Here's a list of the best places to study 3D animation in the world.
This ranking table is from 3D World's 98th issue.

1 Supinfocom
2 Filmakademie Baden-Wuertemmberg
3 Gobelins, L’école de l’image
4 Ringling College of Art and Design
5 Vancouver Film School
6 Ecole National Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs
7 Royal College of Art
8 Bournemouth University, NCCA
9 University of Southern California
10 Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
11 CalArts School of Film/Video
12 National Film and Television School
13 Ecole Emile Cohl
14 Savannah College of Art and Design
15 School of Visual Arts
16 University of Wales
17 Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques
18 University of Teesside
19 RMIT Univeristy
20 Rhode Island School of Design

I've got friends studying in Supinfocom and Ringling and I'm so happy for them!

I have been to Gobelins before and hence I'm so happy and excited for them to be amongst the top three! Gobelins, L’école de l’image has a superb learning environment, teaching force, and technical assistance such that I could focus thouroughly on character animation!

I have also always been very impressed by student works from Ecole Emile Cohl (EEC).
It goes to show that these 20 schools listed are really of superb quality!

I hope one day Nanyang Polytechnic's School of Interactive and Digital Media can be amongst these! Jiayou! (;

Click [here] to find out how they compiled this ranking ;)

Labels: news, research, school

I'm SO SUPER happy for Pulcinello, Waltz of Joy and Story of I team!!
They swept away numerous awards at the Crowbar Awards 2009!!
Congratulations guys! We had a celebration dinner last Saturday and it was an awesome get-together and catching-up opportunity. Hope we'll have another outing soon! :D

Awards are as follows:

BEST OF FILM
Category Film - 3D Animation
Title of Entry Pulcinello
Student(s) Gabriella Mesenas, Hong Kai Wei, Lee Yong Yi, Sheetha
Lakshmanan, Tan Jing Hua, Tan Tai Chi, Tan Zhi Chao, Vanessa
Yeap Min Rong
School Nanyang Polytechnic

Awards Gold
Category Film - Film Craft: Art Direction
Title of Entry Story of I
Student(s) Syarah Mahmood, Jinky Gilbert, Phang Ni Zhen, Rosalind Sam,
Stella Ng, Theodora Hui, Wei Linfang
School Nanyang Polytechnic

Awards Gold
Category Film - 3D Animation
Title of Entry Ronen-Waltz of Joy
Student(s) Anastasia Christina Mas', Jacqueline Chow Pei Qi, Carol Lee, Oh
Han Wee, Edwin Liew Wen Jun, Tan Yong Gang
School Nanyang Polytechnic

Awards Gold
Category Film - 3D Animation
Title of Entry Pulcinello
Student(s) Gabriella Mesenas, Hong Kai Wei, Lee Yong Yi, Sheetha
Lakshmanan, Tan Jing Hua, Tan Tai Chi, Tan Zhi Chao, Vanessa
Yeap Min Rong
School Nanyang Polytechnic

Labels: awards, news, school, short film

Hi! :D

I came across the Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) NewsBytes Newsletter Page the other day.
I found myself featured in the 12 June 2009 NYP NewsBytes Article! Thanks to the Desmond, NYP Communications and the NYP NewsBytes team!

The article is a special edition for NYP Graduation 2009, covering the highlights of the memorable occasion and interviews with some of the special graduates.
The section "Glad to have graduated!" covers how "Ronald bounced back after a major operation" and some other interesting stories about my learning journey in Nanyang Polytechnic.

Enjoy! Click here for the article.

Labels: awards, news, school

Guest-of-Honour
Mr Seto Lok Yin, Director of Industry Development Division [Left]
Media Development Authority of Singapore

Ronald Fong, Digital Media Design Merit Diploma Graduate [Right]
Recipient of MediaCorp Silver Medal Award
Recipient of Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Outstanding Project Work Award [Animation]




Mr Freddie Yeo, General Manager of Infinite Frameworks [Left]

Ronald Fong, Digital Media Design Merit Diploma Graduate [Right]

I am very honoured to receive my Diploma in Digital Media Design with Merit, MediaCorp Silver Award and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Outstanding Project Work Award from Guest-of-Honour Mr Seto Lok Yin, Director of Industry Development Division, Media Development Authority of Singapore and Industry Guest Mr Freddie Yeo, General Manager of Infinite Frameworks at the Nanyang Polytechnic Graduation 2009 Ceremony.

I know I have mentioned this before but once again, thank you Nanyang Polytechnic, MediaCorp and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore! =)

Labels: awards, news, school

Hello,

The Nanyang Polytechnic Graduation 2009 Ceremony was awesome!
Guest of Honour Mr Seto Lok Yin and Director of SIDM Mr Daniel Tan each gave a very inspiring and encouraging speech.

I have graduated with a Diploma in Digital Media Design with Merit!
Plus, I am super happy to receive the following awards:

MediaCorp Silver Medal
Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Award for Outstanding Project Work (Animation)

Thank you Nanyang Polytechnic, MediaCorp and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore! =)
With this encougarement, I am even more motivated to do my little part and contribute to the digital media industry.

Labels: awards, news, school

Thanks to all who have helped to put up a successful graduation exhibition! Specially those who came down to visit my booth and everybody who made this possible, including visitors, my family and friends, lecturers!

