Bill Plympton’s School of Animation 2025
Learn the fundamentals of animation from a Two-Time Academy Award Nominated Director and Animator, who has created 9 Feature Films and over 100 Shorts! Get insider knowledge on how to build a solid foundation for your animation idea, including - Plot, character design, composition, color, post-production, and how to enter the finished film into festivals, all over the course of 8 video sessions!
**Adobe Subscription highly recommended, but not required.**
Mr. Plympton guides his student through the process of Animation, explaining the element of Timing and the relationship that it has to Movement. In the student film, there is a drummer making a lot of noise and Bill explains the benefit to animating on "2's and 3's" - Meaning the amount of times a drawing repeats before moving into the next drawing in the sequence. He also touches on when and when not to use in-betweens to give the appearance of speed.
What You’ll Get:
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Class 1 - Welcoming and introductions, reviewing the class schedule, polishing student’s short film idea.
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Class 2 - Story structure, outlining student’s short film and the importance of plot-curve, start rough character designs.
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Class 3 - Migrating script to storyboard, starting with thumbnail roughs and moving through foundational composition, and including dialogue if applicable.
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Class 4 - Finalizing layouts on storyboard draft, creating concept art, finalizing character design, and background composition.
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Class 5 - Fundraising for productions, building and maintaining a budget, nailing a production schedule, “Plympton’s Dogma”
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Class 6 - Starting the process of Animation, converting the storyboard into scenes and how to prioritize them, straight-ahead or keyframing techniques, putting in color.
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Class 7 - Post-Production prep, picking music and sound effects, video editing, layers, file organization/secure sharing and best practices.
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Class 8 - Final critiques, Film Festival submission guidance, selling the film to distributors where applicable, and contracts.
Enrollment
Enrollment
Complete Access to last year's iteration of Bill Plympton's Animation Master Class recordings from Spring 2025 fully breaking down his traditional hand-drawn techniques for bringing sketches to life! Our Producer, Owen, also explains our compositing process which utilizes the Adobe Suite - Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere. *There are a multitude of ways to composite animation with other programs, ours focuses on Adobe, it's not required for the course but strongly encouraged.
✺ Frequently asked questions ✺
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Will I get direct feedback from Bill Plympton on my animation/portfolio?
The price includes only the 8 videos of the course which are class recordings of Bill Plympton’s School of Animation from Spring 2025. For portfolio feedback, you can visit this page
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Do I have to finish my animation within the 8 weeks?
No, completion of your film will likely not happen within the 8 weeks due to the nature of traditional hand-drawn animation and how much time is required, based on the individual plot and skill-level of each student. Completion of film will not dictate the grade or passing of the course. It’s for educational purposes.
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Can I take the course in-person?
Yes! If you are a New York City-Based creative with a passion for animation and are interested in meeting with Bill weekly at his studio, along with the Plymptoons team, we have sessions during his off-touring season, usually around Winter/Spring.
Shoot us an email if interested:
studio@plymptoons.com
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After course completion - Can I put this on my resume?
Absolutely! Bill Plympton’s School of Animation would be a perfect fit in either the “Education” or “Additional Certificates” sections of a resume or C.V. if the intention is to start looking for employment in the industry.
Please be advised that most companies do not hire creatives without a portfolio/demo reel, therefore finishing the course film is highly encouraged, but not required.
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Will this course teach me how to draw?
Not in a traditional sense - While sequential art (comics & animation) is accepted as the fastest way to improve drawing skills, this course will not be focused on building foundational art knowledge.
The common adage “I can’t draw a stick figure” doesn’t apply - stick figures, blobs, and shapes can all be animated. How you decide to utilize your skillset to tell your animated story is up to you.
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Aside from this course, how much money will I have to spend on materials?
That is entirely up to you, which may sound like a vague answer, but the general process of traditional animation taught by Bill can be applied to a variety resources and programs.
Bill’s most relied upon tools are:
Printer paper (or “typing paper”, as he calls it)
Pencil (any color)
Ball point pen or Sharpie
Scanner
*An Adobe License
*There are alternative/free versions of these programs available. You can even use a phone app.