Animation Academy Obscure Characters?

[GirlyVetTech]

I have never been to the Animation Academy, but I watched an online video of it. In the video the animator asks the audience what they would like to draw. Is this always done or do they know what they are going to teach to draw going in?

I ask that because if the animator asks the audience, couldn't someone yell out a very obscure character and then the animator be caught off guard?

I mean wonder if someone yelled out Bill from Alice in Wonderland... what would happen?

Thanks!

 

[lkh]

They usually give some suggestions for what to draw and people chime in and say yes to one of their suggestions. I've been a couple times where they left it more up to the guests and once the CM said she knew how to draw all of the ones offered in the class (I think it was 100+, she gave the actual #) and another time someone called out a character (can't remember who) and they said they couldn't draw them but suggested other characters from the movie.

Also, when you're in the waiting area the CM can tell you what characters have been drawn so far that day for some ideas but sometimes the CM drawing won't repeat one they've done that day already.

 

[mesaboy2]

I have never been to the Animation Academy, but I watched an online video of it. In the video the animator asks the audience what they would like to draw. Is this always done or do they know what they are going to teach to draw going in?

I ask that because if the animator asks the audience, couldn't someone yell out a very obscure character and then the animator be caught off guard?

I mean wonder if someone yelled out Bill from Alice in Wonderland... what would happen?

Thanks!

I've been told the WDW version of this has a pool of about 50 characters to draw from. Also that they won't (or at least try not to) repeat a character more than once a day. A log is kept outside the attraction by the CMs as to what's been drawn that day.

While at WDW they don't tell you who you're drawing until inside (we got Dopey today), at DLR in Anaheim they actually post a schedule for the day of who's up in each class. We used this to our advantage in June since DD wanted to draw a character from Frozen--Olaf is who was offered of course.

 

[CanadianPaco]

We have participated in the class all but one trip. Only once were we asked for input as to what we will draw. Obscure? Sometimes....one class, we drew Bolt. DH still has no idea who Bolt is!

 

[dprincessmom]

In May, we did the class twice. Snow White and Mickey - we had a class vote of a handful instructor gave as options. We have also done Dopey and one of the elves from Prep and Landing. If there is a special short out, that might be one that comes up a couple of times a day. When we did Prep and Landing, the paper had that logo on it. We were there December 17th.

 

[karly05]

My best experience was still my first time, when the instructor immediately had us vote on 3 choices - Goofy, Dale or Bolt. Dale won (I voted for him). I've only done this four times, but there was one subsequent time where we wasted way too much of the session on the instructor tossing out choices and trying to find something no one in the class had drawn before. There was a person (or persons) in there who had apparently drawn practically everything, and we ended up doing Mickey because whoever this was had already done all the interesting choices (sorry, Mickey). After a few shows of hands, the instructors need to ignore the people who obviously have already done the class a million times in favor of the infrequent guests.

 

[LaurenT]

we've done this many times and it totally depends on which animator you get. Some will tell you what you're drawing, some will ask the audience and some will give you a choice of two or three.
Last time we were told that the next class would be tinker bell... seems someone did a class and was disappointed that it wasn't tinker bell so the animator told them to come back for our class and he'd do Tink.
We were voted down for Bolt once and the animator was really sweet and drew a Bolt for DD after the class....
Quite a few times the animator has asked for a show of hands for who has already done a character and will go through list of them until he gets to one that no one has done.
Also keep in mind that not all animators can do all characters. We asked for Buzz once and were told that only two of the animators were qualified to do him....

 

[GirlyVetTech]

Wow! Thanks everyone for all the replies!

This gives me a better idea of what goes on at the Animation Academy. Like the stories everyone told of their experience.

And that is so surprising that certain animators are not qualified to draw certain characters!

If the CM asks for a suggestion, I can't help but call out what I want. Which is probably one the can't do, but at least I would have tried. And if not then I'd change to to Daisy Duck, she never gets enough face time anyway!

Thank you all again!