Richard Protovin, an assistant professor who taught at NYU until 1988, devised the initial curriculum consisting of three classes: Art & Design; Animation I; Animation II. The Richard Protovin Award, an annual NYU competitive offering of finishing funds for student animated films, was established in 1992 in Protovin’s honor.

 

In 1980, seeking to expand the area’s offerings, Protovin hired esteemed animator John Canemaker as an adjunct instructor to teach Action Analysis and History of Animation. Canemaker has headed the program since becoming a full-time associate professor in 1988; he gained tenure in 1994, full professorship in 1997 and, in 2009, received NYU’s Distinguished Teaching Award “for exceptional teaching inside and outside the classroom.” Mr. Protovin and Canemaker developed the area’s curriculum with a variety of courses that cover all areas of the art form and its guiding philosophy.

 

The aim of the Animation area, then and now, was to provide an “animation atelier” with individualized emphasis given to developing the artistic voice of every student. This areas is a place where students receive a thorough grounding in the principles and art of animation and its full spectrum of techniques. In turn, the Animation area made NYU history by being the first program to bring digital technology into the Kanbar department.

 

The current Animation curriculum at New York University consists of nearly twenty different classes that embrace the mainstream, traditional, experimental, and personal aspects of animation, using techniques that range from digital to hand-drawn to stop motion. The Student Animation League, an offshoot of the weekly work letters at NYU from the 1990s, was officially founded in 2001, continues to hold this ideal to its highest order and exists to aid all NYU students in their pursuit of the animated medium, 23 years and counting!