Clive Smith: ONE OF THREE CO-FOUNDERS of NELVANA LIMITED  visited the school. hired one of our graduates, and sent us the following endorsement!

“Max The Mutt is a small, unique private art school specializing in fine art, illustration, graphic novels and animation. The quality of the faculty is exceptional, comprised of many artists and designers with industry experience. The environment reflects a congenial and creative atmosphere that encourages and supports the students and clearly brings out the very best in them. The students‘ work is really amazing, inventive and technically brilliant,  demonstrating a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and talent. Their work is clearly on a par with the best of the industry and the graduates are all likely to have an tremendous impact on their generation of illustrators and animators.

Clive Smith

Maxine, I would be happy to allow you to publish this letter if it is of any benefit to the school.”

It’s been a very long time since I’ve written for this blog.  My apologies! We’ve all been working very hard to get the school ready for the expansion.  The new space at 1139 College Street West is all set up and waiting for classes to begin!  Roksolana is taking charge of the new gallery: the first show will feature work by our faculty and will be on exhibit for the first two weeks in September.

Expansion also means making sure that all our administrative operations have been upgraded. We need to be more efficient. We need to develop our original mandate to provide both professional development and general interest workshops . We will now have the space to play more of a role in both these areas.

We also have plans to finally get our website into the shape we need it in to share the wonderful events and work that is being produced by our community. I guess you can all understand why we’re tired!

Suggestions for workshops, lectures and/or other services you would like us to perform will be greatly appreciated.

Max the Mutt, once again, is undergoing a transformation.

Do visit the school to see the 2011 student work. I can hardly wait until our website is functional and we can pout up the massive amount of work we want to share wtih you!

It’s almost March! Where has the semester gone? We’re busy making plans for the new “campus,” which will actually be an extension to the current campus at 952 Queen Street West. By 2012 all year 4 animation classes will be held there (1139 College Street West, between Dufferin and Sheridan). This campus includes an art gallery, which really expands our options.

Our opening celebration for 1139 College Street West will be coordinated with the opening of the faculty exhibition in June.  In the meantime we’re busy doing all the things we need to do: building movable walls, cleaning, painting, getting all the government requirements taken care of, working with the electrician to add more lighting.

There’s more exciting news on the way…and it’s so hard to keep from telling you about it! I’m exerting self control.

Hang in there everyone…keep your attitude positive. Spring is not far off. To those of you who will be regular applicants, please try to get to an information session soon! And be sure you’ve visited all the schools you’re applying to. If you’ll be applying for Sept. 2012, be sure you go to all the year end shows at the schools you’re interested in, and try to speak with current students and graduates.

Have a happy Sunday!

We are happy and excited to announce that Max the Mutt will open additional facilities at 1139  College Street  (the first block west of Dufferin). This facility will house most of the courses  for years 2, 3 and 4 of the animation diploma program, and some courses for year 3 and 4 Concept Art students,  and will also house Max the Mutt Productions Inc.  It’s walking distance from New Horizons  (the dormitory facilities that many out of town students use),  the Dufferin Mall, and Dufferin Grove Park, offering many opportunities for sketch book work!  An additional bonus is an already existing art gallery. We plan to have ongoing shows of student, alumni,  and faculty work from all diploma programs, and will celebrate the opening of the new facility this spring with an exhibition of the work of our faculty members.

The Queen Street and College Street locations are within walking distance of each other, and the College Street campus is close to both UbiSoft and Elliott Animation.

I was recently asked by Admissions to put together a  document about Max the Mutt and the programs we offer. It occurred to me that this is information that really should be on the website and shared with everyone..and here it is.

First, general information about us and why and how we are different:

