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| Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? How long you have been working in the VFX industry and what got you started?
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I came up through the Lightwave Community; my first job was at Foundation Imaging where I worked on the last few Foundation episodes of Babylon 5. From there I put in time on Star Trek Voyager, and eventually set up the pipeline to do 40 episodes of Roughnecks the Star Ship Trooper Chronicles. I had to hire so many people to work on that show that I started to spend a lot of time thinking about what people should know about coming into the industry, and eventually that led to the creation of The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School or DAVE School.
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| Can you tell us about the DAVE School? |
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The DAVE School was set up, in June of 2000, with the specific goal of teaching the incredible ideas, techniques, and creative approaches that you could only learn working at a studio. The idea was to institutionalize this knowledge for the future.
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| What sets the DAVE School apart from other animation/VFX programs (key strengths)?
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Production is the key. During the production of Roughnecks at Foundation, I was taking people who barely understood the software and hurling them head first into production. The vast majority of these people found their stride and went on to do amazing work. At the DAVE School, our students spend 9 intensive months learning how to perform all of the major functions at a studio, which they would take with them into a 3 month production experience. This is very different from schools where you "make your own movie" because that's not likely to be your first job. Your first job will be helping a team create media working under the direction of an established chain of command. At our school it is the instructor who is making the film and the class does all the work. The instructors include Lee String and Ron Thornton, both of whom have VFX Emmy’s and years of experience leading crews on high profile projects. As a result we have over 15 short films created over the years; each by a different class.
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| What resources (books, websites, etc.) have played important roles in your school's curriculum?
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The internet has been critical to our program. I think our staff does an excellent job of staying in communication with the industry, giving our students constant feedback on their work from people all over the world. If we had tried to run a program like this in Orlando, pre internet, it would be way too easy to fall behind the rest of the world. Our block one instructor William "Proton" Vaughan, runs Spinquad.com, which has been a huge asset for our students as well as the whole animation community. We recently hired a new Webmaster who will be building a sister site that helps people who know nothing about CGI get up to speed.
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| What are the key factors that motivated your switch to Fusion from the other compositing applications you previously used? |
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I travel to Los Angeles a few times a year to visit the companies that hire our graduates so I can get their feedback on our training. Over the last few visits I have seen the vast majority of these companies switch to Fusion. It became clear that if our training is going to remain relevant, it has to include Fusion. For a long time it seemed like After Effects was the great common denominator, and now it's Fusion.
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| What component(s) of the curriculum will Fusion be a part of? |
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In the third quarter of our program we focus on the combining of live action footage with student generated animation. The students perform set extensions, wire removals, green screens, and rotoscoping. We also have Nick Bougen (from Rainmaker) who is helping us work up a new project doing CGI muzzle replacements on animals.
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| What features of Fusion do you feel stand out the most from an educational and real-world standpoint? |
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I really like the fact that we are teaching a node based compositing program. Even if our students work at companies that use other products, most are node based and that is not likely to change anytime soon.
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| Where can graduates of the program expect to find work? |
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We have graduates working all over the globe, but some of the higher profile companies include Disney Feature Animation, EA Sports, Digital Domain, Lightstorm Entertainment, Zoic Studios, Radical 3D, Rhythm + Hues Box, Terminal Reality, and Activision.
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All images courtesy of Dave School.