{"id":39092,"date":"2017-10-20T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=39092"},"modified":"2017-11-15T10:04:20","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T17:04:20","slug":"youth-animators-shine-in-sunalta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2017\/10\/20\/youth-animators-shine-in-sunalta\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth animators shine in Sunalta"},"content":{"rendered":"

O<\/span>n Oct 4, Calgary based independent animators Quickdraw Animation Society<\/a> held their sixth annual Log Driver\u2019s Waltz at the Sunalta community centre.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>he event featured 45 minutes of animation produced by local youths.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese days it’s easier than ever to get into animation, and there is a lot of free or inexpensive software out there that’s surprisingly powerful,\u201d says Peter Hemminger, the executive director at Quickdraw.<\/p>\n

Quickdraw offers weekly animation classes in the fall and winter, as well as week-long animation camps during the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students in our kids classes range from around 8-13 years old,\u201d according to Hemminger, but Quickdraw offers classes for teens up to 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of how people find us is just through word of mouth and the reputation that we’ve built in Calgary,\u201d says Hemminger.<\/p>\n

Hemminger says that getting into animation doesn\u2019t have to be an expensive or intimidating ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many great tutorials on YouTube that, if you’re pretty self-directed, can get you started,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re actually finding that a lot of the teens coming into our classes are already pretty familiar with some of the main animation software out there, which is definitely a recent development.\u201d<\/p>\n

A person can get into animation with as little as a camera and some sheets of paper, or indeed they can buy a top of the line graphics tablet and spend hundreds on licensing professional-level software.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t need those things to make animation, but having access to them gives you some pretty amazing options,\u201d says Hemminger.<\/p>\n

Classes at Quickdraw are available for $360 for a 12-week course where they will be taught by local animators Ryan Von Hagen and Tyler Longmire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never wanted to be an animator as a kid,\u201d ays Jessie Altura, a motion graphics designer and photographer, who attended the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would have been easier to learn back when I was young.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hemminger is not an animator. He has a business degree from the University of Calgary and worked as a journalist.<\/p>\n

“I’ve always been really active in Calgary’s arts community, first as a journalist and then more directly,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

While working for Fast Forward, a now defunct weekly newspaper in Calgary, Hemminger learned of Quickdraw while covering GIRAF, an animation festival put on by the society.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround five years ago, I was hired as the executive director here, and have pretty much fallen in love with this community ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

These days it’s easier than ever to get into animation. – Peter Hemminger<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quickdraw recently relocated to the Sunalta area from its previous location on 10th<\/sup> Street S.W. downtown, and celebrated by bringing a show to its new neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

The event featured live music, fire pits, as well as a screening of Canadian animation by the National Film Board including John Weldon\u2019s 1979 short The Log Driver\u2019s Waltz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The downtown community of Sunalta played host to a screening of locally produced youth animation on Oct 4, 2017 [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":448,"featured_media":39181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S2 Quickdraw Log Drivers' Waltz","footnotes":""},"categories":[212,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-image","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-downtown","8":"category-entertainment","9":"post_format-post-format-image"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/448"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39092"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40354,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39092\/revisions\/40354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}