Many movie producing companies rely on the hands of technology to produce their content. Many may see this as lazy or ‘not real animation.” Surely drawing every frame by frame hand in the days of Walt Disney was way more tedious than the colorfully animated 3-Dimensional movies being produced today. Well, many hard working animators would prove you wrong. 

Pennridge High School offers Intro and Advanced 3D Animation classes. Many students may choose to take these classes because 3D animation should be easy right? Well, not exactly. There are a lot of steps to get to the final product of a movie, and although you may not have to draw out every single frame, a good amount of work and people go into making each and every one of these fun films. For any student interested interested in going into a career of animation, or simple just interested in how 3D movies are made, this class is for you. Students explore the program Zbrush, a 3D sculpting and modeling program on their computers. Students learn how to manipulate the clay using a graphing tablet to create unique characters and scenes as a professional would. Of course, becoming a professional at the program could take awhile as it is much more complex than a 2D program like Photoshop. Mr. Sudac teaches the 3D animation class, and from his perspective, the program can take awhile to learn and even longer to become a professional, especially with the limited time high schoolers have with the class. It does give them a taste for what 3D animation is like. 

Keep in mind that if you were to watch a 3D animated movie like Frozen, every single object in the movie was hand sculpted and moved carefully throughout the set. It’s not as simple as clicking a button and you’re done. This is why movies take so long to actually be released. Character study is also important. In finding Dory, the octopus character Hank, was so complex that it took about two years just to animate a scene with him perfectly. Still think 3D is lazy? To make these characters move, an animation program is used. Students at Pennridge will learn the program Blender, which is a free animation software, and discover how tedious it really is. Students learn how to build a set, light it, and move various objects around the screen. Then, by using a camera, film their scene and create a short film/animation.Of course, in a big studio there would be many people working on a project and not a high schooler, but again you get a taste for what a large animation industry like Pixar or Dreamworks is like.  

Animation is a lot more work than people give it credit for. Many students realize after taking a class like this how tedious and difficult it actually is. If you’re interested in seeing for yourself how animation is done, try the intro to 3D animation class. It will be a fun experience nonetheless!