Launching Pad for Digital Artists

When Christopher Bonnstetter turned 14, he created his first video game.

At 16, he unleashed his first cyber-superhero for a student film.

At 18, right after his high school diploma arrived in the mail, Bonnstetter landed an entry-level digital animation job at Boss Film Studios Inc., a visual effects house in Marina del Rey.

“The opportunities were too great to waste four years at art school,” said Bonnstetter, now 21 and earning a high five-figure salary. “Why waste my time in college when I got the training I needed from high school?”

His alma mater, Orange County High School of the Arts, has launched several students directly into high-paying positions at special-effects shops, game companies and film studios. Hollywood’s galloping demand for computer-generated images in film, television, commercials, games, theme parks and online projects has created an extraordinary race to land tech-savvy talent, and many company heads are now willing to grab promising digital artists regardless of their work experience or age.

Though some colleges tapped into the need for classes in this field early on--particularly Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and California Institute of the Arts in Valencia--Hollywood executives insist most high schools have long ignored these specialty fields.

Which makes OCHSA, and its strong push to lure the corporate world to its public campus, so distinct.

The school’s curriculum ranges from traditional art instruction to classes on self-marketing. It draws guest teachers from Hanna-Barbera, Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Feature Animation. Students often intern with these companies during high school, and that can help them land a job after graduation.

“The role of the artist is changing, and we need to prepare our kids for the real world,” said Nancy Melbourne, director of OCHSA’s visual arts department. “We need the private sector and the kids need jobs. If we can go into the community and show off our student’s wares, then we’ll do it.”

Some entertainment insiders warn that these students may not be emotionally ready for corporate pressures. Jumping directly into a job could thwart their artistic growth, pushing them into a niche market and denying them the luxury of spending four years exploring other artistic arenas.

But such misgivings haven’t stopped these same executives from luring teenage artists to their studios with lucrative paychecks and promises of working on feature films.

Jennifer Cardon, 20, took a character animator gig at Warner Bros. right after she graduated. Cardon, who attended both OCHSA and Rowland High School in Rowland Heights, said she had some misgivings about shrugging off college, but she takes comfort in knowing that her contract with Warner Bros. allows her to keep her job if she ever decides to take time off and pursue a degree.

Brian Kesinger, a 19-year-old artist who works in Disney’s feature animation department, said he decided to jump into the work force at the suggestion of his teachers.

“I was submitting my portfolio to studios at the same time everyone else was sending out college applications,” said Kesinger, who also attended both OCHSA and Rowland. “Now I have friends saying I’m missing out on the college experience. I figure that the studio experience is better.”

*

Today’s search for tech-oriented talent stems from an animation renaissance, spurred by the success of features such as “The Little Mermaid” and “The Lion King”; from the popularity of effects-laden works such as “Terminator 2” and “Independence Day”; and from the development of the CD-ROM and video game industries.

Warner Bros., DreamWorks SKG, 20th Century Fox and Viacom are spending a combined $1 billion to launch or expand their animation departments. Disney has gone on a hiring spree, nearly doubling its animation division since 1995.

Dozens of visual effects shops have cropped up throughout Southern California. Studio executives now estimate that nearly every major motion picture released in the last three years--from “Twister” to “Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet”--uses digital effects.

At least 7,000 animator jobs are based in Los Angeles, and command an average salary of $104,000 a year, according to the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Union Local 839.

“There’s an explosion happening and it’s the younger people who are adapting to it,” said Tom Sito, president of the local. “All this work is creating the need for a new type of artisan, especially one who’s comfortable with a computer.”

Enter OCHSA. Founded in 1987, the public school is housed at the Los Alamitos High School campus and draws 500 kids from Orange, Los Angeles and other counties. Students take academic classes in the morning, then attend afternoon courses in dance, theater, music and art.

The school’s mission statement sounds simple: to help youngsters see themselves as artists, to aid their ability to market themselves in the private sector or help them break into art school.

Every student, regardless of career path, takes an “art as a business” class. There, the students learn to promote themselves and their work, how to interview and audition for a job, how much to pay a manager or agent, and even tips on filing their taxes.

Such practical training is crucial, say school officials. After all, 20% of the Class of 1996 skipped college and went to work.

“We are an educational program with a vocational push,” said Ralph Opacic, OCHSA’s executive director. “The traditional idea of getting a four-year liberal arts degree used to be common practice, because it helped to round out your education and to develop the social skills. But in today’s market, a four-year degree doesn’t always help you get a job.”

*

In 1994, the school began offering a loosely defined digital animation track. Students augmented their life-drawing and watercolor classes with hours in the computer lab. Working on old Macintosh computers with limited memory and software, the aspiring artists studied graphics, layout, typography and simple image rendering.

Last year, the school got a $50,000 grant from McDonnell Douglas Corp. The money paid for a dozen new Mac clones and 3-D modeling software.

“We figured that the best way to take advantage of this job boom was to buy the equipment and let the kids go,” said OCHSA’s Melbourne.

Bonnstetter regularly ditched his academic classes and snuck into OCHSA’s tiny computer lab. History, yawn. Geography, forget it. Typing, though, grabbed his interest. After all, he got to spend an hour dinking around a keyboard.