• This is a school founded and run by artists and animators, that began in 1996 in my studio and happened “accidentally.”  As more studio courses were offered and more artists and animation people joined in, we responded to requests, and ended up with a full animation program!  Nelvana and the CBC both paid for employees to upgrade skills taking classes with us.  As we  gradually turned into a school, we started expanding into other spaces in our original building, 96 Spadina Avenue.  At that point we offered no computer training- we were a classical school. We also applied to become a registered Career College and our application was approved.
• When we moved to 952 Queen Street West, we added computer courses to the curriculum. We also added 2 new programs, first Illustration for Sequential Arts, and then Concept Art for Animation & Video Games. Both diplomas were developed in response to student interest and the amazing  realization that in depth education and training for these important  careers is difficult to find in Canada.
• Our goal is,  and always has been, to create and maintain a vibrant,  ethical community dedicated to passing on skills to upcoming generations.
• We still have a mandate to be available to talent, and are now able to offer bursaries, more scholarships, (including funds from the Bradley Mark Johnston Scholarship Foundation and our own loan program) to qualified students, ie those who have financial need,  talent, and a professional attitude.
• We definitely want to be able to pay everyone who works for us fairly, including ourselves, but the goal has always been community. We never paid ourselves better than other people we work with.
• The sense of community and shared passion for the arts we’re involved with has drawn numerous first rate artists to Max The Mutt, some born and trained Canada, and  many  born and educated abroad. The diversity in our backgrounds and education enriches our community: we share ideas and resources.
• We’ve benefited from our openness to suggestions from these first rate professionals, and from others in these fields, both in Canada and abroad, who’ve offered to help us when we were designing and redesigning curriculum.
• We believe in taking the work seriously, not ourselves. Humility and respect are the first requirements for growth, and for a happy creative, productive, environment. We seek students and faculty who share these values.
• Every school creates a culture, and no school is the right place for everyone. We seek kindred spirits who have goals that are well served by this kind of school.

How are our programs different from those at other schools?

• We grade on professionalism as well as course content.
• This means that we consider the student’s role to be similar to an employee’s role:  students are expected to take direction; be team players;  understand and practice civil professional, behavior especially in conflict resolution; get to class on time; have good attendance; meet deadlines; dress and act appropriately. They are employees in training.

• As a Career College, we take our mandate to prepare students for the workplace very seriously. We will not “push” people through the programs. This is an act of responsibility to the student rather than to “completion rates.” If you receive our diploma, you can count on the fact that we believe you have entry level skills for the field you are pursuing. If you need to do more work in a certain area, you will be given the opportunity to either repeat a course, or, if you feel you understand the theory and can do it on your own, redo course work and submit for a course exemption.
• If it really seems to us that another career direction would be in your interest, for example if you are passing all courses but just passing, we will counsel you to consider a change. You may continue if you’re passing, but that will be your decision. These programs are a real investment of your time and money, and it’s part of our ethics not to accept tuition from students we don’t believe will be competitive in the market, without advising them. We do have students who stayed on , worked very hard, graduated, and are now employed in their industry!  We also have former students, all of whom were able to get into other related art programs, who have contacted us to let us know how much they appreciate what they learned while they attended Max the Mutt, and how useful those skills are.
• These are demanding, serious, in depth programs that require dedication, passion and the ability to work independently.
• All instructors  teach the subjects they know best and enjoy instructing. They want to teach at Max the Mutt because they have serious, professional students, small classes, and input into curriculum.
• Most are current, working professionals who teach part time.
• Because of this, some classes may be held on Saturdays or evenings.

• We believe in small class size. Most classes have 15 or fewer students in a section. Those that are larger (History of Animation, for example) are courses where we feel the nature of the content doesn’t demand as small a grouping.

• We offer three diploma programs, Illustration For Sequential Arts: Comic Books & Graphic Novels (3 years),  Classical & Computer Animation & Production (4 years), and Concept Art for Animation & Video Games (4 years). As far as we know, each is a diploma program  unique in Canada.

• All programs begin with a year of serious training in traditional drawing and painting, including still life drawing, life drawing, painting with oils, design and composition, color theory and water based media, a year of perspective, and a separate course in structural drawing. Each diploma introduces one course that is part of that discipline second semester: Intro to Classical Animation for animation students, Drawing Props and Objects for Concept Art students, and Extreme Figure Drawing for Sequential Arts students. Both Animation and CA students also take History of Animation first semester. Sequential Arts students take their history course in second year.
• Each program has a coordinator or coordinators who meet with every group once a week. These meetings are used to deal with possible problems the group or individuals in the group may be having, and also as an enrichment tool. Coordinators may show work related to the particular diploma, or arrange for a guest speaker. Coordinators also arrange private meetings with students encountering difficulties.

The 4 year Diploma in Classical & Computer Animation & Production, recently approved, still follows the original Disney and Warner Bros. guidelines, but adds  both 2D and 3D computer animation.

• students get a broad, general animation education that includes life drawing and anatomy, a series of five courses in classical animation,  background painting and digital background painting, a year of cartooning and a semester of character design, a series of courses in film language, storytelling and story development, and story boarding , a year of layout, Flash, Training in the use of Toon Boom Animate Pro, training and use of Toon Boom Storyboard Pro and creation of an animatic as part of a year 3 Toon Boom film project, introductory courses  in  Maya, 2 courses in Acting and Improv, 2 courses in Drawing for Animation, and a fourth year primarily dedicated to a real production experience working on a short film as part of the animation team (using Maya ) under the direction of a professional.

