2010

Today’s animation education and training techniques are largely outmoded and obsolete.   In our choice-saturated, consumer-driven, multitasking media ecosystem there is no place for industrial age teaching and learning methods. New technologies are constantly terraforming the media landscape, offering alternative entertainment, communications and learning touch points.

Animation and related skills demand a practical and theoretical learning environment that must emphasize constant practice, interation and high quality feedback mentored to the learner’s immediate needs.  Faced with increasingly fragmented and specialized careers options and well as demands for creativity and invention, this presentation will examine the current state of affairs and suggest new ideas in client-driven learning for the conceptual age by exploring new approaches that will optimize creative training and transform the ways we learn.

Robin King enjoys a distinguished career as an educator, researcher and digital-industry specialist. In 1982 he initiated the development of the Computer Animation and New Media Design Programs at Sheridan College.

Graduates of the Animation Program are recognized internationally for their contributions to the entertainment industry. Several have won or been nominated for Academy Awards and many are currently supervising animators and art directors at companies such as Disney, Industrial Light and Magic, PIXAR, Sony Imageworks, Pacific Data Images, Dreamworks and Fox.

King has published research in laser physics and general systems theory. His graduate work at York University (Canada) centred on the psychology of creativity in the arts and the results were published at the joint meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Society for General Systems Research Annual Meeting in 1980.

In 2001 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001 at the Canadian New Media Awards for his contributions to animation and new media.