I'm really really grateful! :D

Labels: conference, news, school

Pixel and Pencil Awards 2009
Most Outstanding Portfolio | Best CG Art | Most Outstanding Personal Work
I am very happy and honoured to have received these awards. Thanks everybody!

Labels: awards, news, school

Ronald Fong will be displaying his work at Fusion 2009

Here's a web poster! Do drop by! :D



Fusion 2009
6 - 7 March 2009
Fri, Sat 10am - 8pm
Nanyang Polytechnic Auditorium

Fusion 2009 is Nanyang Polytechnic | School of Interactive and Digital Media | Graduation Show and Exhibition!

Labels: conference, school

Research on Further Studies

Hi all!

I am planning to get a degree after national service.
Therefore, I started a little bit of research on a few potential institutions.
Below are links to their wikipedias definition and websites.

Wikipedia
NTU's Schools of Art, Design & Media
California Institute of the Arts
Academy of Art University
Savannah College of Art and Design
Art Center College of Design

Official Website
NTU's Schools of Art, Design & Media
California Institute of the Arts
Academy of Art University
Savannah College of Art and Design
Art Center College of Design

I will be doing an in-depth research and comparison between all these colleges to find a suitable institution and course.
In the meantime, I will concentrate on my studies and creative work :)
It'll be great if any of you guys, probably from CGSociety or CGTalk, or probably from any art institution can give me some tips and advice on my choices.
Drop me an email! Thanks in advance!

By the way, I'm now working on MTV + ME Competition which I embarked on a couple of days ago.
The concept, design, boards and timing reel is out.
Hope to update progress here but things are kind of tight here in school, so this weekend probably. :)

laters :)

Labels: overseas, research, school

Aardman Retrospective
Tuesday 28th Octover 2008

Nanyang Polytechnic Theatre for the Arts

David Sproxton and Luis Cook from Aardman, the home of Wallace and Gromit, had a discussion session after the screening of some of Aardman's works.
The question and answer question was really interesting, so I thought I'll jot some of them down here. I cannot remember everything, word for word or every figure, but I guess the idea is somewhat like that, may not be too accurate :)

Q: Do you have life at Aardman?
A: In the past we used to work day in and out, now with advancement of technology, we adopt a 5 day work week. So we have time for ourselves during the weekends.

Q: How do you find your animators?
A: Source from institutes and we have portfolios and resumés coming in. From there, they are trained to be stop frame animators or 3D animators. It's interesting how stop frame animators can convert to 3D animators much easier than the other way round.

Q: How many animators do you have?
A: All the times, it depends on the scale of a project. The size of the team grows and shrinks based on the projects. For feature film length projects, the number of animators can go up to 40, whereas for short films or commercials, there coould probably be 5 to 8 animators.

Find out more about Aardman!

Overall, I found the talk really beneficial. I love The Pearce Sisters and a commercial (I forgot the title) which interviewed different creatures "Why will you do when you fear?" there were two comical cockroaches inside hilarious! And the Mcvities one too. They have really interesting concepts and execution here and there. Awesome!

Labels: animation, conference, feature film, school, short film

My Final Year Project Presentation went very well last Thursday.

However, that was not the end of the production. There were still more effects to be done and composited in while some of the passes requires rendering. Other than these, it's more or less close to completion.

I will be planning a 10-day schedule and work tightly on wrapping up this production because I belieave that dragging this production on will only make things worse.

In the meantime, I will concentrate of completing numerous personal projects too.

Labels: animation, school

[Click to enlarge]

Big thanks to Ms Grace and Mr Kyle! :)

Labels: masterclass, school

Hi!

Mr Kyle Balda, an experienced animator who has worked on animated features at Pixar and ILM was in Singapore for the past week. During this time, he conducted an acting and animation workshop at NYP-SIDM. Some of my friends and I recently attended his masterclass at Gobelins in Paris just before this Singapore session, and we flew back to Singapore for his masterclass in Singapore. Despite that, I still learnt a great deal this second session!

Today is the last day of his workshops and I took the opportunity to clarify all my doubts on animation. Just to summarize, he is very generous, pleasant and patient when sharing his tips and tricks, and the best part is, he makes his animation techniques very easy to absorb and digest. For me, it's only after his masterclass that I know what is character animation (physicality vs acting & performance).

As with everything that I learnt, I will continuously put to use his teachings into my animation so that I will keep improving and I will not forget. I have a good chance to practice my character animation now because I am working on a short film production for the school right now and it's in its animation phase! Great! I really appreciate everything he taught us.

Had a photo-taking session at the end of the masterclass and hopefully I'd be able to get my hands on the photographs and I'll post them here. :D

I will be working on character animation tomorrow!

Labels: animation, masterclass, school

GOBELINS Summer school 2008 in Paris
Character Animation
From June 30th to July 11th, 2008
Find out more

Hello guys, I believe this will be my last post in Singapore before leaving for Paris to attend the Gobelins Summer School 2008!!

I'm very excited to meet people from all over the world with the common interest of animation, be it the lecturers, guest lecturers, or the other students attending this summer school. I'm even more thrilled to meet the students of Les Gobelins and to see their amazing work and how they work to achieve the result.

Given the numerous attractions in Paris, I believe this will be a very enriching trip in terms of exploring their art, culture, architecture, history and of course animation! :D

Now, I've got to do some preparation for the trip. I'll be back in Singapore a couple of weeks later! See you!

Labels: animation, masterclass, overseas, school