Re: DAVE school

jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I usually don't get involved in these kinds of posts, but I am
extremely proud of the DAVE School and think I need to speak up. I
don't know if this counts as the "chew-out" letter you predicted,
but I suspect it does.

Nope. Looks like a discussion.


You bring up some important points both good and bad. But I would like
to clarify the following:

Thank you. I tried to be as fair as possible by representing only what
students have actually said and not any of the attitudes. Overall I
think
you have a good program there but it's not perfect. Nothing is. For
that
much money ($40K) it's worth focusing on the shortcomings as well as
some of the strengths.


Pros:
#3. Once you pass a particular class you CAN take it over and over
without limit. Each time we make a major modification or new program
all graduates are invited to take it for free. This has always been
true.

You should communicate this to the students. Everyone
I have talked to has told me that it has changed and is no
longer the case. Sounds like a communication problem.

Or perhapps a teacher is misquoting the policy. (??)


Cons:
#1 There are always new plug-ins that can be added. We actually do use
quite a few including most of the Worley Labs sets. Many of our
students install Lightwave at home and are shocked to find all the
plug-ins that aren't included in the package missing. I have been
holding off on some of the newer ones because I want to see how they
work with LW9. Which we will start using on Thursday.

Well that basically says the same thing I said. Just Worley for
commercial plug-ins is nowhere near enough. And when classes
are taught that doen't allow students to bring those in on their own
and that aren't available then that student just got disserved.

I'm on the #LW3D channel at www.freenode.irc and we get DS
students popping in quite often trying to solve a problem. But
the offered solutions very often cannot be applied even when
they are the only real solution to the problem - because it involves
a plug-in that isn't offered or it involves rolling back to an earlier
version of LW which also isn't allowed.

This can changed just by changing the policy at the school and
treating the students as the responsible adults that they are. In
my 8 years of teaching I learned allot from my students just by
allowing them pretty much the same administrative rights as the
facilty.

I mean, unless you are teaching a public highschool or something
everyone pretty much has the same goals... To learn CG/LW and
become successful.

Why hinder that with network and local account rights that work
in reverse to that goal?


But I don't like notion that anyone is "not allowed to learn"
certain things. The truth is we are very careful about how we spend
each day and we endeavor to present as much of the right information
that we can.

I didn't like phrase either! And it is true that students are allowed
to learn anything on their own time. But that isn't enough IMO and
the students I talk to also say that this is a wall often hit.


#2. Yup. It's pricey. It also costs this much to run. I think
it's neat how you can do your program for $3,000 year in Japan. But
you couldn't do it here. Even our Universal Studios address is priced
the same as any anonymous industrial space. We have a 24 camera Vicon
motion capture stage and a network of solid dependable computers, a
small shooting stage and some production gear. We have 6 world-class
instructors two of them have visual effects EMMYs. (Lee Stringer-
Firefly and Ron Thornton- Babylon 5. Ron has worked for us before and
may return in the fall).

The rest of the faculty includes William "Proton" Vaughan
(www.Spinquad.com) Dave West (Five years at Foundation Imaging, fourth
year at Dave School) Tom Henry (been teaching Lightwave for eight years
now) and Chris Nelson who is simply one of the best educators I have
ever met. We also have a support staff of ten.

The school runs an average class size of 15 students with 4 starts a
year. You can't do all that for $180K per year in the United States.
Even with and average revenue of $1.8 Million a year, it's a
constant challenge. I'm not starving or asking for pity, but NOBODY
has gotten rich off the DAVE School.

I'm not a financial advisor and I don't know what kind of wheeling and
dealing can be done in your neck of the woods so I have no idea
what to suggest here. I only know $40K is a heck of allot to ask
students to shell out. I can offer this for your consideration:

We got almost all of our machines donated or at incredibly low
prices. So far we've seen top of the line Integraphs, SGI Intel
WorkStations, IBM Server class boxes, Dell both server and Precision
workstation class boxes. Our motion stage was put together for a
song but I don't know particulars because I had nothing to do with
those acquisitions even though I assembled most of it. The 170+
machines maintained for our 3D courses are multiplied many times
over throughout the other departments. I see a heck of allot of Macs,
etc. Our sound room is the same deal again. It's all NFR afaik but
they also offer maint and return programs.


3. The method of teaching and course design there is way way
to rigid! They file you in, Give you a "tutorial" and a deadline.
If you make it (or them as the case may be) then you go to the
next block (grade level). If not you do the same thing over and
over till you do.

#3 I'm going to stand by our unique policy of not passing people who
fail objectives. We find it helps insure the quality of our graduates.

