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Doodling For Dollars
By Jake Kennedy
 Page 1
Greg Brown is a 24-year-old animation student at Sheridan College. He recently left the program to take some time off, and went to work for a small animation company in St. Catherine’s, Ont. In the highly competitive world of animation, Greg is learning that choosing between work experience and completing his education isn’t an easy choice. Campus Starter writer Jake Kennedy spoke with him about his experiences.
WHEN DID YOU FIRST DECIDE YOU'D LIKE TO GO INTO ANIMATION?
Just after the acceptances and rejections of my college and university applications came in. I was accepted at Sheridan College for the Art Fundamentals program, which is a basic arts-building course. I realized I didn’t really want to go into the technical aspect of things and figured I could kind of get a feel for the arts on a more rudimentary, pure skills sort of level at Sheridan. That’s where I discovered the animation course, and it was just a sort of leapfrog from building up my portfolio in the art fundamentals course to get accepted into animation.
SO, BEFORE YOU STARTED THE ART FUNDAMENTALS COURSE, YOU WEREN'T REALLY SURE THAT ANIMATION WAS WHAT YOU WANTED TO GET INTO?
I knew I wanted to do something in art. It was art or science, and I pretty much decided on art when I went to Sheridan. The animation course was always jumping around in the back of my head, but I didn’t really know what it entailed. But I certainly did have it in mind as a possibility.
HOW POPULAR IS THE ART FUNDAMENTALS CLASS AT SHERIDAN?
The course has exploded in popularity at Sheridan College now. They have over 10 separate classes of 30 people.
WHAT SORT OF SKILLS DID YOU BUILD BY TAKING THE PROGRAM?
Things like life drawing, drafting, object drawing. They don’t cater specifically to any one given pursuit of art. You can take the art fundamentals course if you want to get into photography, because you do photography skills; you can take it if you want to get into sculpting, ceramics, illustration and painting, as well as animation. It develops a very broad base of skills.
DID YOU NEED A PORTFOLIO (A SAMPLE OF YOUR WORK) TO GET INTO THE ARTS FUNDAMENTALS COURSE?
No, but as the program’s popularity has increased, it has become harder to get into. Sheridan looks at your grades, and might have different requirements, depending on how many people are applying in that year. They might ask to see some examples of artwork, or even a statement of purpose.
WHAT ABOUT THE ANIMATION PROGRAM, IS IT DIFFICULT TO GET IN?
The demands are certainly high. They only accept something like 100 to 120 students out of something like 3000 to 5000 applicants each year.
HOW MANY YEARS IS THE ANIMATION COURSE?
Well, the art fundamentals course is one year, and you would want to take that before deciding what area to go into. Animation itself is a three-year course, with an optional fourth year, which is a filmmaking year where you go in and make your
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