What Is Link:
LINK is a three-week internship where students go out in to the community and sometimes the world and intern with businesses. Students contact businesses that work in a field that interest them, first by e-mail, then a follow up phone call, and eventually meet with their mentor to work out a schedule and discuss what the internship will look like. Students then spend the three weeks learning about their chosen fields.
ROcky Mountain Animation Labs:
I completed my LINK internship at Rocky Mountain Animation Labs. Rocky Mountain Animation Labs is a non-profit animation school in Durango, Colorado. David Tart, who used to work in animation at Pixar, runs the lab. He teaches a wide variety of animation from basic principles to intricate 3D animation.
Aticipation:
At the beginning, I had no idea what I wanted to do for LINK. I was thinking about doing an engineering internship, but there wasn’t any place in town that had exactly what I wanted. This situation led me to explore other options. My main resource for looking for potential places was the list of previous mentors. I was torn between two places, Impyrium, an engineering company, and Rocky Mountain Animation Labs. After thinking about it for a few days, I decided I would rather do a fun internship than a career oriented one. I e-mailed Rocky Mountain Animation Labs, but didn’t hear back from them. I then went to the actual office and got the owner’s business card. A few days after e-mailing Mr. Tart, he responded by saying I might be able to intern. I kept in contact with him for another week, when he decided he could offer an internship. I met with him in person and started discussing my responsibilities and schedule.
I have always loved animated movies. Finding Nemo is one of my all time favorite movies, and I love almost every animated Disney Pixar movie. David Tart was an animator at Pixar. Additionally, one of the best PEAK meetings Animas ever had was when David Tart came and talked about the process of how an animated movie gets made. I thought the process was really fascinating. I’ve always wanted to try animation, and I was in the process of making a short stop motion animation for my digital arts class. I thought this internship would pair well with my interests and current project.
I hope to gain further understanding of the process of animation and new animation techniques and programs.
I have always loved animated movies. Finding Nemo is one of my all time favorite movies, and I love almost every animated Disney Pixar movie. David Tart was an animator at Pixar. Additionally, one of the best PEAK meetings Animas ever had was when David Tart came and talked about the process of how an animated movie gets made. I thought the process was really fascinating. I’ve always wanted to try animation, and I was in the process of making a short stop motion animation for my digital arts class. I thought this internship would pair well with my interests and current project.
I hope to gain further understanding of the process of animation and new animation techniques and programs.
Link Project:
LINK Reflection:
Going into LINK, I possessed some skills that helped my internship be successful. I tend to be creative, so designing a story and bringing it to life through animation was so much fun. I am really good at working with my hands, and this made stop motion animation easier and more enjoyable for me. Animation takes a lot of time, and making a good animation is a huge project. I enjoy having big projects, so this made my final project easier. I tend to not be very patient when it comes to people. However, when it comes to working with my hands I can be very patient. This aspect made the small repetitive movements required for stop motion both enjoyable and simpler.
My main skill development was with in the field of animation. I learned to use the software Dragonframe and Autodesk Maya. Dragonframe is a basic program used to create stop motion movies. Maya is a 3D modeling and animation program. Through my self-study of Maya, I learned the basics of using this program’s animation capabilities, such as creating key frames and editing motion graphs. Additionally, I learned how to model complex objects by transforming and warping simple 3D polygons such as cubes. I also learned the basics of adding and placing textures on the new objects as well as the 12 principles of animation (squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, straight ahead action and pose to pose, follow through and overlapping action, slow in and slow out, arcs, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing, and appeal) that help make animations look more realistic when used correctly.
The main challenge I faced was my self-study of Maya. I spent my entire second week entirely on the computer. This week had no overall goal aside from learning the program, so it was difficult to find inspiration to use the skills I learned in the YouTube tutorials in a project. I learned that I don’t want a career that would place me in front of a computer screen all day.
Rocky Mountain Animation Labs should continue to accept interns. My experience at RMAL was amazing. I learned so much about animation, and through making my own animation, I gained a new appreciation for animation. I used to critique animation just based on the art style and every little mistake brought the animation down in my eyes. I now look at cartoons with new respect, especially the older ones. The amount of work needed to create just a single episode of the Simpsons let alone 600, is tremendous. I now have a great respect the amazing animators that bring characters to life. Even if I notice small errors, I am still amazed by the accuracy of the animation. Animation is something I’ve been curious about for a while, and this internship opened a new artistic medium for me.
While I had an amazing time on my internship, I will continue down the path of engineering. My goal is still to attend Colorado School of Mines after graduation. However, I want to continue creating animations as a hobby.
My main skill development was with in the field of animation. I learned to use the software Dragonframe and Autodesk Maya. Dragonframe is a basic program used to create stop motion movies. Maya is a 3D modeling and animation program. Through my self-study of Maya, I learned the basics of using this program’s animation capabilities, such as creating key frames and editing motion graphs. Additionally, I learned how to model complex objects by transforming and warping simple 3D polygons such as cubes. I also learned the basics of adding and placing textures on the new objects as well as the 12 principles of animation (squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, straight ahead action and pose to pose, follow through and overlapping action, slow in and slow out, arcs, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing, and appeal) that help make animations look more realistic when used correctly.
The main challenge I faced was my self-study of Maya. I spent my entire second week entirely on the computer. This week had no overall goal aside from learning the program, so it was difficult to find inspiration to use the skills I learned in the YouTube tutorials in a project. I learned that I don’t want a career that would place me in front of a computer screen all day.
Rocky Mountain Animation Labs should continue to accept interns. My experience at RMAL was amazing. I learned so much about animation, and through making my own animation, I gained a new appreciation for animation. I used to critique animation just based on the art style and every little mistake brought the animation down in my eyes. I now look at cartoons with new respect, especially the older ones. The amount of work needed to create just a single episode of the Simpsons let alone 600, is tremendous. I now have a great respect the amazing animators that bring characters to life. Even if I notice small errors, I am still amazed by the accuracy of the animation. Animation is something I’ve been curious about for a while, and this internship opened a new artistic medium for me.
While I had an amazing time on my internship, I will continue down the path of engineering. My goal is still to attend Colorado School of Mines after graduation. However, I want to continue creating animations as a hobby.