Of course. And it does. But only to one point of view of what
"quality" is. DS Graduates who are now working say it was
too ridgid and they wish it could have been A LOT more flexible.




#4 I'm also going to stand by our unique policy of blending tutorials
and lectures. We think that learning about things AND having our
students do them helps them learn.

Now if this comment was to insinuate that there is not a substantial
curriculum, I disagree. It is the only truly employment centered
curriculum in animation training. The key to our training is our 12
week production exercise. I have never seen another school that does
this. It is what defines us and prepares our students for actual
employment. Right now there are nine movies you can download off our
site (www.DaveSchool.com) that were all made by our students in this
process. SHOW ME ANY OTHER SCHOOL that consistently does this or tell
me why it's not important.

I also had moch productions and even emulated the pipelines of
some of the more popular and successful studios. Often we had
members of the studio itself stopping in to comment on the good
and bad points of the environment. But that's not what was meant.

4. The teaching itself; well, there's the tutorial and some lecturing.

Means that the teaching itself is not dynamic. I can't design the
cources for you - unless you want to hire me that is :D - but allow
my to relate a little story to you. In Jr. High School I was moving
along through the mainstream learning programs offered by that
school. We were doing quadratic equasions in math, Learning about
the US revolution in history, programming PDP11s in Science and
etc. But everything was the same basic format. There was a text book
and a teacher at the front of the class stepping us through the book
with quizes and a test at the end of each chapter or two. Then my
IQ was tested because of a poem I turned in as an english assignment.
As a result of that I was placed in the MGM (Mentally Gifted Minors)
block. Suddenly there were no books. They were replaced with self
pased learning materials. There was no teacher lecturing to a class.
That was replaced with counseling and advising within the self paced
learning materials. There were still goals, requirements, and a test
at the end but how the student got from point A to point B was
radically different! I ended up entering highschool taking 3rd year
classes as a fred. (I went to a 4 year high school).

I tried both ways! When I first took my position teaching CG I set it
up very much like the DaveSchool is now. Then I modeled it after
that MGM learning I had expirienced and wow what a difference! A
flexable learning program far far exceeds the abilities of the ridgid
learning programs most of us go through in the US. It's a little
rougher on the teacher but not too bad. The teacher just needs to
become more organized and prepared to deal with students more
on an individual level. The roll of the teacher changes in many
reguards.


#5. You got me. There was a problem. It's not a policy of the
school, and the situation was dealt with. If you knew the students in
question, you might be on our side.

Well there were no sides that I saw. In one case it was a student
that was slightly late and the teacher was making humilating
remarks in writing to the entire class. There were other such
examples.

Sure, some students may have a thick skin or develop one
soon after being there but this sucks pretty hard imo. The
off attitudes of the working industry do not belong in the
learning environment. And if they must be expirienced then
have it done on a one on one basis not in open address to
the class. This is the fastest way to alienate a person from
the surrogate or extended family unit that promotes the individual
and is so conducive to learning. I have made these mistakes
too - usually they come from just not thinking but they can
be helped and should be addressed.

If there are big problems I suggest expulsion. I have never
had to make such a decision myself but I have had my share
of students that just weren't interested in following any form
of a program and just wanted to float through doing nothing
expecting to recieve the same recognition as those working
their butts off. It takes some extra work and perhapps genuine
care, to get them turned around but that to me was what made
it all worthwhile!


#6 Google can't help you learn how to create animation as part of 15
person team, introduce you to industry leaders at Siggraph or tell you
why texture 4 of 14 is the reason your color pass is rendering black
instead of red.

I think all of those things can be aquired over the net. Yup, every
one. Of course you need to be self motivated in order to do so.
And that is one of the Pros I listed too. DS can help an individual
that isn't self motivated or organized enough to do these things on
their own.


#7 I'm also going to stand by our unique policy of having teachers.
We find that they can use their experience to help you learn faster and
better. And YES we are all self taught. This is a new industry and
there weren't really schools that taught CGI back in the day.

True. But with the rigid learning program established there now
there is allot missing. Allot that could be addressed either by
learning these things on one's own or by incorperating some of
the flex techniques and self-managemnt tools necessary to suceed.


#8 I'm stunned. Attention current students: If you feel this way,
please schedule a meeting between you, me, and your instructor. We can
work this out together.

I think they don't know what to ask in order to discuss this with
their teachers. If a student doesn't know about the 4 or 5 principals
in vector algerbra the pretain to so terribly terribly much about
lighting and shading in general, then how are they goning to say
that? Other examples are plentyfull. This is usually caused by
a teacher not going the extra mile to teach it thuroughly but just
showing examples of different shading, to stay with my shading
example. Why the teacher doesn't go the extra mile is another
topic. Lack of recources? Not enough time? "They" don't feel it
is important? They themselves were self taught and have no clue
about such things? etc. but likely a combination of all of those
things to some degree or another.


