Action. Characters moving through a motion don't just stop at the end! There is often some follow through that happens after the action is complete. Momentum shifts and movement occurs even after a body stops.

Week Six- Slow In and Slow out. All movement starts slowly as momentum builds, and ends slowly as momentum lessens. 

Week Seven- Arcs. Most organic movement happens in circular motions.

Week Eight- Secondary Action. Gestures that support the main action add more dimension and appeal, communicating more to your audience.

Week Nine- Timing. Many frames makes a motion slower while fewer frames makes the action faster. It is up to us to determine how fast we want movements to be.

Week Ten- Exaggeration. Animation requires every action, pose, and facial expression to be taken to the next level in order to impact the audience.

Week Eleven- Solid Drawing. We must make sure forms look like they exist in 3D space. This includes perspective.

Week Twelve- Appeal. Characters and scenes should be interesting to look at. This includes color, composition, design, and lighting.