Pixar Artists Teach Story & Animation at VanArts Masterclass

These 2-day Masterclasses, scheduled for April 2013, will be taught by two instructors who are artists from Pixar Animation Studios, Head of Story Matthew Luhn and animator Andrew Gordon. The classes are designed for experienced animators, story writers, students and animation enthusiasts. The skills covered are not software-specific. Lectures are coordinated with visual material including live-action and animated clips, and supplemented by a printed workbook. The two days are an opportunity to learn techniques from talented animators that can be used to help develop stories and high-quality animation, and to meet and network with others in the industry. www.vanarts.com

As well as 2D/3D animators and character designers, the content and format is expected to suit a diverse group of participants including story and script writers, and filmmakers and developers of feature films, short films and online works. The material is also of interest to video game developers and designers for various devices, and artists including storyboard artists, cartoonists, illustrators and graphic designers. Software developers working on products for 2D/3D animation, modelling, compositing, motion, VFX, simulation and rendering are other candidates, plus students, teachers and trainers.

The first day of the class focuses on story development with instructor Matthew Luhn, including storyboarding and story structure, and the second day follows with animation principles, planning and polishing skills from Andrew Gordon.

Andrew and Matthew are teachers as well as artists, prepared to share their knowledge and experience. Matthew Luhn began his career at Pixar Animation Studios in 1992 as an animator on ‘Toy Story’. Since that time, Matthew has worked as a storyboard artist generating ideas and characters for ‘Toy Story 2’, ‘Monsters Inc.’, ‘Finding Nemo’, ‘Cars’ and lots of others, and also current Pixar movies in development. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, and worked as an animator on the TV show ‘The Simpsons’.

Andrew Gordon has been animating characters at Pixar Animation Studios since 1997, where he has been an animator on ‘A Bug's Life’, ‘Toy Story 2’, ‘The Incredibles’ and others. The characters he has worked on include Mike Wazowski from ‘Monsters Inc.’, Gill from ‘Finding Nemo’, Edna Mode in ‘The Incredibles’ and Linguini from ‘Ratatouille’.

He supervised animation on Pixar’s short film ‘Presto’, and is currently a directing animator on ‘Monsters University’, due for release in 2013. Prior to Pixar, he worked in the Looney Tunes division of Warner Brothers, and was awarded with the Outstanding Character Animation in an Animated Motion Picture award by the VES for his work in ‘Finding Nemo’. Andrew began teaching at the Academy of Art, and has since taught intensive courses around the world and helped initiate many education programs for animators.

The tour will be stopping in Sydney on 12 - 13 April 2013 at the Australian National Maritime Museum, in Melbourne on 5 - 6 April at Deakin University and in Auckland on 16 – 17 April at the Media Design School. Find registration and other information HERE.  www.vanarts.com