Every semester is 15 to 16 weeks in length and last week was the end of the Fall 2025 semester at CSUF. I have been teaching the ART353B Animation Production class since 2019. Some classes are easier than others and I always learn something new while teaching these classes.
In the previous class of ART 353A Animation Pre-Production, students learn about storytelling, a little bit about character design, storyboarding and creating a final animatic of a short 1 to 2 minute film. Some students create longer ideas, but in my class I know how long it takes to make a film. I work with the student to find a way to keep the film shorter.
At the beginning of the 353B class, I want to see their final animatic from 353A. I am always amazed and frustrated when the animatic is not complete, the story is confusing or it is too damn long. Sometimes I get all three in one project.
A lot of these projects were finished in other Animation Pre-Production classes and it is now my job to help the student get there animatics finished up so they can start to begin the production process as soon as possible. This can be either a week or more before they can start to breakdown their animatic into Harmony files.
I teach Harmony because it is an industry standard and I want my student to have work experience using so they can apply to an animation studio that uses it. Clip Paint Studio, Procreate and other software can be used, but might not get you a job at Disney or any other studio. But that's another story...
Before we go further, the film below started as a simple animatic which was a little confusing and is about a very unique subject. How the sound of the words in this sentence spoken in Japanese all sounded almost the same.
Angie Ferrater came up with this project set in a classroom to tell her unique story. Here is the final results below.
Angie succeeded in making her final film during a really rough semester and after accidently dropping her laptop several weeks before the final. She was able to re-animate her missing scenes and get the film finished for the final presentation.
Always have a Plan B
A storyboard and animatic may go through many changes before the story is told is a form that works for an audience to understand and enjoy. Students might discover while working on their scenes that either they have a lot of work to do or discover a way to shorten their story to in order to have less scenes to do.
It is ok to revise your animatic to add or remove scenes during production. The animatic is the blueprint of a house, you can remove that extra bedroom or put a pool in the backyard. In making a film, sometimes it takes making another edit of your animatic to test out your theory. By editing a shorter version of your animatic and seeing what works better, will save you time and work, but still keep the story moving along.
Stay on Target, Almost There
The saddest thing I see is when a student has a really good film in the works and by the end of the semester, they show the film "almost finished" but they never touch it again after the class ends. They get their grade for the class and that's it.
We now have an end of the semester screening to showcase finished student work. I encourage my students to work towards getting their films into this screening if they can or watch the films that got into the screening.
There is something that no class can teach you when you have finished your film which took a year or less to complete and you watch it with an audience. When people react to what you planned out and worked on for many weeks or months, All the self doubt and long hours suddenly will pay off. You made a film and people are reacting to it how you hope they would. You also have a film which you can enter in a film festival if you like and other people will see it too.
In fact, someone might even contact you later after seeing your film, it is possible.
Here are two more students who created trailers or previews of their final film which they are planning to complete in the Spring of 2026. Both Ruben and Brady have animation and storytelling skills in the making of their films. Enjoy!
The Barber and the Beast by Ruben Perez
It Came to Port Gamble by Brady Grassi
As I stated at the beginning of all my classes, making a finished film is not easy and takes a lot of personal concentration, imagination and time. It's a learning process that takes a lot of effort to get to the finish line.
And it is hard to do if you have 4, 5 or more studio classes, have a part time or full time job or have family responsiblities as well. If you can juggle those things successfully while making a film and finishing it, you will have successed what you started.
I wish Angie, Brady and Ruben success in the future and can't wait to see what they come up with next.
