By David Hurtado
In addition to more than 70 other clubs and organizations, the college may soon be adding a new animation club, Animators in Motion, to the mix.
The club awaits confirmation from Student Senate. Evan Schiwetz, president, said he founded the club because he wanted student animators to get a feel for how the real world worked.
“I really want to get more of a professional feel for how it’s going to work,” Schiwetz said. “I want to see how it would feel if it was real; not just critiques for students, but I want to know critiques from actual viewers. I think that would really help in growth for students and really help when you want to get your foot in the door.”
Currently the club meets based on members’ availability. Some meetings will take place outside the college where members can take texture pictures, or photos of textures such as brick or grass that can be laid over 3-D animations, to form ideas. Other meetings will occur at the college to work on rigging, which is applying a framework that can be animated to a model, and character-modeling, or adding physical attributes to a model.
Schiwetz said the club will primarily focus on doing freelance work and promotional work for the school and professional companies. He also said United Way, a non-profit organization, has expressed interest in the club doing promotional work for them.
“Our first project is to promote the animation program here at JuCo,” Schiwetz said.
The club deals mostly in computer animation, but would like to broaden their horizons to include other types of animation. Schiwetz expressed interest in mixing live action into their animations.
“I think we want to deal in everything,” he said. “We’re mainly 2-D and 3-D, but I think Claymation would be a great thing to get our hands onto. I want to get film and theatre if the theatre students want to help us out.”
Mike Worley, student and member, said he joined the club because he enjoys making objects move and drawing cartoons and comics. Worley has worked as a cartoonist for Marvel Comics, King Features and Archie Comics.
“I’m not a gamer, I can barely make Tetris work,” Worley said. “But I can draw and that was my emphasis. When I do comic book work, there’s a lot of that same type of emphasis where you make something act, where the characters interact with one another. You establish mood, motion, lighting, all of those things. Even if it’s just on a single comic book page, to be able to put it on something that actually will move, that puts a whole new dynamic to it.”
The club uses the software programs Maya and Toonboom.
For more information about Animators in Motion, contact Jeffery Byers, adviser, at jbyers3@jccc.edu or Evan Schiwetz at eschiwet@jccc.stumail.edu.
Contact David Hurtado, features editor, at dhurtado@jccc.edu.