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Chattanooga: Teens learn software to make 3D movies

By: Clint Cooper
(Contact)

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Joel Gerlach

In a short video he made, Joel Gerlach walks across the room to answer the door. When he opens it, Wall-E, the robot in the popular Disney movie, is floating there. Upon invitation, Wall-E comes in and flies around the room.

More than 20 children, ages 8 through 17, have learned to use the tools to make such videos this summer in a 3D-animation continuing education course at Chattanooga State Technical Community College.

“Kids can do the stuff that they see (in the movies),” said Mr. Gerlach, 18, the course instructor who has an associate’s degree from the school.

“There is no limitation on being young. I started doing this stuff when I was 10. You can start now, and you can start using that creativity and the imagination that is embedded in you at the beginning and use that as a solid foundation with the tools that are available now.”

The class used Blender, an open-source software that is used for animation, modeling and movie production, as its primary tool.

Kris Simmons, owner of Fire Eye Productions, a Chattanooga video production and Web site design studio, said such instruction “is opening their eyes to a career choice.

“With everything they’re doing online,” he said, “it’s amazing that you can go ... and put together a photo montage or video with tools that are free. I never had that available. We didn’t have access.”

Mr. Gerlach, who will seek a degree in digital media at East Tennessee State University in the fall, said those who work with Blender don’t have to be proficient in art or even computers.

“I can’t draw, but I can animate and model (with the software),” he said, having overlaid his simple video with the Wall-E animation. “Of course, if you have talent, you can go further. But in terms of the basic learning, anybody can do it.”

Indeed, in his class last week, Mr. Gerlach said an 8-year-old was working on the same level as the rest of the class.

For the students, he said, 3D animation could be useful in a school presentation as a visual aid. With more experience, they might use it to make home movies and later to do Web applications and modeling.

“The basics they learn here will help them immensely (if) they go into the industry,” Mr. Gerlach said. “So if one of the students here really learns it — catches onto the basics, how lighting kind of works, how modeling kind of works — then they’ll be a step ahead of their peers who have no idea at all.”

Mr. Simmons, who spoke to one of the continuing education 3D-animation classes, said the students are able to see they “can turn this into making money” and, with more training, possibly “go into a career to animate for blockbuster films.”

“Seeing how engaged everybody (in the class) was in the program or on the computer was pretty exciting for me,” he said.

Jobs involving 3D animation are few and far between in Chattanooga, Mr. Simmons said, but that shouldn’t limit people interested in the field.

“With this kind of skill set, a global economy, high-speed Internet, a cell phone and a reasonable computer, there’s no reason someone can’t do this kind of animation for anybody in the world,” he said. “You don’t have to have a bricks-and-mortar studio.”

Brothers Richard and John Nichols were two of the 21 students in the 3D-animation class.

“Movies are one thing I like to do,” said Richard, 17, a student at Chattanooga Christian School. “(The class has expanded) my learning on how to make them.”

John, 14, a student at Signal Mountain Middle School, said he enjoyed animating things and may be interested in 3D animation as a career.

With the training, he said, “I can make movies and games.”

Mr. Gerlach said he got into 3D animation as “more of a hobby” but acknowledged it “pays very well,” even more than his original career field of film-making.

And, he said, echoing Mr. Simmons, “you can take it anywhere.”

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