▲ A still from a DAVE School block four student project, The Good Lifers
Advertising feature: A new DAVE is dawning as this well-respected Florida-based school reboots itself for an ever-changing learning environment and industry
www.daveschool.com
This is a year of expansion and new beginnings for DAVE (Digital Animation and Visual Effects) School, as its staff prepare to bring three new programmes into the curriculum: game art, character animation and working with 3D printing. The school is now in its 12th year of delivering a high-calibre, leading-edge student experience.
“We’re on the backlot of Universal Studios, Orlando, on Soundstage 25,” says Jeff Scheetz, founder and Executive Director of DAVE School. “We have an 11,000 sq ft soundstage and a motion-capture stage. We frequently shoot films on the backlot and on the Islands of Adventure.”
Life of Pi, The Hobbit and Captain America: The First Avenger are just some of the recent movies that DAVE School graduates have worked on. “Our big claim to fame is that five movies nominated for Oscars in 2013 had a DAVE School graduate working on them – that’s 58 students across the five films,” says Scheetz. “It’s getting very common to have DAVE School alumni on Emmy Award-winning projects, too. They have made profound work.”
▲ Traditional films studies help students put their own work in context
DAVE traditionally trains students in LightWave for companies working on VFX for TV, but Scheetz says the new programmes broaden the school’s range. “We’ve expanded, retooled and gone mainstream. What we’re doing is aimed at the mainstream industry, and I think we will be quite a powerful training centre.”
DAVE is now an established VFX training school, and is committed to training its students in character animation and videogame art. As with its established teaching and learning programmes in visual effects work, the new courses will make group projects key to the study of each discipline.
With an 85-per-cent placement rate for graduates in the film and TV industry, DAVE School is very much a part of the digital media landscape in filmmaking. By embarking on the new programmes, DAVE School will provide students with the chance to work with industry-standard software, including Maya and V-Ray. Furthermore, alongside its core image-making education and training, DAVE School is also anticipating offering a programme in screenwriting.
The impulse underpinning the significant growth in DAVE’s programmes, explains Scheetz, is that DAVE School works back from what employers want. “I was a VFX artist in LA, where I took Foundation Imaging from having five or six artists to having 200. I was going through so many resumés as an employer that this was where the original concept for DAVE School was born.”
▲ DAVE students Any Chen and Michael Amato created The Good Lifers in their final year
The school consults with various companies and practitioners to ensure that the teaching and learning is current and forward-looking. In keeping with the new sense of direction for DAVE School, in 2012 it hosted the First Robotics Competition.
This served as a training event for students to use Creo, a 3D modelling application used in the engineering industry. This broadening in the remit of how visual effects and animation production can be applied beyond the world of movies offers intriguing prospects.
ANGLES ON LEARNING
A typical class size at DAVE School consists of between 20 and 30 students. Throughout their training, there are numerous opportunities for the students to collaborate. Students also conduct project analysis and review their works in progress, as well as work completed in order to take lessons through from one project to the next. Students attend classes in film studies to learn from the traditions of filmmaking and put their own work into context. By offering a rounded view of film production, DAVE School allows students to create a balance between personal work and the needs of the industry.
The courses students undertake at DAVE are structured around four subject blocks. First up is digital modelling and texturing. This block leads to a second focusing on the fundamentals of computer animation – rigging, posing, facial mocap and animation for computer games. The third block allows students to transfer many of the skills they learnt in the first two blocks into the realm of visual effects. Finally, the fourth block of study gives students the opportunity to work with stereoscopic 3D.
▲ Students train using industry-standard technology
Significantly, students are encouraged to develop a wide range of skills and capacities in visual effects and animation rather than specialising in particular disciplines too soon. The idea is to equip students with a diverse skillset that will offer them more opportunities as they venture into the worlds of film and gaming content production. In pursuing filmmaking, animation and visual effects ambitions, there are technological skills and aesthetic rules to be understood that will allow you to achieve the most memorable and vivid images in your portfolio of work, and DAVE’s commitment to pre-viz is key in this. Pre-viz technology and process is seen as a way to engage students with the animation production pipeline, and also to develop students’ understanding of cinematic language.
