Here you will find a selection of student work from a range of classes I’ve had the pleasure of teaching. My primary focus as an educator is to empower students to grow through observation, developing their problem solving skills beyond tools and procedures, and I’ve been lucky enough to teach some of the most dedicated students out there.
All of the work below belongs to the original content creators, my students, and is used for the express purpose of illustrating their accomplishments through my courses.
Visual Language of the Moving Image II
As one of the advanced courses in the Character Animation program, the overarching focus of this class is to create a proof of concept shot that is fully rendered and composited. The aim is to test the pipeline to make sure the final product will appear visually and stylistically as planned.
*Due to the nature of the production process, the page is password protected to maintain the film’s confidentiality until its premier. If you’ve been provided a password, please maintain the confidential nature of the content and do not distribute.
Intermediate Animation
Primarily focused on narrative animation, students expand on their fundamental knowledge of animated movement into the three-dimensional, software-driven sphere. Maya is not an easy program to learn to animate in, so my goal is to start small and build in complexity.
Visual Story & Visual Development
Story development is an integral part of the animation industry. During this course, students focus on the initial development of their animated short stories, journeying from brainstorming to development, refinement to the first pass at an animatic. Lead through the process initially as independent storytellers, students integrated into a larger team to fully develop two of the original concepts through research and critique. These two concepts eventually become the animated shorts the cohort will produce over the next year and a half.
*Due to the nature of the production process, the page is password protected to maintain the film’s confidentiality until its premier. If you’ve been provided a password, please maintain the confidential nature of the content and do not distribute.
Converging Media Capstone
The goal of this class is to prepare students for positions in various industries as creative leaders and managers. Throughout the semester, they are tasked to work as a team to develop a unique multi-media approach to solving a Big Idea or Problem. Teams pitch their solution, create a prototype to test their assumptions, develop an MVP (minimum viable product) along with a website, then report on the results. Success in the class isn’t predicated on whether their product succeeds or fails, but rather the lessons they learn through the process and their ability to accurately analyze their decision making.
Heather Knott 