• Our course in Portfolio Development is taught by a number of professionals. It includes:

1. resume and cover letter instruction,
2. networking,
3. preparing for an in person interview including mock interviews,
4. demo reel production,
5. portfolio, throw away and online portfolio preparation ,
6. an introduction to the industry at Industry evening, where students work is on display, demo reels are shown in the theatre, and graduates have throwaway portfolios and demo reels available for recruiters to take away with them.

Our graduates have been very successful in finding  work in the industry. In fact, the school is better known to the animation community than to the general public, mainly because in order to keep tuition affordable we have to limit advertising.

Illustration For Sequential Arts is a 3 year diploma program that is the only in depth program in comic books and graphic novels offered in Canada.

• This program shares the same first year core curriculum, but offers one specialized course in  “extreme figure drawing,” designed by one of Canada’s best known super hero artists, Dave Ross.
• In the second and third years of this diploma, in addition to solid training in basics (layout, penciling, inking, cinematic storytelling, scripting) students also take a full year of  Illustration for Childrens Books, cover illustration, life drawing,  a series of anatomy courses, and are taught all relevant computer programs.
• Students are introduced to, and work in,  a wide variety of media.
• Our goal is to be sure they have a broad based education that will enable them to be flexible in the work place.
• Portfolio Development course includes:

1. resume and cover letter instruction,
2. networking,
3. preparing for an in person interview including mock interviews,
4. portfolio, throw away and online portfolio preparation ,
5. preparation of a class “book” that includes pages from every graduate and is distributed  at our Industry Evening.
6. an introduction to the industry at Industry evening where students have work on display , as well as portfolios, and throw away portfolios for reps to take away.

Concept Art for Animation & Video Games will have its first graduates this year, but several students in the program have already had professional  freelance jobs in the video game industry. This  is a very demanding program that includes:

• beginning to  advanced fine art courses in painting and figure drawing,
• illustration courses,
• basic to advanced design courses for  props, vehicles, environments, characters and creatures.
• character design including sculpting maquettes
• relevant animation subjects:, including cartooning, story boarding (including Toon Boom Storyboard Pro, background painting and digital background painting, and layout for animation.

• Students study and use Maya, Photoshop, and ZBrush to produce work in the advanced courses,
• and in year four spend their last semester primarily on a course called “Designing in Real Time,” where they act as  the concept artists for a specific project. Eventually, some of them will be the concept designers for the animation film production the 4th year animation students work on. That is, they will be doing the pre-production work for the film to be produced the following year.
• the portfolio development course includes:

1. resume and cover letter instruction,
2. networking,
3. preparing for an in person interview including mock interviews,
4. portfolio, throw away and online portfolio preparation ,
5. an introduction to the industry at Industry evening, where they will have work on exhibit, a well as on the graduate demo reel in the theatre, and throw away portfolios available for interested recruiters.

The natural evolution of these programs has been exciting to be part of.

I hope that all of this will be helpful to those of you who are interested in Max the Mutt.

Max the Mutt is a unique animation school. It was founded by artists and animators, and has a basic philosophy that emphasizes community.  Classes are small, people know each other as they would in a small studio, and professionalism is taken very seriously.

We respect faculty suggestions about curriculum, and are constantly trying to improve and fine tune courses and content.. In the reworking of the animation program, we turned to the pros,  just as we did when we put together the original program,  and were rewarded with an outstanding, updated 4 year curriculum, which now  includes what was formerly a separate advanced diploma simulating working in a studio environment.  The final project is written and boarded by a professional, and directed by a professional, an experience that builds confidence, gives students the possibility of a professional reference, and a  production experience that makes them attractive to the industry. Before they get to that final year, our animation students know how to draw (life drawing, anatomy, drawing for animation), they have completed a series of 5 classical animation courses, as well as Flash, a course in Toon Boom Animate Pro, and 2 Maya courses.  They have created a short film incident  using  Toon Boom Animate Pro. They have also studied layout, cartooning and character design, background painting, and completed a series of story boarding courses, learned Toon Boom Storyboard Pro and, using that software,  have created an animatic.

Max the Mutt also offers a 4 year diploma in Concept Art for Video Games & Animation, and a 3 year diploma in Illustration for Sequential Arts.

We do not simply pass students  in order to have high completion rates. We take your investment of time and money seriously: we want to insure that by graduation you’re  actually at entry level for the industry you want to get into. However, we do give counseling, assistance, and opportunity to improve skills to serious students who may be struggling  with certain subjects. When a student doesn’t pass a course, we allow him/her to work independently to upgrade, or to retake the course.

