NYU's CADA versus San Francisco's Academy of art?

[probeman]

anybody know which would be the better school between these two?

[mikleing]

NYU is clearly the more reputable institution, but AAC is good for having a lot of CG people and resources that creates the right environment for many people to learn CG skills. Can you share anything more about your background, needs, and priorities? These are very different places.

-jeremy

[probeman]

My background is an unrelated BA in geography. I have taken some basic traditional art classes and one intro maya class. I would like to go to a school where i could learn visual fx and animation. i don't mind doing some techincal stuff as well as artistic. I'm interested in dynamics as well as animation and creative design. I'm also looking at bournmouth in england, the school of visual arts, and gnomon. The NYU degree is not the TISCH, its in CADA, just to clarify. I've also looked at Savannah, but i don't want to live there. Ringling doesn't seem to have much visual Fx stuff at all. What do you think about bournemouth and VFS?

Thanks again, Alan.

[dylanmaxwell]

I went to SCAD, work as a freelancer in NYC and teach at NYU-CADA. When it comes down to it, wharever you go you get back what you put into it. Savannah is not a bad place to live. The school however is ONLY INTERESTED IN YOUR MONEY.
-D

[dsinisa]

Well, I actually think you should choose more by which place has more of the companies you want to work for... Broadly, Cali does the big corporate stuff and NYC does the indie stuff. Cali artists are more likely to be employed by a company long term vs. NY artists who shift from freelance job to freelance. Since your best contacts are going to be local, keep the general job market in mind. While all of these places have a student coordinator who knows the industry, her contacts may be limited in another city, and if you have to move, you'll be doing that much more networking on your own...

I went to CADA. You do have to have a strong artistic background to get the most out of it. The program offers very few traditional art classes if you need to get up to speed. Most of the people I graduated with were interested in doing TD work, although there were also a handful of broadcast designers, compositors and medical animators. There were very few people interested in character animation, so if that's the only thing you want to do, I would go somewhere else.

Hope I've helped...
em

[imhotep397]

I am currently grad. at at CADA and I can personally say based on experience that it's a significantly better program than it has been, and that shoud be pretty interesting to hear. CADA has problems, it's not perfect, but it's a pretty strong program and it is tough particularly if you don't have a fine arts background. That's the position I've been in and found it pretty difficult. (this is for a lot reasons in addition to the program itself though, but that's a whole different issue.)

My background is in film production not art, but I was very interested in and pursued developing my traditional art skills almost a year before I started and now three years later it's finally paying off. The previous poster's info is a little out of date about the character animation stuff. With a addition of Misha Z from Mainframe, Pixar, and ILM as character TD at the last two, I think, character animation is the strength of the program now. She completely redesigned the course structures, for character, and brought in Micheal Wharton. Mike was a character TD at Quietman for years and his class is awesome and fun. One of the characters Mike animated was the "Blue Wire Character" for an AT & T spot. The instructors just bring a lot of industry experience to the table and if they see that you're working really hard and you're work is good they really get behind you, atleast that's my experience.

Hope that helped

Be Safe ,
Butch