Aaron Simpson asked me this in an interview:Imagine that you were creating the curriculum for an animation college. What course titles would you start with (like: Pencils Gone Wild - Jim Tyer's Crazy Drawings)?
and I answered:
I’m actually going to do a blog post breaking down my ultimate cartoon school course, year by year. I sure wouldn’t start with Jim Tyre or “crazy” stuff! I would teach power skills and would have the students learn principles in the same order that the original classic animators did.
So it got me thinking about it and I figured I would write up a curriculum for a cartoon school that I would have loved to attend. A school with a definite practical purpose to it.
No mushy ambiguous or mystical courses, just meat and potatoes. Designed to give the artists the most possible skills and super observant eyes that can discern the difference between style and principles.
To give the students the most control possible over their creativity and destiny.
The whole course is based on the fastest period of growth in animation history: from 1930-1938 or so.
What those amazing animators learned in that period they learned by trial and error and audience reaction. - While working on production!
We have the benefit of their learning and can surely learn something fast in 4 years if we follow what they did and take advantage of some hindsight.
I'll put up year 1 tonight.