For those of our readers considering starting a career in animation by picking one of the many, many, many animation schools popping up around the country—consider this advice from our expert panel (made-up of executives, studio owners, decade-long freelance success stories, etc) about which schools they look to when hiring new interns and employees.
What Does Animation Mean?
Animation has been around since the early 1900s when it was used to create classic animated films such as Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906, considered the first example of animation) and The Haunted Hotel (1907). Traditional animation is the process of simulating movement by displaying a series of frames or pictures. In addition to traditional animation, other common types of animation include stop motion (clay animation, puppet animation) and computer animation (2D, 3D). Less common types of animation include sand animation, erasure animation, and pinscreen animation.
Cartooning is the process of creating images that tell a story or represent a person, place or thing. Cartoonists may draw, paint, or digitally create images for use in the animation industry, in publishing, gaming, advertising, web design, and graphic design. Cartoonist may also create images to use for job training materials, in the medical field, in engineering, science, education, technology, and even in the criminal justice field.
