Colin’s Bear and Oshawa’s UOIT/Durham College Animation Offerings
As you may know I live in Oshawa, Ontario and was thinking about brushing up on my animation skillset. Mainly, taking another shot at Maya.
It turns out UOIT and Durham College offer an animation program, focusing on Game Development I think. Anyway there are two videos on youtube that caught my eye.
Colin’s Bear is just stunningly hilarious. This 15 second animation gets funnier the more times you watch it. If you are even marginally on the cusp of the animation industry you will get all the jokes he managed to pack in here. Brilliant.
The Durham College Animation Program listing on youtube is remarkable for one fact: there is NO animation at all on the reel! Nothing. Nada. Just that incredibly annoying two-camera interview technique where someone isn’t looking into the camera.
Poking around the UOIT website I found something good though. There’s a program called Summer Shorts for kids aged 13 and up featuring video game design, Maya, writing, PR, public speaking … 13 years old?!? Not only will I try to get my 10 year old son enrolled, but I will try to audit as well! OK maybe not, but it’s an “incredibly creative workshop” series that really stands out.
4 thoughts on “Colin’s Bear and Oshawa’s UOIT/Durham College Animation Offerings”
Hi Rick,Colin’s Bear animation made its rounds through our studio as well. It quite literally brought one of the animators to tears! It’s quite an amazing piece of work.I just stumbled across your blog today, and I’ve really enjoyed reading through your posts. I just thought I’d say hello from one Oshawa animator to another! Keep up the good work!-matt
Thanks Matt!
Hi Rick, I know this post is late, but somehow i linked to your blog. I'm a professor at Durham.UOIT and Durham are two separate institutions with separate programs. Colin's Bear was produced by a student at UOIT's Game Development and Entrepreneurship program.Durham College has two programs, Games Development (which logically focuses on games modelling, animating and level design), and Animation – Digital Arts/Production (which focuses on character animation and film editing). Games Development is newer, so it doesn't have a proper reel yet, but Animation's reel can be found in our Facebook group (i see you're a member) here:http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=14921265828&oid=2354084921Summer Shorts is also a Durham College program, not UOIT's (in fact, its very first camp was Animation). It's aimed at kids in high school who might be thinking of a career in the arts, but adults can also join – i have taken some of the camps myself. Did you or your son eventually take a look?Thanks for your interest!Gary Chapple
Thanks for clearing that up Gary. Sadly we didn’t make it to Summer Shorts but knowing that dads can join in, and that my 11 year old might have a shot at it, we are looking forward to any announcements regarding 2009.