Explore animation techniques in Atlanta through creative courses focused on storytelling and motion. You’ll learn how to bring ideas to life through visual movement.
Learn to create compelling video content with Adobe After Effects. This course covers the basics of animation, text effects, and file integration needed to start creating impressive visual content from scratch. Get hands-on experience with real-world projects taught by an experienced instructor.
Learn motion graphics and visual effects with Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro. Develop your skills in animation, video editing, and special effects, and create a motion graphics demo reel to showcase your work to potential clients or employers.
Learn how to use Adobe Premiere Pro to create professionally edited videos in this comprehensive class. From importing and organizing footage to advanced editing techniques like multi-cam editing and green screen removal, this course will equip you with the skills to create compelling video content.
Dive into the dynamic world of Adobe After Effects with this advanced course, designed to elevate your animation and motion graphics skills. From mastering 3D layers and custom shapes to optimizing animations with expressions, you'll create captivating visuals that stand out in any project.
This course unlocks the power of Adobe After Effects, teaching you to create stunning visual effects and professional-grade motion graphics. Master techniques like motion tracking, compositing, and time remapping to take your video projects to new heights of creativity and impact.
Become a skilled Video Editor and Motion Graphics Designer by learning Adobe Premiere Pro, and After Effects. Develop creative techniques and concepts for editing videos, and showcase your skills by creating a professional demo reel.
As defined by Studio Binder, animation is the “simulation of movement created by a series of pictures.” Just think of the old “flip books” you may have made as a kid. These books featured slightly different images that, when rapidly viewed, create the illusion of movement. All animation basically works using this core principle. Old-school animation (think Disney or Warner Bros. Cartoons) uses hand-drawn “cels” rapidly photographed and viewed.
What’s fascinating about animation is its long history: far lengthier, in fact, than film itself! Early experimentation began in the Victorian Age using unique viewing devices that spun rapidly. Viewers would look through a single slot and see simple animations (such as a man running rapidly) based on a series of slightly altered images. While crude in execution, these devices provided hours of entertainment and helped inspire future animators in the 1900s.
Modern animation—though infinitely more complex and fine-tuned—still uses the same basic ideas. However, its use has moved beyond simple entertainment to fields like industrial design, marketing, and much more. It’s a uniquely creative skill you can learn in various Atlanta-based classes. Home to a surprising number of animation studios, Atlanta residents with a creative eye and a visual mind may find these courses intensely rewarding financially and creatively.
Learning animation can help you prepare for a broad array of different careers in many fields. We’ll talk more about these jobs later, so just know—for now—that animation training in Atlanta can help you join fields like visual design, filmmaking, auto design, modeling, and much more. However, you can also try out fun animation projects that might excite you. Imagine making a creative YouTube animation series and catching on with viewers: you could make good money!
If you’re a parent, learning animation may be particularly rewarding. Imagine making little cartoons for your children…they’ll feel special knowing they have personalized films just for them. Even better, you can collaborate with your kids and bring their dreams to life! Sharing this kind of creative activity is truly something special, and your children will always remember it. Encouraging their creativity can also help them in their educational and professional careers.
Even if you’re not interested in pursuing an animation career, learning this skill can still help you in your day-to-day life. Let’s say you love making presentations for your management job (or for friends and family members for gatherings like weddings or reunions). Knowing how to animate can make your presentations more exciting and fascinating. It’s the kind of skill that not many people have (Zippia reports only 4,900 employed Animators), which can help you stand out.
Animation classes in Atlanta will cover a broad array of fascinating subjects to ensure you understand this concept. You’ll learn many skills—most of which can be transferred to other fields—to improve your animation and become a more professional expert. By fully understanding these concepts, you can ensure that you animate properly and create work employers will enjoy. Read through these skills when choosing a great animation class.
If you want to become an Animator or master animation, you must be a skilled illustrator. So much of your work (even when using 3D software) requires you to create attractive and engaging images…and produce multiple variations on them. Don’t worry if you’re not a naturally gifted artist: few people are born with inherent drawing skills. Instead, you can learn the various techniques and processes needed to draw accurately—anyone can learn them!
While you could become a skilled Animator in film or online video production, you may also work in a more corporate environment. For example, mastering animation for a graphic design career could help you find jobs in marketing, web design, and more. As a result, many animation classes in Atlanta focus heavily on graphic design concepts. Expect to learn things like proper image layout, text integration, and other critical theories—they make you a great Animator.
The fact that Walt Disney and his team of animators drew every cel by hand (including backgrounds) makes those old-school cartoons true works of art and continually fascinating to watch even now. These days, though, animation is done primarily through design software. Thankfully, beginner-friendly options (such as Adobe Illustrator) can make this process easier for you. That said, continual practice can help you become a true expert with these programs.
All animation is built on foreground and background elements. Foreground items include any characters that you design, while the background is the area where they roam. Background animation is just as important as character design: in some ways, more critical. After all, your viewers will obviously pay close attention to the foreground characters, but an exciting and eye-catching background makes your animations seem more alive and fun to watch.
