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Is Animation mentor expensive?

Posted on November 11, 2007 5 Comments
Filed under Animation Mentor

People around me know that AM has been for me a love and hate relationship all along and unlike some other students I didn’t get caught in the “everything is awesome” bubble that wraps most people as soon as they join AM.

I did my fair bit of bashing in the past but like fine wine, the school is gradually getting better and better and that’s amazing for a school who has been in business for only few years but today I wanted to share a comment I posted on the Splinedoctors blog since I have more audience here than they will ever have ;-)
is Animation Mentor expensive?.

Well that s an interesting question that deserves to be answered.

I would be tempted to say yes but looking around, how many cheaper options do you get if you are not french, already ultra talented and selected by Les Gobelins animation school?

What else do you get for those $15,000 and ultimately, how long would it take you to pay back that money if you got this animation dream job?

Personally that money was my savings to pay the deposit for a mortgage but since I was working while doing AM I could have quickly recovered the cost of AM with my new animation job. Now I live in UK, I have no clue if this applies to other countries, the dollar is at it lowest level since 1982 I am told.

After 18 month at AM and without any animation experience previously, me and the classmates who reached the upper classes, applied for jobs where we were in competition with people who had been through 4 to 5 years of university!

Foundation course: 1 year
BA: 3 years

Some guys who applied for the same job I was applying for even had Masters or Post graduate diplomas!

Does one realise how much it cost to spend 4 years at university? Let alone the fact that people like me couldn’t move city and had to do AM on top of our full time job.

Now don’t get over excited ;-) This doesn’t mean that you just need to pay your $15000 for AM to get a job. Your mentors won’t animate your shots for you and you will still have to work realllllly hard to polish this Showreel that will get you where you always wanted to be!

Animation is hard, no matter how much you paid or what school you went to but AM gives you access to a crazy community of people who love and live for animation and if you make the most of it, you will definitely reap the rewards of it.

Animation Mentor might seem expensive at first glance, but it is very much worth it.

[update] at the moment, the Short film has been removed from the program. I am completely against the idea and I just hope they bring it back very quickly.

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