I just watched Animation Mentor's Winter Reel and as if outsourcing wasn't enough competition, these kids are getting really good!!! The understanding of mechanics of motion is a huge leap from what I see coming out of most schools.
In fact, I was asked to do a demo reel review with the seniors at Gnomon School of Visual Effects last night, by Pamela Kleibrink Thomson. She teaches the career development class there. There was a lot of potential there amongst the students, but many are trying to be generalists - to be more marketable - and their animation suffers because of it.
The beauty of Animation Mentor is that it concentrates only on animation. What the winter reel from AM communicates to me is the understanding of weight and how things move, reversals in the body as it reacts to its own inertia and just really fluid pretty movement to watch. What is missing is the fusion of character into the tests...that little extra seasoning that makes them stand out from one another, over all. Of course, they aren't showing the animated shorts in their entirety at the end and maybe that is where that stuff really comes into play for the students showing their full understanding of infusing a persona into the character...however...
In my opinion, the best work on this reel seems to be coming from Spain. By best I mean tests that communicate the ability to really get inside the character and know what the full intent that character has for the scene and communicating that simply and clearly without trite and cliche poses and over used snappy posing just for the sake of it. One of the tests that did that for me is by Kristina Krebs from Barcelona. All of the poses and timing are really solid for me but especially the pose and timing when he says poor little rabbit just made me giggle.
Anyways, kudos to Animation Mentor and Bobby, Shawn and Carlos...they are changing the face of animation - one student at a time.
~Angie