<p>Thanks for all your reviews. Very helpful. So exactly how many students CCA accept every year for animation problem? The facilities small doesn’t mean it is no good, however if the student need to use the computer, and they are not available, then it will be a problem. You said you apply 11 schools, so do you know LCAD?</p>
<p>You’re definitely going to be needing a computer, some sort of tablet, and a lightbox when you get here. We have all those, but our facilities are pretty bad and sometimes computers will be short, so be prepared.</p>
<p>I do know of LCAD and did look into it, but did not end up sending out a portfolio or anything really. Don’t remember why though. In fact, I wasn’t going to apply to any California schools because of the high living cost, etc. but CCA caught my eye with their incredible faculty and I think they waived the application fee, so just my dumb luck I ended up getting scholarship there and eventually going there.</p>
<p>Sorry though, I don’t know much about the program at LCAD.</p>
<p>Mbarq really has it right. Talent wins over all else no matter where you go. The most important thing is to land at a school with instructors who can take you to the highest level and train you for the industry. I think (mbarq can correct me) facilities are very important so that you can produce the best possible reel (your resume really) as a senior and get that dream job. But nobody gets a dream job without real talent.</p>
<p>@mbarq90
What kind of animation does CCA focus on? Character? Experimental?</p>
<p>Both character and Experimental</p>
<p>Yeah, facilities will definitely help you make your reel the best it can be, but if you don’t have those resources, you just gotta find another way to get the job done.</p>
<p>“Both character and Experimental”</p>
<p>As marthajpb59 said, CCA does do both. Again, since the program is relatively new (compared to Calarts which has history back to ~1930s or even Ringling ~1980s), we don’t have any set curriculum. Our department chair kind of wants the school to go more the pre-dev way focusing more on concept art, character design, storyboard, etc. </p>
<p>The reality though, we have people here who want to do all kinds of different things. Some want to go into modeling and rigging (we do have a game design class), others want to do pre-vis, a lot of people are actually into stop motion even claymation, and we do have people who are more into the “artsy” side of animation who focus on stuff that isn’t so much character driven and more on the visual experience of moving images (we have stop-motion classes & experimental animation classes).</p>
<p>So, there really is no focus, at least none that the school will impose on you. You basically do what you want and whatever your interest is, we probably have a professor who’s worked on that subject for years now on a professional level: just e-mail them, all the teachers I’ve e-mailed are super nice and very helpful. Just make sure you’ve taken their class and you put something like: “CCA Student” in the subject line" or they’ll just send it to spam.</p>
<p>I will say though, because so many of us at CCA want to go on to work for the big guys like Blue Sky, Pixar, Dreamworks, etc. Our animation program is structuring towards that. Again though, there’s a good amount that don’t really want to do that and want to go more into experimental animation like Colour Box (1935) or Composition in Blue (1935), or even a mix between like Dimensions of Dialogue (1983) or Brothers Quay stuff to a more mainstream version like Coraline (2009).</p>