think:lab: DreamWorks Does School

"Animation is the only part of film production where quality is going up while costs are going down." -- Larry Kasanoff of Threshold Entertainment, 12.05 issue of Fast Company

Imagine, for just a second, if the same could be said for our nation's schools? Quality going up. Costs going down. And...remaining relevant and dynamic and competitive at the same time?

Quite a vision!

Do you read Fast Company? Anyone who was swept up in the dot.com era, for better or worse, certainly paid some form of homage to this publication. Don't see it on the front of newstands as often as I used to, but I remain a confident reader of this magazine...and believe it does as good a job as anyone else of scanning the globe for innovative organizations, leaders, and change agents. You're just as likely to read about a nun who has restructured her parish via an MBA mindset as you are a naval commnader who broke from the box to turn his ship into the leading vessel for our nation's military efforts as you are about an inner-city educator who has partnered with a group of businesses and not-for-profits to create a new educational paradigm for her kids.

In any event, back to the quotation above...

I'm intrigued by the animation and video game industries as end products...but more so for the way in which they innovate, produce, learn-to-learn, and tap into their team's inner creativities...all of which I think -- correct me if I'm way off base here -- might just be of benefit to the way we look at the 'future of learning'. So, the above quotation and the wide range of articles on the "baby Pixars" sprouting up around the business-economy caught my attention.

You see, this IS part of the future of work, and thus must be considered when we banter about what schools should be preparing our kids for in today's classrooms, esp. when 'video games' and 'animation' doesn't fit the traditional 'Great Books' or today's NCLB viewpoints.

But it wasn't just the recent issue of Fast Company that grabbed my attention. It was also the Chicago Tribune on 12.14.05 who offered up "Web Lessons Brighten Animation's Picture". Here's an excerpt or two that might get to the heart of it:

"It's 10 p.m. Pacific time and Animation School is about to begin. The students take their seats all over the globe. There's Fabian in Switzerland, Susanna in Italay, Gustavo in Spain. Richard and Rafi are just waking up in England.

Then there's the professor, Jason Schliefer, a wisecracking animator at DreamWorks Animation SKG. Instead of standing at a lectern, he plops down in the sunroom of his home near San Jose, Calif., and aims a tiny Web camera at his face."

You see, it's in DreamWorks' best interest to re-think 'school' and all training programs. Their competitive advantage demands it...esp. if they want to remain competitive in the future. Now, what about back-tracking to days well ahead of these virtual 'adult' learners synching up...and imaging how teachers and kids today will create learning environments that will a) foresee this arrangement as the training/working realm of the future...and b) begin to 'do school' in the same sort of way today.

Why?

Because it's relevant, it's fun, it's dynamic, and it's where all the 'end products' are shifting whether school gets it or not.

Continuing with the article:

Since its founding in the spring the school has grown to about 400 students from 35 countries. Apart from its global reach, the school, with an 18-month program that costs $14,000, stands out for its unconventional student body. Although some students work in the industry, the group is mostly made up of people outside the field: accountants, a former NYPD homicide detective and a part-time fishmonger from Iceland.

The school owes its existence to a shortage of young talent. Spurred by the commercial success of such hits as "Shrek" and "Finding Nemo," Hollywood studios have largely abandoned hand-drawn animation, instead pouring millions into developing new computer-animated features. About 25 such films are scheduled for release by the end of 2007.

As a result of the production bonanza, biggest in a decade, colleges and art schools have had trouble training enough animators to keep pace with studios' demand. It's not just familiarity with computers that animators need, but the more basic skills, such as building characters and crafting story lines.

"The talent pool is getting extremely thin, making it extremely difficult for employers," said Ray Schnell, chief marketing officer of CreativeHeads.net, an El Segundo, Calif., company that operates a job board for 160 companies that create video games, visual effects and animation. The board has more than 700 jobs posted on its Web site.

This I love:

Bobby Beck, co-founder and chief executive of AnimationMentor.com, said his school was an attempt to fill the gap.

"We honestly felt the need for something like this," said Beck, a former senior animator at Emeryville, Calif.-based Pixar Animation Studios.

Beck had the idea for the school three years ago, when he and Shawn Kelly, a senior animator at Lucas' effects house, Industrial Light & Magic, were teaching a course together at San Francisco's Academy of Art University.

Beck observed that many of his students lacked the kind of skills that Pixar and others were looking for, forcing the companies to spend too much time training new recruits.

"These kids knew how to push the buttons, but not how to push the characters to life," said Beck, who has worked on "Toy Story 2," "Finding Nemo" and "Cars," which will be released in 2006. "I would see the same mistakes over and over again."

The solution, he figured, was something more hands-on than any conventional school could offer: a program that paired top animators at the major studios with students worldwide, using the Internet as the medium.

So Beck made what he called "the toughest decision of my life": He quit his high-profile job at Pixar, and teamed up with Kelly and fellow Pixar animator Carlos Baena to launch the e-school. Kelly and Baena kept their studio jobs, while Beck ran the school full time.

Although the group had start-up costs of less than $1 million, its task was daunting. The team had to develop an entire curriculum from scratch and design proprietary interactive software that would allow mentors to critique students by drawing over their work. To spread the word, the co-founders relied on Internet forums and reached out to their friends and colleagues to serve as mentors.

And for anyone...anyone!...interested in how people learn/develop and re-thinking the ways it has traditionally been done in schools in the past, here's a great reminder of what is possible today:

The mentors were struck by the new ways of learning possible in the interactive classroom.

"We can see raw talent while it's shaping and can help form it," said Schleifer, who works at DreamWorks' Northern California campus, PDI/DreamWorks.

See raw talent. Interesting. See raw talent while it's shaping. Very interesting. And help form it in the process. Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry interesting. The only shame of it is that our society (economy, political system, humanity, et al) must wait until kids are 'out of school' before they can take part in this...and that our kids have to wait that long to really be involved in what's ultimately most important anyway. Show me a school or a school system that is thinking in the same way that DreamWorks (et al) is thinking...about learning and talent...and I'll show you the 'future of learning' and a school that will remain relevant. Truly.