Sure! If you haven’t already, you should check out the Animation department’s website: gradshow.com There are open houses on February 11^th and March 10^th that you should go to if you’re able, and don’t be afraid to bring some stuff for critique. I’m gonna swallow my pride and show you some stuff I put in my application portfolio to give you an idea of where I was skill wise. I think I had about 2-3 things that could be considered “finished” in my portfolio, the rest were rough sketches that were more about construction and gesture. And don’t underestimate the importance of including life drawing.  I live in a pretty small, conservative town so I had to travel out of town in order to find a life drawing drop in. Hopefully you’ll be luckier than I was and have something available where you live. On the website there’s an info kit pdf that includes advice for putting your application together, follow it to a T. This probably seems obvious but it doesn’t hurt to overstate it.

The majority of the teachers are currently working in the industry, which makes a huge difference. A lot of animation courses, especially in university, are taught by people who have degrees in animation but no industry experience which isn’t overly helpful. If you haven’t seen the classrooms, they’re filled with old school animations desks. Students animate on paper, then shoot them with a program like TV Paint to show for critiques. They teach digital programs later on, but stuff is done classically the majority of the time throughout the course. The main idea is that learning the essentials of animation is much more important and difficult than learning any given program. The first year is a bit more broad, including writing, animation history and directing along with life drawing, design and layout. The second year is more intense for sure, adding in storyboarding, colour theory, digital painting and an advanced animation project you’ll need to work on throughout the year. You might hear horror stories about having to stay overnight to get projects done, but honestly I never had to do that. Neither did most other people in my class, it’s more down to how good you are personally with time management. I did have 20 hour days leading up to Grad Show though, but it’s not a regular occurrence.

The school itself is really nice. If you haven’t seen it for yourself it’s pretty much like a forest with a school inside of it. Cap is mostly known for its art and music programs, so it’s not like the course was just tacked on for the hell of it. Best of all there’s a Tim Hortons in the cafeteria, which was a godsend. So this was kind of rambley! I hope it was helpful, if you have any other other questions go ahead and ask. Or if I missed anything feel free to add your 2 cents, Cap bros.