Someone asked me a question about how I prepared for my CalArts application so I thought I'd share it here as well, hope its helpful to someone :)
lovegood-hall0ws said:
Hi
Reg, I'm a student from the UK who really wants to study at CalArts for
charanimation. I understand that you're from here too and i would
looooove to know what steps you took to prepare yourself for application
(eg classes etc) and how you'd recommend anyone go about it. I'm sorry
if this bothers you so don't feel like you have to answer but I would
really love some sort of guide as this so daunting! Love your work too! x
Hey
there, no worries, I’d be happy to give advice. Yeh I applied for this
September and was accepted, but unfortunately I had to cancel due to
unsuccessful funding. Which leads me to my first piece of advice, know
how you’re going to pay for it haha. As an international student, you
have to prove you have over £40,000 in the bank ready for the entirety
of the first year ONLY, to prove you are able to fund yourself.
So, how I prepared:
The summer before I started to put my portfolio together (about now a year ago since I decided really late that I was going to apply) I looked at my drawings as critically as possible to find where I needed to improve, I’m quite good at self critiques so I knew where I needed to improve, so if you need help, ask lecturers or anyone you know related to the animation industry, I’d be happy to help as well so let me know if you want me to take a look.
Once I knew what areas I needed to develop, I took some time for myself and went on a 10 day holiday just drawing. I started loosening up, looking at gesture and simplifying the forms, getting used to drawing with pen ect.. Once I got back, I started looking at developing my longer drawings, I used http://artists.pixelovely.com/ to practice 5/10 min poses when i didn’t have a model, but tried to draw from life as much as possible.
I was able to use my university course work as the majority of my ‘other work’ portfolio as well which helped hit 2 birds with 1 stone. But I spent a lot of time working on life drawing and other stuff to prepare my portfolio which put me behind on my course, so if you are studying, try to use as much work for both if possible and keep an eye out in case you fall behind.
Another thing that helped was although I knew I’d apply for the later deadline (December/January time) I aimed to get a portfolio ready for September one so I then had 4 months to critique it, see what was week, what I was missing, and develop that to make it better.
All in all, go out and draw from life and let your imagination go wild. Pull stories from daily events, draw interesting gestures of people going about life, paint that building you’ve always loved at different times of the day. In essence, try to project as much of yourself as possible into your work. At the end of the day, they accept people, not drawings. And remember to play with lots of different media’s, not for them, but for your own enjoyment.
CalArts love artists, not animators!
Good luck and have fun :)
So, how I prepared:
The summer before I started to put my portfolio together (about now a year ago since I decided really late that I was going to apply) I looked at my drawings as critically as possible to find where I needed to improve, I’m quite good at self critiques so I knew where I needed to improve, so if you need help, ask lecturers or anyone you know related to the animation industry, I’d be happy to help as well so let me know if you want me to take a look.
Once I knew what areas I needed to develop, I took some time for myself and went on a 10 day holiday just drawing. I started loosening up, looking at gesture and simplifying the forms, getting used to drawing with pen ect.. Once I got back, I started looking at developing my longer drawings, I used http://artists.pixelovely.com/ to practice 5/10 min poses when i didn’t have a model, but tried to draw from life as much as possible.
I was able to use my university course work as the majority of my ‘other work’ portfolio as well which helped hit 2 birds with 1 stone. But I spent a lot of time working on life drawing and other stuff to prepare my portfolio which put me behind on my course, so if you are studying, try to use as much work for both if possible and keep an eye out in case you fall behind.
Another thing that helped was although I knew I’d apply for the later deadline (December/January time) I aimed to get a portfolio ready for September one so I then had 4 months to critique it, see what was week, what I was missing, and develop that to make it better.
All in all, go out and draw from life and let your imagination go wild. Pull stories from daily events, draw interesting gestures of people going about life, paint that building you’ve always loved at different times of the day. In essence, try to project as much of yourself as possible into your work. At the end of the day, they accept people, not drawings. And remember to play with lots of different media’s, not for them, but for your own enjoyment.
CalArts love artists, not animators!
Good luck and have fun :)
