How Pixel Blue College's ANI_JAM activated Edmonton's animation community

 

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Start by introducing yourselves, your connection to Pixel Blue College, and to the animation jam.

Scott: I started out in video games, doing concept and production art. After about 10 years I was unemployed and doing random freelancing projects, on the quest for my next gig. I started getting into teaching, and that led me to get picked up by Pixel Blue College to teach the illustration portion of the 2D animation course. 

Alongside teaching, I’m a freelance illustrator and artist. For example, I worked on a film called The Troll of Belle Lake with a company called New Machine Studios based out of Calgary.  

Buck: I’m an animator, and I actually studied at Pixel Blue College myself. Similar to Scott, I do freelance work while also teaching at Pixel Blue College. I teach the animation portion of the course, so the foundational skills that go into animation, and the principles and tools. 

Can you tell me a bit about Pixel Blue College? 

Curtis: Pixel Blue College started out as DevStudios. It was a software company and school that kind of worked together to create immersion learning. DevStudios would train students, and then hire students to work for the company. In 2005 they decided they would get rid of the school division. I was there as the Director of Education, so we bought it, took it private and rebranded it as Pixel Blue College. 

It originally started in 1999, so it has a nice long 26 year history of graduating thousands of students. We have 4 full time programs: audio, graphic design, 3D animation, and 2D animation. We tend to hire people who aren’t necessarily teachers, but that are experts in their fields. We find this is great for our immersion learning model. 

Tell us about ANI_JAM. What inspired it and what is the jam like? 

Scott: The animation jam was originally Buck’s idea. He wanted to get everyone together to make animated films. Thanks to his ambition we took that idea, and decided to turn it into a big event. The goal was to get local artists recognized beyond the school walls, in a capacity that could be enjoyed by the public. 

The opportunities in Alberta are smaller and less visible than elsewhere in Canada, and so we thought this could be a way to make our local talent more visible in our community, and to also hopefully gain some national and international attention. Ultimately, we wanted to create an animation jam that could serve as a launch pad for people to find their way to bigger things.

Buck: This year’s animation ANI_JAM was our second annual jam. The way we run ours is different from other animation jams, which are typically 24 hours straight. Ours is 24 hours, but spread across three, 8-hour days. We run ours this way because we don’t want the students and alumni participating to be pulling all-nighters. 

By factoring rest into the animation jam, we feel like we’re modeling a more sustainable work model that helps teach animators that they don’t need to pull all-nighters to create great animation. 

Scott: Yeah, there’s this idea in games and animation that you have to be working all the time.  I think it’s harmful to promote that way of working. We don’t want to set that precedent, and so it was intentional that we emphasize the 8-hour day through the animation jam. 

This helps to teach students and alumni that they can accomplish a ton of great animation work, while also having work-life balance. We want to show them how to work in a way that will be sustainable for a long period of time.

So far, participants in the animation jam have been students or alumni, but we are thinking of expanding this in the future into including audio students and 3D students, and to potentially be province-wide. We would like to get more of the Edmonton community involved.

Is there untapped potential in Edmonton’s creative arts community? 

Scott: Alberta has always been a good exporter of artistic talent. Lots of talent moves from here to Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, and it’s because the challenge for students graduating in Alberta is that they have to do so much more themselves. 

They need to get that resume experience themselves, with very few options or resources available to them. It seems the path to professional work after graduation in Alberta is to get government grants, rather than a studio position.Our hope is that the animation jam can help bring outside eyes to the talent that is grown right here in Edmonton, which could lead to better opportunities. 

Buck: Yeah, the animation industry is built around trust. Our classes at Pixel Blue College, as well as the animation jam, are meant to teach students to be able to collaborate, work with other people, and build the trust that’s so essential in this industry. 

The animation jam is great for this because it not only helps build those collaboration skills, but it helps people meet each other and form connections. It’s also important for students to learn to be comfortable talking to people, to open up, be expressive, and show their work. The animation jam gives students a chance to work on that. 

Can you walk us through how teams are guided through the jam? What kind of structure or support do they receive?

Scott: We host a kick-off for the animation jam online, which introduces the theme. The teams all work on making their film around that same theme. This year’s theme was “hidden gem”: we liked this theme because it’s a bit of a metaphor for animation artists in Edmonton. That said, we are really careful not to project onto the teams what they should do with the theme. 

Buck: During their course at Pixel Blue College the students work on a collaborative project, so by the time they join the animation jam they have had some experience working together as a team. I also create for them a document that covers the principles of working as an animation team, so they can use that to guide them. They all know the animation pipeline, and so it’s really just about making sure they can collaborate well. 

Most teams pick a team leader right away, and then they are good to go. They are also given a calendar that gives them an idea of what they should be doing, and by when. For example, should they have the animatic for their film done by the end of the first day of the jam. On day two they are usually doing rough animation, and on day three they are scrambling to finalize their pieces, and doing cleanup animation. 

What are some of the benefits to participating in this animation jam? 

Scott: I think one of the biggest benefits is the opportunity to get feedback from our panel of judges. We bring in a broad range of judges so that the teams receive feedback from different perspectives. Each judge works on a categorized spreadsheet where they can share their comments, and give a score based on each category. 

They can also share written feedback if they want. Many of the judges are happy to go into detail with the teams, too. For example, in our last animation jam, one of our judges offered a 1:1 mentorship session with the winning team. 

Buck: Another benefit is definitely the networking aspect. Students and alumni have a chance to meet each other, and try working together. In many cases these are people who may have never met if it weren’t for the jam. I think the jam is really great for helping artists form connections that could turn into something great in the future. 

Curtis: We had a group that participated in the first animation jam, but didn’t have a great team experience, and ended up not submitting a film. Despite failing to finish the jam, they wanted to try again, and so they came back this year and made it over the finish line. 

I find that students these days are scared of failure, and the animation jams are a chance to overcome that fear. They will make mistakes, some will outright fail, but through the jam they learn how important it is to learn from those experiences and try again. 

When will the next ANI_JAM be, and is there anything you can share about it?

Buck: The next ANI_JAM will be March 22 to 24, in 2026.

Curtis: Every year we’ve held a gala on our campus after the ANI_JAM wraps. Our hope is that in 2026 we can partner with a local theatre to host a more public gala. Not just for the participants and their friends and family, but for anyone in our community who wants to come. We would also love to go more Alberta-wide in 2026. 

The best thing we can give our students is a soft launch into the community. If they can meet one filmmaker, or one storyteller, or even someone who rents camera equipment, it can open up doors. We want our students to graduate into a community, not just a job. 

Scott: I’m excited for ANI_JAM 2026 because I think we have a chance to galvanize a community of animators here in Edmonton and beyond. I like to think about how through the ANI_JAM, we know that there are 52 animators in this city who have made animated films. We want to continue to grow that community. 

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• Interested in learning more about Pixel Blue College's ANI_JAM? Visit the event's official website.
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