School helps students transform digital hobbies into careers
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By Renee Tomell
Lombard Spectator
Fri Apr 03, 2009, 12:54 PM CDT
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What parents once criticized as a time-waster could actually prove to be a career fast-track. Video-game-obsessed youngsters might be grooming themselves for a successful profession in the digital arts, which are turning virtual worlds into real money.
The field is winning new applications in diverse industries.
“Animation is being used very heavily in medical education, as well as video games,” said Perry Harovas of St. Charles, who chairs the Visual Effects/Animation department at Flashpoint, The Academy of Media Arts and Sciences, which was founded in the fall of 2007 as the first new college in Chicago in a half-century. “It’s helping people see how a process could be done without having to put somebody under the knife. We can use animation to show simplified versions of structures inside the body and how an operation might be performed. Students are able to grasp the details without the ick factor.”
From developing brain teaser games designed to keep older minds nimble, to those targeted toward improving fitness like Wii Fit, demand is up for people with digital skills. Teamwork training at the academy is designed to lend future job candidates professional social polish.
On employer wish lists, talent usually comes in fourth or fifth, said Flashpoint CEO and President Howard Tullman. Sought even more than talent are job candidates with people skills, including communications, networking, accountability, attention to detail and responsiveness.
“Corporate and business partners that we’re starting to work with really understand interactive technology is the wave, in everything from sales to education and training,” Tullman said.
He said a paradigm shift is coming in education techniques, citing the failure of the traditional lecture format at universities to hold the interest of their student audience.
“We see the need to be immersive, experiential, to involve students actively, not passively in the process,” he said.
An example of the growing digital presence is the game the academy designed for The Rehabilitation Institute, a downhill skiing experience to make repetitive shoulder exercises fun. Tullman said people initially were surprised at the client, but the advent of Wii Fit now makes such applications commonplace.
“That’s just one aspect we’ve seen on how the whole world is migrating into visual and digital media,” Tullman said. “Even games are not games anymore, but mini-movies. We need scripts, sound designers, animators.”
Harovas, a noted animator and author, believes the medium of animation is a particularly useful educational tool.
“Animation and visual effects create something that didn’t exist before, and can be used to tell stories that are too sensitive to tell any other way,” he said.
He likens it to the 1960s sci-fi of “Star Trek,” which tackled race relations, for example, by setting confrontations in the future on alien-inhabited planets. It was a non-controversial way to nurture a world in which everybody lives together harmoniously.
“I believe that’s an excellent way to teach ... our children, how to interact with other people and their environment,” he said.
“Our children today are being brought up with such software savvy,” he added. “They’re coming to the school here on fire to learn: ‘How do I use that piece of software?’ But the thing that employers want the most is not a mastery of (specific) software, but something I call the MacGyver factor: You can use the tools, but can you use them to make a digital can opener, to do something they weren’t originally designed to do? That shows creative problem-solving. It’s huge with employers and the most necessary thing to teach in digital arts.”
Harovas said the use of film visual effects has been greatly expanded beyond its staple presence in action movies to other cinema genres, subtly lending a painterly touch and directing the viewer’s eye.
“It’s being done to give a brush to the directors,” he explained.
The digital field marries artist and techie.
“All the algorithms and artistic decisions that lead to a better story are the things that do matter,” Harovas said. “It’s never boring, which is why I like it. I love puzzles. It’s almost like deciphering the magic trick.”
Student perspective
Such stuff as dreams are made on: Three Flashpoint students share their aspirations.
Richard Murphy, 18, La Grange, in his first year in game development:
“The courses ... quickly separate the gamers who went there thinking it would be playing video games from the people that really want to make the games. One of the best things about a game development skill set (is): It doesn’t pin you to a certain career. I could go and get a job on a game development team, such as Bungie or Valve, or I could just as well get a job for a collar-and-tie company adding interactivity to their Web site, making ads using 3-D modeling and animation tools, or even programming their own custom applications to help with their job. My perfect career plan would be getting a job with a game development team and making games with them.”
Brock Woldman, 23, Lombard, second year:
“I’m in game design. I’m focusing on environment art. In video games, every background (prop) or anything in the game I would create. We have to collaborate with other disciplines like sound, film, animation. Everyone has to work together to complete the task, which has been very helpful. I’m on a team right now creating a parent-child co-op game. There isn’t a game out there like this. Parent and child have to work together to complete tasks on the screen, which will help (their) relationship by communicating and problem-solving together.”
Dream job? “My number one would be Infinity Ward, based in California. They make the ‘Call of Duty’ games.”
Austin Urlaub, 23, of Downers Grove, second year:
Dream job? “Pixar would be. Right now, that’s a long shot, it takes a lot of work to get in there, (but) somewhere down the road. My talent would be character animator. I would bring the character to life. I’ve been in love with that since I saw ‘Toy Story’ in 1995. I would sit and animate little hand drawings. I would love to do an animated feature film. Right now, I’m looking into lots of companies that do video games or small animations for commercials. I’ve been surprised to see how many companies are hiring. (It’s) a very fast-growing field, also very competitive. It does help if you have a 2-D background with drawings, so you can visualize it on paper and then you can throw it into the 3-D world.”
Urlaub also has studied digital arts at College of DuPage.