But the lab was home, a musty nirvana filled with digital puzzles waiting to be unraveled. How does the machine work? Why does it work? Can he make his art work with it?

*

Grades were unimportant. He barely graduated from high school, sneaking into commencement ceremonies with a 1.3 grade-point average.

“My poor Mom thought I was going to spend the rest of my life in my room, playing video games,” said Bonnstetter, who does--in fact--still live at home with Mom. “She expected me to flip burgers for minimum wage.”

Instead, a friend told Bonnstetter about Boss Film, an effects house that snagged Academy Award nominations for “2010,” “Die Hard,” “Alien 3” and “Batman Returns.”

Bonnstetter landed an interview, then got an entry-level job at the shop. For weeks, he buried himself in a warehouse smelling of glue and burnt wires. He carried coffee, archived film and studied the computers.

“The age thing made me really nervous,” conceded Michael Sweeney, an executive producer at Boss Film who hired the young Orange County artist.

“We rarely let anyone in who’s not about to graduate from college. It’s a maturity thing. We’re dealing with big projects, tight deadlines, Hollywood egos and real money. I don’t need some kid running around, slowing us down.”

Bonnstetter soon proved his abilities and, when he was 19, Boss promoted him to a full-fledged digital director. Today, his resume includes credits from “Species,” “Turbulence” and “Air Force One.”

OCHSA’s pro-work attitude raises several philosophical questions on the role of public education in a competitive economy.

After all, critics say, much of OCHSA’s $1.2-million operating budget is covered by monies from the state’s average daily attendance fund. And tax dollars, critics say, should pay for a traditional education.

“You’re always going to have the animation prodigy who is ready to go at age 17, but that’s a pretty rare phenomena,” said Dave Master, director of artist development and training at Warner Bros. Feature Animation.

“Working in animation, whether digital or traditional, demands a background in world view and history and math,” he said. “Not every skill you need is job-related.”

Public schools need to offer youth the opportunity to explore the sandbox of their creative soul--not finesse their resume. A 17-year-old may think that photography is his calling in high school, but that could change after several years of collegiate seasoning.

“We’re talking about very young artists who happen to have a lot of talent,” said Coco Conn, filmmaker and founder of SiggKids, an annual show highlighting multimedia projects created by teens ages 16 and younger.

“It’s one thing to offer a child like this the opportunity to use digital tools and grow as an artist,” Conn said. “It’s another to use the tools as a means of creating a teenage minor league.”

But OCHSA staff say that the school needs the flexibility to bridge into the private sector in order to survive. Almost half--$575,000--of its budget comes from OCHSA Foundation, a nonprofit organization that solicits donations from such corporate sponsors as GTE, Toyota, McDonnell Douglas and Pacific Mutual.

*

And soon, hopes Opacic, these companies and others will pop for more. Administrators plan to raise $15 million over the next two years and relocate the art program to a new 15-acre lot off Bloomfield Street in Los Alamitos.

Anchoring the proposed campus will be a $2.6-million arts technology center, complete with recording studios, animation labs and computerized video editing systems.

“As long as the private sector is willing to hire young artists, it’s our duty to make our students as marketable and ready as possible,” Opacic said. “I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

Neither does Bonnstetter. Last week, Boss Film went out of business. The young artist spent a day cleaning his desk and saying goodbye to his colleagues. On his commute home, Bonnstetter realized he needed to update his resume and start looking for another job.

He walked inside the house and checked for messages. Another visual effects shop had called, asking him to interview for a digital artist spot.

“I’m sure I’m missing out on something by not going to school, but I don’t know what it is,” Bonnstetter said. “The best people I’ve seen in this field didn’t go to college. The real-world experience seems to count for more than any diploma I could have gotten.

“And there was definitely a feeling at [OCHSA] that if you can get paid for learning, you should do it.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Where to Enroll

Some Southern California high schools and colleges are starting to offer classes on digital animation. Among them:

* Rowland High School in Rowland Heights, long known for its expansive regional occupation program in the arts, focuses on traditional, hand-drawn animation. Staff members say they will look into adding digital courses.

* Last fall, the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers launched a series of “new media academies” at Hollywood High School, Palisades Charter High in Pacific Palisades and Abram Friedman Occupational Center in downtown Los Angeles. Nearly 400 students enrolled in the program, which was founded with a $130,000 grant from Los Angeles Unified School District and the Weingart Foundation. The program, which landed a $100,000 cash donation from DreamWorks SKG this year, plans to expand into three more high schools in the fall.

* This fall, Santa Monica College will open its Academy of Entertainment and Technology, a joint venture between the school and more than three dozen film and computer-game studios. Organizers hope the program will spawn a local, all-ages pool of multimedia talent.

* Sony Pictures Imageworks has spent the last three years using its digital animators as UCLA Extension instructors. As they teach, they also recruit.

* Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. have opened their animation shops to teachers who want to learn new ways to inspire young artists.

* UC Irvine’s School of the Arts plans to launch a computer art lab by early next year. Venice-based Digital Domain, one of the film industry’s largest visual effects studios, is consulting on the venture.