May 20, 2009

Drawing an inspirational message at Catholic Animation Camp

Film school aims to train Catholic cinematic artists

By John Gleason

Attention all budding animators—or at least those desiring to get into the animated film industry—the Catholic Film School is now taking reservations for its summer animation camp sessions. 

The school and the camp are operated by Holy Souls Media, a nonprofit company founded by Steve Baker, a Denver native who fell in love with computer animation after seeing the 1977 “Star Wars” film as a teenager.  Baker said animation has no boundaries and that both the school and camp equip animators to tell their story.  And you don’t have to be well-versed in computer animation to attend the camp.

“We have two sessions, each running for a week,” Baker said.  “Students learn how to model, texture, light and animate in the computer.”

The school offers more advanced classes for those who are interested in further training. The Catholic Film School offers a 12-month training in Autodesk Softimage under the supervision of certified instructors. 

The school’s mission is to educate and train the next generation of Catholic cinematic artists. 

“We’re here to help artists learn the software and produce a message that inspires a culture of life,” Baker said.  “That’s our purpose.”

Instructors work with students on a movie project that inspires a culture of life and is based on sound Catholic theology. Skills learned with the program can be applied in many areas such as digital video, computer animation, game design, film and Web media. 

During camp, students get to work with an optical motion capture suit—a one-color body suit covered with markers that distinguish arms, legs, shoulders, the head, etc.  The person wearing the suit is filmed, the recording is placed on a computer and the animator uses the markers as reference points in designing an animated character.  Baker said it’s perfect for cartoon creation, but has other applications as well.

“It’s a foundation to move onto many aspects of film work; anything from film to computer graphics or gaming,” he said. 

The parent company, Holy Souls Media, was founded in 2005 for the purpose of catechizing and educating children in the Catholic faith and to create media for those purposes.

“The Church keeps asking us to create media but we need the people who can actually make it happen,” Baker said.  “I’ve been doing this for the last decade and have discovered there’s a vacuum of trained animators interested in spreading the good news. 

“We’d like to create a community of people who could celebrate and share their faith in the midst of trying to do their vocation.”

The animation camp will hold two sessions at Regis University: the first is June 8-12, the second is June 15-19.  Cost for the weeklong class is $500.  Registration forms can be found online at: hsmedia.org.  Other information is available by calling 303-358-1108.