While most of the things you’ll learn in an animation class in Atlanta are “hard skills, ” i.e., things you learn for that field, you'll also learn many soft skills. Soft skills apply to many elements of your life and can boost your abilities in just about any career that interests you. Creativity, communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and other unique soft skills can improve your abilities in just about every field of life and ensure a better and more fascinating career.
Animation is definitely a skill that will take some time to master. After all, it’s a complex ability that requires understanding illustration, various software tools, sound design, background layout, and much more. Its difficulty will definitely vary depending on your previous knowledge, i.e., your innate artistic talent and your willingness to practice. Completing a single animation course isn’t going to make you an expert…but regular work building an animation portfolio can help you fine-tune your skills and become a better and more entertaining Animator.
The most difficult parts of learning animation are mastering illustration and carefully recreating images with minor variations. You’ll have to accurately reproduce pictures multiple times with only slight differences that simulate movement. Even with design software, this technique requires time and practice to perfect. Once you get it down pat—though—you should have no difficulty animating various animals, people, and even vehicles: practice makes perfect, so find a free animation software tool that you enjoy and work with it regularly to get even better.
Here’s the thing: learning the basic techniques necessary for animation might only take you a few months in a high-quality course. In fact, you can probably start putting together crude videos or cartoons even after a few hands-on sessions with your professor…but mastering animation? That might take significantly longer. Setting aside a few hours every day to practice with your software (including creating characters and backgrounds) is absolutely essential. Expect mastery to take at least a year or so…depending on how frequently you practice your skills.
The history of education focuses very heavily on in-person learning: for 99% of human history, no other methods existed! However, we live in the internet Age, and online learning options (live and asynchronous) are available. All these techniques have advantages and downsides. For example, in-person learning lets you work directly with your teacher and even interact with other students in your course. That hands-on support can greatly improve your animations, though driving to class (and geographical limitations) makes in-person learning frustrating for some.
Thankfully, online education helps you expand beyond courses available near you, which is ideal for people in more isolated or rural areas. Asynchronous teaching was the first of these concepts implemented, one that remains popular even now. It includes pre-recorded videos and readings you can learn from at your own pace. These benefits make them great for people with jobs or kids: you can learn on any schedule. However, there’s limited teacher support and no social interaction—it’s a lonely way to learn a new skill and hard for some to complete.
These days, the most popular online learning model is live, a method that features a real-time class taught by a skilled professor. Through streaming video sessions, you’ll learn about animation from your teacher from the comfort of your home and get hands-on support that breaks through the limitations of asynchronous courses. Of course, the problem here is that you must follow your teacher’s schedule: missing a class can make catching up hard. However, you’ll also avoid Atlanta’s notoriously insane rush-hour traffic, so it can’t be all that bad!
Free video platforms like YouTube and Vimeo feature some pretty cool channels focused on teaching animation tips and techniques. Free courses are what we call a smart supplement to a full-time, paid training class, but not a replacement for real programs. Yes, you can probably learn a few simple tips and tricks from these videos that might make you a better Animator. But will they cover everything you need to know? Will you master animation software, or become an expert background Designer? Without the help of well-paid teachers, you probably can’t. Free learning simply has too many limitations, so consider using it as extra support for your classes.
Animation is a complex skill, one that includes multiple theories, concepts, and techniques that go beyond what you might consider its core tenets. Once you master it (or at least get started on your path toward professional-level expertise), it’s a good idea to learn many other things that can expand your knowledge and enhance your experience. These include design ideas outside of animation that might still enhance your work—for instance, ideas like the golden ratio can help with composition layout. Abilities like these make animation design easier.
Furthermore, mastering basic crafting skills (such as creating attractive shapes and shading them subtly) can help you become a better Animator. Importantly, you can take those skills and try them out in other careers. Let’s say you learn animation but can’t find a job that appeals to you. Mastering drafting alongside animation can help you transition into various design-based careers. That’s an amazing opportunity that you simply can’t pass up! Critically, you could also easily transition into web design, clothing manufacturing, and even training video production.
Likewise, learning other techniques can help you expand your career even further. Consider mastering graphic design, user interface (UI) concepts, user experience (UX) theories, and other important visual skills—including HTML and CSS as coding languages—to become a more rounded Animator with a diverse range of artistic skills. Pay close attention to jobs available near you: pitch your learned abilities towards them to ensure better results! You’re just a beginner now, but pushing yourself to the next level could help you start a rewarding career.
Atlanta is known for many things, but not for film production. However, you might be surprised to learn that there are several film production companies in Atlanta that may need animators. Of course, we’re not talking major studios like Warner Bros. Or 20th Century Studios. These companies often focus on making training videos or event films for Atlanta residents. Well, if you’re looking to gain early experience on movie-level animation and want to stay in Atlanta, these firms provide you with plenty of great experience that can help you transition to bigger studios later.
