Over my years at CCAD, I have worked to coordinate close to forty visiting artists talks on campus. Each event is different. Sometimes, multiple artists will stay on campus for a couple days, speaking to large crowds in our auditorium and holding workshops around campus throughout their visit. Other times, talks can be on a much more intimate level with a smaller group of students or artists can even lecture through a Skype call. However, creating a variety of opportunities for students to interact with professionals is extremely important, and I constantly make an effort to arrange these types of events on a regular basis for my students. Below are some highlights from the visiting artists I have brought to the CCAD campus.
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Lauren MacMullan, Director at Disney Animation
Lauren MacMullan, the writer/ director of Disney's academy award nominated short 'Get a Horse!', will be visiting CCAD on November 24, 2014. She will be spending time with the students in class and also speaking to the public at 6pm in the Canzani Auditorium. Lauren has had a very impressive career in the animation industry thus far and also holds the distinction of being Disney's first solo female director in the history of the company.
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| Lecturing on stage at CCAD |
Dominic Bianchi (Supervising Director) and Mark Hentemann (Head Writer/ Producer) visited CCAD on April 29, 2013 and gave
students a rare peek behind the curtain, showing what goes into creating
a weekly, half-hour, prime-time network television program.
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Rasmus Tamstorf, Research Scientist for Disney Animation
Rasmus Tamstorf, though employed by Disney Animation, is a 3D Research Scientist at heart. He is tasked with developing new tools that animators can use in their day to day work. In 2011, Rasmus lectured at CCAD about a paper he had just presented at SIGGRAPH that covered new ways of dealing with simulated hair (which was used in the rendering of Rapunzel's long hair in 'Tangled') as well as new techniques that would allow a soft 3D character model to realistically and automatically interact with hard objects. For example, the flesh on the character's hand would spread and squash as it made contact with a solid object.
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| Lecturing at Columbia University’s Computer Graphics Group |
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| The poster advertising Rasmus' visit |
Four artists from The Simpsons (Raymond Persi/ Director, Alex Ruiz/ Layout Artist, Norm Auble/ Assistant Director and Shane Sowell/ Layout and Storyboards) visited CCAD's campus and discussed their work on the show. Additionally, each artist conducted their own workshop on varying topics and also reviewed student work.
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| Krusty the Clown by Alex Ruiz |
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| Simpsons Artists Review Portfolios with students |
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| Steve Umbleby (far right) Talks with Alex Ruiz |
Kristin Solid, Animator
Kristin Solid visited CCAD in 2006 not long after she finished her work on Peter Jackson's 'King Kong'. Out of the sixty animators who worked on that film, she was one of only four total female animators. She talked about her work as well as being a female in a still male dominated industry.
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Keith Tiernan, Vice President and Creative Director, Games at Nickelodeon
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| Monkey Quest, a popular Nickelodeon game |
Keith Tiernan visited campus and spoke with students in 2005 when he was an artist at Neopets, a small online game company, before it was purchased by Nickelodeon.
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Glenn Vilppu, Life Drawing Instructor
Glenn Vilppu, a renowned west coast life drawing instructor, spent three days with students at CCAD in 2004 teaching them the importance of gesture, volume and construction as it relates to life drawing. Glenn has conducted life drawings sessions at all the major animation studios and has taught around the world with this key phrase at the heart of his lectures: 'There are no rules, just tools'.
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Samples of visiting artist posters
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