Since Estonia is such a tiny place, there are barely any animators who are trained in classic animation style/ US type mainstream. I looked for animators for years, but there was never anyone good enough to handle the projects I was running. I even tried to train the people by giving them exercises and homework, but there is just no interest in anyone here. I am surprised I still have this burning desire to animate after such bad luck when it comes to hiring local animators. Any sane person would have given up years ago.
The most success I’ve had was with students I hired as interns/trainees for Summer. These were all my students from the animation school, and while they were all inexperienced at animation, they could at least trace so the production was going faster. I think they did learn a lot over the years, though I have not heard from them in years, especially since Covid disrupted their studies.
You can see yourself on my demeanor if you compare the pre-Covid teachers pics and after Covid.
The first 3 years
and now this is me in 2022
It was slowly killing me to do this after what Covid had done to the students. I have some real horror stories regarding some of the students in my class. One girl in particular who joined in 2022 I think was the perfect example of anti-social. She hid in her dark corner during class, away from every other student. Stuck her nose in her ipad tablet where she animated and barely spoke. When she did I had to really get my ear to her as she was so quiet. It was a real shame that she was having this attitude, as she could have taught how she animates to other students. But it was sadly very hard for her to interact with anyone in class, and I was lucky to be able to break through her barrier with the power of my Pokemon knowledge. You see, I was a big pokemon fan back in my teen years, so I was very good at understanding what the franchise is about. And since this girl only played Pokemon from what I remember, she was able to share some of her interest with me. She had that Switch Pokemon game, Sword or Shield at the time, which she sometimes played in class, and of course Pokemon Go was another thing she had. A lot of her animations consisted of animating the various Pokemon creatures she liked. And even if they were rough frames, they were really impressive for her age. She was around 14 I think.
So this girl was becoming more and more depressed throughout the years, and eventually she was put on some heavy medication which made her numb. This was horrible to witness as she looked like a puppet, she did not want to do anything in class anymore, she just sat and waited until the class was over (she did not even play on her switch or phone anymore during this time). And these months I remember as sort of therapy period, since I kept trying to help her by talking and trying to motivate her to draw again (while taking away time from other students… I know this was not fair, but this girl was so hopeless I had to do something). Her parents did not seem to care or understand what is going on with her, as from what she told me, she is neglected. I think this was the case of too much unlimited internet access from young age, which made her withdrawn so much. Too many parents fall in this trap, and this is the reason I am so vocal about this social media/internet killing the youth topic. People have no idea what power the unlimited info stream can do to a developing mind.
I asked other kids to talk to her, and some of them did, but because this girl was so stuck in her ways, she came off as rude and mean, not saying hello or goodbye to those kids, while they greeted her usually. I am glad at least one girl in that class was sharing her own struggles , as she was also on meds and was in psyche ward multiple times. I also knew her parents were giving her way too much internet access, so she is always overstimulated and then of course depressed as theres nothing left in her system to make her stable.
So the story ended with her transferring to another animation group, as we thought she might like other kids more, but it became worse there…she started cutting herself with pens. And one time she ran away during class, and hid somewhere while others trying to find her. She was eventually found crying somewhere, but I have no idea whatever happened afterwards. I do think of her sometimes, if she ever got help and how she is doing after all these years. Of course, she is not the only one with similar background, as over the years I have read loads of stories from teenage artists and how mentally unstable they are. I have to state that sensitive people like artists are especially vulnerable to Social Media, and I will go into details in one of my other posts.
I was teaching from 2017 until 2023, and there were a lot of students during this time, as it wasn’t strict in age ranges. There were students from age 11 or 12 all the way until 18 and above. Eventually, I did tell the organizer of this school that we need a minimum age for the kids to get along and also the skill to be more or less same. So we then allowed mostly kids from the age of 13 to join. Sometimes there were students that attended for years, while most were only for a year or so.
During this time I was fully immersed in the gen Z world. While I know that kids with talents and drawing skills tend to be quirky and introverted, this generation was poisoned by the social media without even noticing it. It was depressing to see how from 2017, the kids each year were becoming more and more depressed/anxious, to the point they could not maintain any friends in school, so this animation class was their haven to meet other kids and socialize. I noticed the moods of pre-Covid and post-Covid years, how it impacted their character and behaviors.
Now I don’t want it to sound all doom and gloom, as there were a lot of great times with the kids, mainly before Covid. I was genuinely looking forward to each of the classes (before around 2022) as it was rewarding to share my knowledge with the young minds, and to have the next generation learn the art of hand-drawn animation. It always depended on the group too, if the kids were passionate or would rather scroll on the phone without care. The covid year made it so much harder for anyone to focus in class, which made me lose interest as well. I am just not the type to force someone to learn, as it is energy costing and may be a waste of time anyway. If the kids can’t pay attention, then I can’t give them meds to help. I did try to ask them to put away phones, but we don’t have that rule in school sadly. So barely anyone could disconnect from their devices. Not to mention when some of them were drawing on tablets/ipads, it was even harder to keep them away from the internet abyss.
I had to also learn to not have favorites in class, as it was clear who had more skills than others from the start. Also, there is a factor of mental disorders, like ADHD, autism, GAD etc. Some of the kids were in that tough learning spectrum, so it made extra hard for them to learn animation. I was glad that they were not upset if I was asking to fix something, well most of them were not anyway… There is always someone who has no patience to correct something, and those were usually with little interest in animation, so I am not surprised if their parents used this class to get some peace from their offspring.
One student in particular really impressed me, she was really good at animation and also research of its history. She was so passionate to become the next showrunner, I really could not believe there are such people in Estonia, the land of little to no passion in this art. I will never forget her, she made me this Mr. Sneaks figurine that still stands on my shelf.
P.S. yes, I look like a hobo there. I was juggling both Youtube and this school at the time, so I had little time on keeping myself in order.
Antoonscape 