While France’s overall animation sector employed 7,790 staffers last year, local grandees hope to see those figures swell to 15,000 by 2030, and have thus made doubling the workforce the third key pillar of the wider Great Image Factory initiative.
With nearly all the major animation studios and VFX houses developing outreach programs, partnering with existing schools, or offering mentorships, one studio is going to set up a brand new institution.
Well, almost brand new. In 2018, TeamTO launched ECAS (Ecole Cartoucherie Animation Solidaire), a Valence-based, no-tuition animation school meant to give underprivileged youths 3D training and to offer them a leg-up into the industry. Running four years, and boasting a 98% success rate, the program would open for a nine-month term and then go dark again, with subsequent sessions sometimes in doubt.
Though the program took a break this year, ECAS will return with a more sustainable and perennial model thanks to France 2030 support, introducing new curricula in compositing and VFX, and fielding greater interest from fellow studios looking for new recruits.
“We’d like to get everyone around the table and ask them what they need and by when,” says TeamTO and ECAS president Guillaume Hellouin. “And then we can set up programs to fill those needs, feeding the ecosystem by offering greater diversity.”
Founded by Franck Petitta in 1999, the Georges Melies School has also benefitted for substantial industry support in recent months. Operating out of an old chateau just outside of Paris, the so-called trade school trains students across disciplines.
“We train craftsmen,” Petitta explains. “We’re not just training them to work in animation; we train our students to make images, be they in video games, VFX, animation or architecture. Which means that our graduates can very quickly assume responsibilities, because they leave with a very global view.”
Past graduates include Fabien Nowak, who won Visual Effects Society accolades for his work on “The Jungle Book,” and now heads FX at the Paris studio The Yard; Jonathan del Val, who co-directed “The Secret Life of Pets 2” and “Minions: The Rise of Gru” for Illumination; and Guillaume Rocheron, who won Academy Awards for his work on “Life of Pi” and “1917.”
If up until this year the program yielded 50 graduates per year, once again the recent initiatives should notch those figures upward. Alongside a 21,500 sq. foot extension to the existing grounds, and new volumetric capture studio, France 2030 support will give Petitta the means to cultivate a bumper crop of especially youthful talent.
“We’re going to work with school boards,” Petitta explains. “We’ll speak to middle and high school students, promoting this career and these jobs that are in short supply. We’ll put a pencil or a camera in these kids’ hands before they even pass their finals.”
Read More About:
Source: Read Full Article
