Academic

"Pajama Galdiator"

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

When we lived in Wisconsin, I noticed occasional announcements in my alumni magazine about the BYU Animation Program, which has produced a number of award-winning films. Last year, my daughter started her college career intent on majoring in some form of visual art. After investigating the Animation Program, she was hooked, and she started taking classes last fall. It's a very cool major at the intersection of technology and art. She works incredibly hard, but she loves what she is doing.

With this personal investment, I was very pleased to read today about the creation of a new BYU Center for Animation. And I was especially pleased to read the remarks of Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios:

"Over the years, Pixar has worked with a lot of different universities around the country and hired people. One of the interesting things is, all of a sudden, in the last few years, we found that BYU has risen to the top. BYU has an extraordinary program here."
...
"It's amazing to suddenly see that BYU is producing the best in the industry.... It's the perception not just at Pixar but also at the other studios that something pretty remarkable is happening here."

If you follow the link above, you can see a preview of the latest film from the BYU animation students entitled "Pajama Gladiator." More stuff here.

Full post as published by Conglomerate on March 28, 2008 (boomark / email).