Recently, Nickelodeon Animation Studio announced its plan to establish a scholarship program with CalArts, specifically, through the School of Film/Video. The scholarship -- the Nickelodeon Endowed Scholarship in Animation in Honor of Jules Engel -- is named for a Hungary-born animator whose passion for animation, formal aesthetical art, and dance still rings true today. Jules Engel (1909-2003), a golden-age animator, was a well-versed observer whose interest in commercial art propelled his ever-evolving experimentation with meaningful, emotional characters. Serving as storyboarder and choreographer for key dance sequences in Fantasia, an animator for the increasingly experimental UPA studio, and later a CalArts program director in the very same subject matters, Jules Engel has influenced some of the most, as it turns out, influential visual artists currently working in the business today.
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"This is a very meaningful partnership for us," Brown Johnson, President, Nickelodeon Animation, commented. "CalArts has helped shape some of the most creative minds in the animation business, including many of our Nicktoon creators, directors, designers and writers. We believe that our partnership with this prestigious institution will create a greater collaboration between our studio and the industry."
When teaching, Engel encouraged his students with an exacting honesty assuredly reserved for unleashing his phenomenal knack for engaging the classical with the contemporary.
His students have included animation feature film leaders such as Tim Burton (prod. The Nightmare Before Christmas), Mark Osborne (dir. Kung Fu Panda), Stephen Hillenberg (creator, SpongeBob SquarePants), Henry Selick (dir. Coraline), and Disney-Pixar animation units head honcho John Lasseter. These animators and countless others recall with undying specificity Jules Engel's goal of injecting personal, emotional meaning into an array of investigational animation, artistic styles and approaches avoided by an otherwise normal artist.
This past week, CalArts celebrated and is no doubt still celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of Engel's birth with a series of lectures, round-tables, and presentations. On a related note, Nickelodeon and CalArts plan to also partner in various ways on learning and development initiatives, including inviting animators from the Nicktoons studio to teach and attend classes at CalArts, hiring interns from the CalArts student pool and creating programs to share experimental animation techniques and partner on creative problem solving.
"We are thrilled to work with Nickelodeon in establishing an endowed scholarship at CalArts that supports both the Character and Experimental Animation programs. Steven D. Lavine, President of CalArts, stated. "Nickelodeon's visionary approach and leadership in animation and children's entertainment is perfectly aligned with the Institute's mission and aesthetic.
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The reverse of a canvas painting, signed by Engel. |
on CalArts School of Film/Video: The School of Film/Video (Film.CalArts.edu) is unique in that it promotes the production of all major types of film and video work: dramatic, narrative, documentary, experimental live-action, character-based animation, experimental animation, multimedia, live performance and installation.
on Nickelodeon Animation Studios: Nickelodeon Animation Studios opened in March 1998 in Burbank, Calif., and marked the establishment of Nickelodeon's first production facility on the West Coast. As the first television animation studio to open in Los Angeles in 35 years, the studio is a landmark for both Nickelodeon and Hollywood.
The 120,000 square foot facility is jam-packed with artists who have at their fingertips the latest in state-of-the-art equipment and technology.