#9 I'm also going to stand by our unique policy of charging money.
All schools do this, including the schools you worked for.

Yup! If you read the summary paragraphs at the end of this
list you will see that I say as much. Many of both the pros and
cons listed here are "indicitave of just about any institutional
learning environment."

This is not an attack on DS. It's just a list of conditions,
limitations, and considerations that any student should
consider before plopping down their $40K. Garee actualy
started this off by saying there are no cons. And that
started a flurry in my inbox and IMs. So I collected and
questioned each as most of the students involved didn't
feel that they could post directly without chancing some
repercussion - (back to the favorites thing. And I guess
this is played out after graduation through some kind of
"Job Board".



#10 This is the second time you used the term "file-in". You are
trying to create an image of a huge impersonal school?

No. Pointing to the rigid learning aspect we just discussed (above).

The entire DAVE
School is 8000 square feet. We had 53 students last year. Everyone
knows everyone.

It's true that there is no specialization.
....

That is because we
believe you need to have a practical understanding of the entire
process. That is what the program provides. I believe that
specialization should only happen after you have a well-rounded
education and know enough about everything to choose what interests you
the most. Those that specialize too soon are closing the door on
learning. They also tend to limit their own career options
prematurely. There is plenty of time for that when they are working.

Well if they "specialize" completely right off the bat then this
might be the case. But the doors need to always be open so at
any point in the education the student can peer down the hall so
to speak, and see what's there. I can elaborate if you don't
understand that right off.



#11 We do a lot with Bojou, After Effects, and of course Photoshop.
Also Maya isn't new, it has been going on for three years. We teach
editing in Premier and disc mastering (for demo reels) in Encore. Next
semester we are adding Digital Fusion and Z-Brush.

Kewl, Next semester should be better then!


In the United States we are required to pay for all copies of Software
installed on each machine. The idea of letting students install
whatever they want is not really feasible. The idea of paying for
every piece of software that students request on whim is not
financially feasible. Teaching four packages at the same time is just
going to confuse people. Then need structure and guidance.

More guidence and less structure is what the students
are saying. However that works out.


#12 No accreditation does suck. But not for the reasons you think it
does. It sucks because there is a certain amount of free aid and more
favorable loan terms that our students will enjoy once our accrediting
is complete. We are currently seeking accreditation. Last year we were
rejected for low profit margins, things are better now and we are in
que for fall.

Didn't I mention that? ok, Also there are loans and funding the
school can get too. Which will help.


Transferable credit is not an issue. Even after we are accredited our
credits will not transfer. If we adopted the standardized curriculum
and common course numbering used by Universities we would have as
archaic and irrelevant program that most of them currently run. The
DAVE School is not about the degree; it's about your skills- just
like the industry.

Mmmm I kinda disagree there. As a member of a team I need
other skills besides application control. I need some math,
I need some writing skills, I need some awareness of other
cultures and peoples, I need communication skills and
I need to know some things about human behavior.

I need to know A LOT about all of these extra things if I intend
to hold a position in management!!! Hopefully the managers
of tomarow are the grunts of today. If the grunts don't have these
skills going in then I feel sorry for the companies and their
employees in the future. It's not critical going in as you say
but you do need a rounded education if you plan on any kind
of upward mobility within the industry. At least it's incredably
advantageous! And that's not even looking at all the other
business skills you will need if you decide to open up your
own shop.





My Credentials?
I was supervising animator and head of artist recruitment for a company
that created visual effects and animation for movies and TV shows. I
saw an enormous gap between what schools and self taught animators
thought we were looking for and what we actually needed. So I started
a school that specializes in production training.

Pretty cool school too!


Jeff Scheetz
School Director / Founder
The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School.
www.DaveSchool.com

PS Favoritism runs rampant. Our favorite students are the ones who
listen well and work hard. The really good ones sometimes get handed
jobs they didn't even apply for because they consistently
demonstrated their ability and earned a recommendation.

Yeah, I agree. I think the only way to solve this issue is to train
the teacher's parrents. And that's not intended to be a slap on
anyone but more of a comment on US culture in general.

It's a bad thing imho that this ever happens. Just as a note
of interest I tried socially "favoring" the students that were
having difficulties while still "rewarding" the students that
were putting out on a regular basis. This worked very well
and brought the level of the entire class up overall on all fronts!

.