We also offer financial aid in the form of scholarships, bursaries, and our own loan system, MOSAP, which is available for students with no other means of funding who are in good standing academically and professionally. Our loans are far less costly then OSAP, since we aren’t trying to make a profit from them.

Max the Mutt has also formed a separate company, Max the Mutt Productions Inc. which we envision publishing as well as taking on animation projects.

All in all, this is an exciting creative environment that remains small enough to stay personal.

If you want more information about us and our programs, do contact admissions to arrange a tour or fill out the lead form you’ll find on the website, and we’ll be in touch with you.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Tina and I drove to Daemen College, Amherst New York (Buffalo) last Thursday and delivered the student artwork for the Max the Mutt gallery show. We really are perfect schools to partner with each other! Daemen students seem professional (IE well mannered, focused, attentive). Their classes are small,  and they  are encouraged to take the work seriously while remaining humble.  The faculty, The Academic Dean, Ed Clausen, and the college president were all present at the opening, and excited about our partnership.

Our partnership with Daemen will  include, among other things, work  opportunities for Max the Mutt faculty and graduates. Max the Mutt will also offer workshops for Daemen students, and will  be involved in some international plans. Synergy is a wonderful thing. When the right forces join together exciting things can happen.

In the meantime, if you’re in or around the Amherst/Buffalo area, do visit the gallery and take a look at the
show!

The new academic year is almost here. Max the Mutt has gradually grown from an informal studio into a school with international standing. As an artist founded facility, we’ve had to keep changing our administrative methods and procedures to keep up with the growth, and we’ve gone through growing pains. We’ve spent these last months reorganizing to be more efificient and reduce costs, which will help us to control tuition.

We’ve also spent time thinking about education and how to help students maximize their time at Max the Mutt. It’s been an exhausting but meaningful time for us, as we clean and clear, work on a new web site, and add an online student centre!

We ‘ll have surprises for Noelle when she returns.  She sends her best to to all of you. She always sounds upbeat and she’s a fighter.  We all miss her very much and hope that she’ll be back with us sometime during second semester.

Last but not least, one of my heroes is Stephen Hawking. This is the advice that Stephen Hawking gave his children:

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”

That’s good advice for all of us to take to heart, don’t you think?

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

Maxine

Lubomir Arsov attended  Max the Mutt directly after high school and holds diplomas from both the 3 year Classical & Computer Animation Basics Diploma Program, and the  Advanced 3D Computer Animation & Production  Program, which he completed in  2006.  Since then he’s been steadily employed as  a character designer by  CORE Digital, House Of Cool Studios,  and , currently,  Starz Animation. Lubomir also freelances as a character designer. His designs are part of many current animated series!  His newest freelance work is visual development artist for a potential feature project.

It’s been a pleasure to watch Lubomir evolve not only into a first rate character designer, but a first rate, genuine and generous human being.

Lubomir recently published Deviations: Lubomir Arsov- Explorations 2006-2009. Some pages are shown below.

Deviations' cover image

a page from Deviations

a page from Deviations

The book  was inspired by encouraging words from friends and colleagues, and a desire to share his private process with a wider audience.

Max the Mutt Animation School  congratulates Lubomir Arsov on the publication of his book and  wishes him every success in his future endeavors.

Max the Mutt has recently been in contact with Chris Leung of Powie Studios. He and his business/ creative partner Jesse (Sondang), both former  Max the Mutt students, have opened their own studio, Powie Studios, a multimedia entertainment company currently focused on children’s entertainment.

Chris and Jesse introduced their new comic book series, The Misadventures of Mal & Lot, at the Wizard World Toronto Comic Con 2010. They plan to continue creating fun and exciting stories suitable for audiences of all ages.

Chris told us that they first decided to do  their own comic  because they were so often disappointed in their search for fun and exciting material.

“The Misadventures of Mal & Lot”, owes much to the books, comics, movies, and cartoons they had enjoyed during their childhood,  specifically the works of the Lucas Film, Disney, and Bluth studios with a dash of manga and bande dessinee thrown into the mix. The story itself was inspired by tales of action and adventure in the vein of authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne,  and Mark Twain. Chris  told us,  “… Max the Mutt Animation School’s strong efforts in developing our good all around drawing skills  has given us the fortitude to make our dreams of self publishing a reality.”

Max the Mutt Animation School would like to congratulate both Chris and Jesse for the successful self-publication of their comic, and wish them every success in their future projects. You can find more information about future projects at the Powie Studio website, www.powiestudios.com.

Here are the cover and some pages from “The Misadventures of Mal & Lot.”