This week, Cam Christiansen, a designer/motion graphics artist/animator/inventor (in general, a superbly motived creative innovator) spent a day inspiring the students of Kevin Kurtnik's animation class.
Cam, a 1993 graduate of the ACAD painting department also gave a comprehensive overview of his career and experiences. Beyond enjoying the great work that Cam has done in the commercial and art field I really got the sense of how passion, creativity, dedication, and hard work leads to success as an artist.
If you missed it, Cam has generously included a link to the content he showed in the presentation here:
http://anlandastudio.ning.com/page/acad-presentation
Also visit Cam's Digital and Design sites, lot's of superb work film and graphic:
http://www.anlanda.com/
This image from his Sundance Film Festival Officially Selected short film I Have Seen the Future:
http://anlandastudio.ning.com/page/i-have-seen-the-future-4
Below is a post from Cam's blog offering insight on his trip to ACAD:
Spent the day with ACAD students and Kevin Kurytnik who invited me to sit in on critiques and present. It is always refreshing to hang out with students and I enjoyed seeing there motion graphic work. Many interesting projects and fun to see the thought processes behind the work.
I often feel reluctant to dive too far into critiques as have some scars from past experiences (beware of black turtlenecks) and not always convinced that the process was all that helpful. Generally I have always felt it is better to find like minded people who are passionate about what they do and just make stuff you are into and not worry about criticism. The idea being if you do not share similar values you can sometimes get derailed and or confused by the critique which is what I feel happened to me in the past. You can get scared to make things , self doubt takes hold and you start to hear other peoples voices in your head. Generally I think its better to develop a strong viewpoint and personal perspective. Punk hated Pop, Pop hated Rock, Rock hated Techno, Techno hated ? ?? etc.... Sometimes being opposed to things is a galvanizer but can yield strong perspectives. I realize this is an unusual view on education but looking back is what I think if honest.
Anyway that said I found this class critique had very productive tone and was impressed by the way it was set up all credit to Kevin Kurytnik. It was a good experience and made me feel less hard core and stubborn about the usefulness of critiques. Perhaps if I had more experiences like that I wouldn't be so cranky. It was a pleasant surprise and nice to be proven wrong.