“We provide training about industry expectations regarding demo reel content and presentation,” says Jeff Scheetz. “We’ve tried to shorten the distance between LA and Orlando by visiting several pre-viz and games companies. I think we’ll be a great choice for gaming.”
At DAVE School, students have direct access to a career services director for demo reel critique and feedback. And as a standard part of preparing its students for work, each programme at DAVE School includes a run of mock interview situations. Also, hiring studios visit DAVE School to meet graduates face to face.
As it prepares to initiate and deliver the new programmes, DAVE School has recruited several new instructors, several of whom previously worked at Florida-based effects and animation studio Digital Domain.
▲ An instructor leads each class and is supported by teaching assistants
LIFE AFTER DAVE
A number of DAVE School graduates are currently working at Weta Digital. Because of the college’s prime location, DAVE is able to readily provide connections and support for students in terms of industry placements. DAVE enjoys a consistent range of student successes on many high-profile projects. For an insight into their work, check out the DAVE School YouTube page. Alumni graduates also use social media to keep in touch, so it’s worth checking Facebook.
A recent DAVE graduate did paintwork on Life of Pi, and a significant number of former DAVE students have worked on effects and animation for recent Marvel movie adaptations (including Iron Man, Captain America and The Avengers). DAVE School has been the main supplier of trained depth artists for 3D conversion house Stereo D, in Burbank, California, which has recently converted Titanic and Jurassic Park to 3D. “We have a few graduates working with some of the greatest Directors in the world. They are literally face-to-face collaborating with Steven Spielberg and James Cameron,” says Scheetz.
▲ DAVE School is located in Sound Stage 25 on the backlot of Universal Studios
GETTING IN THE FRAME
▲ The curriculum focuses on giving students a wide range of skills in VFX and animation
Jeff Scheetz’s advice for students considering an application to DAVE School is to take the longer-term view. “You’ve got to think about what employers want. Are you the solution to their problems? Read up on what the companies out there do, and then say to yourself ‘that’s what I need to be’. We expect people to love this stuff as much as we do. People who travel thousands of miles to be here are usually very serious. We’re looking for people who do this for fun. If you’re interested in coming here, you’re one of us.”
Applying for a place at DAVE School is straightforward. Prospective students must provide proof of a secondary school diploma or equivalent. If an applicant is under 18, they must provide written consent from their parent or guardian. Applicants should also possess basic computer and internet usage skills, and they should be ready to respond to DAVE’s request for a Sample of Creativity, which could range from a short film project or a short story to a digital photograph. The answer is in the question, of course: show them the best example you have of your creative energy.
DAVE School is notable for its diverse international student cohort, with students electing to study there having travelled from Australia, England and Nigeria, among other countries. Scheetz is pleased to note that “right now, we have three students from Saudi Arabia studying with us”.
A member of the Visual Effects Society, DAVE School educates its students in the various related disciplines that comprise animation and visual effects production for the always exciting – and increasingly convergent – worlds of film, TV and computer gaming. “We’re less like an art school and more like training for a job,” Scheetz explains. “A huge part of this is the commerce and business of it all. I’m fired up to push the school to new heights. It’s time for the games industry to hear about DAVE School.”
▲ The green screen stages are installed with Keno-Flow lights
EDUCATOR VIEW
“We’re the school that makes movies”
“We have a tagline: ‘We’re the school that makes movies’,” says DAVE School Executive Director Jeff Scheetz. “These aren’t student films. These are films produced by the school and staff, and the students are working on them. At the end of a block of study, everyone works on the production of a short film. We let them work together, going from pre-viz to rendering to seeing it all come together. This will also be true for our planned game art and character animation programmes.”
DAVE School puts increasing emphasis on the importance of using pre-viz software as a pipeline tool. Pre-viz allows students to explore issues of pace, composition and graphic impact. “We’re crash-coursing the language of cinema using stock objects,” says Scheetz, noting that understanding the benefits of pre-viz is a sensibility that can be transferred across disciplines.
DAVE School’s programme will also begin to train and guide students in the world of 3D printing. “We’re adding character building for 3D printing, and for this we’re offering short-term courses. Our instructors are so excited,” says Scheetz.