France

Les Gobelins

Animation Preparatory Year (PGA)

University degrees: Postgraduate

Course length: 1 year full-time

Course city: Paris

Target audience

  • High school diploma from 2018, 2019 or 2020
  • Non European students shall be at least 18 for the visa process. Graduates in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Aptitudes

  • strong interest and ability to draw
  • creativity and artistic sensibility
  • curiosity for art in all its forms
  • good general knowledge
  • open-mindedness
  • ability to search for graphic trends, to analyze them and to express oneself through all forms of visual creation

Presentation

The goal of this preparatory class is to experiment with various creative techniques in order to enable you to build your study project, to build up an artistic portfolio and to be able to present it in a constructive way with an adapted vocabulary.
This year will allow you to acquire the basic artistic and technical skills required to be admitted to a course related to animation cinema.
PROGRAMMES THAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO APPLY TO AFTER THIS PREPARATORY YEAR

• At GOBELINS, the Bachelor of arts in character animation CAAF

• Entrance exams of animation schools from the RECA network and other animation programmes in France and abroad

 

GENERAL ARTISTIC EDUCATION

  • History of art and animation cinema: chronological landmarks and methods of analysis of the various artistic sectors, including photography and cinema
  • Semiology, analysis of existing work

 

ARTISTIC EDUCATION – FUNDAMENTALS

  • Observation drawing: knowledge of the di erent modes of translation of reality
  • Drawing of space: rules of perspective, outdoors sketches, scenery approach
  • Live model: nude sketches, fi xed and moving, morphology
  • Composition of an image
  • Creativity: colour, volume, creative techniques

 

ARTISTIC EDUCATION – SPECIALTIES

  • Discovery of animation techniques: stop motion, posing….
  • Narrative in images: notions of staging, creative biases
  • Character and set design: construction, model sheet, appropriation of existing characters, stylization, …
  • Jobs presentations, curricula and specifi cities of the schools
  • Assistance in the definition of the study goals, in the choice and preparation of entrance exams
  • Presentation of artistic portfolios through peer-to-peer interactions and in front of juries composed of teachers and professionals
  • Training sessious for entrance exams (mock exams…)

Projects:
Construction of a graphic portfolio, mock exams

Internship:
Not mandatory but recommended (during school holidays periods)

  • Preparation and development of the portfolio
  • Learning by doing: specific experimentation workshops
  • Personalized follow-up of students throughout the year (choice of orientation, portfolio, etc.)
  • Sponsorship of each preparatory year student by a first year Bachelor of arts student. GOBELINS is a member of RECA (Network of French animation schools) and the American IPAX network (schools recognized by Sony Picture)
  • High-level professional speakers coming from renowned studios

 

Programs, Courses, Workshops