First Day of Class

I always show this film on the first day of Intro to Animation. Because… well… just watch it, you’ll understand. 

This is the joy of animation. Making things move, sparking the imagination, and, let’s face it, every animator can relate to doodling in class. 

The films we show on the first day definitely set a tone for the semester, and every teacher is going to have a different emphasis and tone for their course. After showing this film, I show a few more recent films that I’ve seen at festivals. To expand the tone from pure goofy play, I show one film with an alternative narrative structure, and one that addresses a serious subject matter. I’m also actively trying to expand all my lists of films I show in class to include more POC and an inclusive gender balance. Suggestions for new films to show are most welcome!

I also show the students one of my films, and let them ask me questions as the director. They get to know me a little bit this way, and it give me a bit of street cred – yes, I do know this stuff I’m teaching you!

Other things we do on the first day: 

Make long lists of all the things we learned in our foundations classes.
My students have to take four foundations classes before taking Intro to Animation so listing all the skills they gained in those classes help them understand how our curriculum builds upon itself. It also ends up being a pretty impressive list!

Go over a few key points in the syllabus. 
I try to keep this short, and mostly stick to getting them set up with the accounts they need to have and a few things that make the class run more efficiently. I also give students an online syllabus quiz covering key policies I want them to pay attention to. If things come up later in the semester (chronic tardiness, plagiarism, snow days, my-computer-crashed-and-I-didn’t-back-up-my-project) I know at some point they actually put their eyes on the policies for those situations.

Also published on Medium.