The iAnimate feature experience by alumni Joost van Schaik

When I heard a few years ago that Jason Ryan was about to start iAnimate, I was instantly excited about the idea and wanted to be part of the first group of students. I had taken online classes before, but I felt I needed to refine my skill set. You can imagine that I was really excited about the iAnimate concept to prepare animators for feature productions by working closely together with top notch feature animation instructors and mimic a production environment during the classes. I was blown away by the quality of the classes and the knowledge of the mentors during the one-on-one weekly reviews. It’s a very special feeling when you can discuss your work directly with your mentor in person when you are at the other side of the ocean.

Also the rigs that iAnimate provides are top quality fast rigs that are a joy to work with. They have so much appeal that I felt at times that we were spoiled a bit with these new toys that were given to us every workshop.

There is one more thing that I have not mentioned yet. On the website there is a little button that contains a hidden gem. The “vault” section. The holy grail for animation students. This is a selection of demo’s, tutorials, interviews and a collection of the best lectures of the iAnimate instructors that are collected every workshop. It is a wealth of knowledge with hours of video tutorials and lectures. This section is constantly updated with new gems that are added regularly. Alumni have a lifetime membership and have access to all those lectures and new videos. So you can imagine where you can find me when I have some free time.

iAnimate helped me to be prepared as an animator for feature animation and I cannot thank the team and mentors enough for generously sharing their knowledge and their time to help others to become better animators.

I would highly recommend iAnimate to all animators who want to become feature ready. And now with the collaboration between iAnimate and Cinesite new exciting times will be ahead for new iAnimate students and alumni.

All the best and Happy animating,
Joost van Schaik