Even if Atlanta isn’t known for its bustling movie scene, it does have a huge influence on the television market. After all, the Turner Broadcasting System and CNN are centered here, as are companies like LionStar Films, Carbon Film, Blue Marble Media, and Carat. Often, companies like these need animators to produce appealing and interesting advertisements or who can work directly on shows. For example, CNN needs animators to produce graphics and moving images for its news broadcasts. Smaller television—including online—show creators need animators, too.
Like most major cities, Atlanta has a thriving marketing scene—just think about how marketers can help companies, both big and small, stand out from their competitors. Now, how exactly do animators fit into the marketing world? Have you ever seen a funny advertisement with cute cartoon characters (like the Geico Gecko) and admired how well they captured the audience’s imagination? Well, a skilled Animator not only designed that gecko but animated it! Even web marketing requires appealing animations and cartoons to appeal to a broad audience.
With web design being one of the fastest-growing markets in the world, it’s no surprise that Atlanta has nearly 650 different companies within this field! As an Animator, you’ll focus heavily on integrating attractive and engaging graphics onto websites, including appealing (and efficiently programmed) cartoons. Note that you’ll also likely learn coding languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript when joining this field. Don’t worry—they’re not as hard to learn as you probably fear. If you master them fully, they can improve your career options exponentially.
Okay, so Atlanta might not be the video game hub you find in Silicon Valley, but it has far more gaming studios than you think! Companies like PrizePicks (focused on fantasy sports), Dragon Army (popular in mobile game development), and Tripwire Interactive (creators of diverse multiplayer games) need animators like you to produce attractive work for their products. As with web design, you may need to learn some coding to join this field. However, that’s not a bad thing—learning programming can help you further expand your opportunities.
Within the industries mentioned above, there are dozens of potential jobs that might interest you! For example, you can become an Animator for many types of companies and create attractive and interesting cartoons. However, that’s far from the only animation-style career available for you in Atlanta. Remember: Atlanta has the 10th largest and one of the most diverse economies in the nation. Tech jobs are omnipresent in this continually surprising city.
Below, you’ll learn about fascinating careers that use animation almost daily. In each section, you’ll learn about a) the duties of each role and b) the money you might make in a position. Note that these are estimates and can change regularly: as the economy grows, the earning potential for most jobs increases! As a result, it’s worth keeping your eye on all these opportunities to choose one that feels right for you. No matter your skill level, there’s something here for you.
Let’s just get it out of the way now: becoming an Animator requires you to master the ins and outs of animation. In this job role, you’ll use various types of high-quality graphic software (including most Adobe products) to create attractive and engaging animations, cartoons, and films. For example, you might become an Animator with a movie company or work for a marketing firm. The options are pretty diverse, which likely explains the varying pay levels.
In Atlanta, expect to earn an average salary of $62,000 yearly or between $52,000 and $75,000. That’s over $20,000 between the highest and lowest earnings in this field: what gives? Well, starting animators may start out on low-earning jobs such as inkers or shaders, before moving up to more fascinating roles. Persistence and excellence can pay off in this field: moving up to a higher pay grade can expand your duties and help you be more creative in your job.
As a Graphic Designer, you’ll use digital software to produce various types of art. The work you create will vary based on your job. For example, depending on your employer, you might create graphic text, beautiful ads, attractive logos, and even gorgeous animations. Within this market, you might work in print (including making cartoons and other types of mediums) or even design infographics, marketing materials, and website animations that make a page interesting.
Graphic designers make pretty good money in Atlanta, as they do elsewhere around the nation. Expect to make an average of $68,000 in this job in the city, though you might earn as little as $61,000 or as much as $76,000. That makes it a slightly higher-earning career option than Animator, so keep that in mind before starting. Note that animation is only a small part of your expected duties as a Graphic Designer: you’ll have to learn many other skills with it to thrive.
After completing your animation training, working as a Visual Designer can be a very rewarding career path. While you’ll also create non-animated art (including banners, page ads, icons, overlays, website platforms, apps, games, and wearable logos), you may produce attractive, detailed animation. Many visual designers work in the video game and film industries, meaning you can take your newly acquired skills and become an even better artist for personal projects.
Expect to earn an average of about $69,000 in this career in Atlanta: not bad at all, especially because higher-earning career paths are available in this market. However, you might start out at a lower $55,000 (especially in smaller firms) or make up to $85,000, depending on your employer. This wide range of salaries makes visual designing jobs quite fascinating. If you’re ready to commit to this field and build a resume, you can make a strong income right out of the gate.
What’s the difference between a traditional Designer and a digital one? Well, a Digital Designer makes graphics, animations, and other visual effects using computer software and other tools. For example, you might work with or in a marketing company to create attractive websites, advertisements, brochures, and emails with unique animations that make them eye-catching. You might also find jobs in branding firms or with filmmakers…it all depends on your role.
Expect to make pretty good money in this job, with your earnings approaching six figures in Atlanta. The lowest you’re likely to earn is about $70,000 (a solid starting point), while the highest is $86,000. With an average salary of $79,000, this job provides you with a great living wage that may transform your life for the better. Note: career advancement is possible and likely in this field, so keep working hard to earn enough experience to move up to management-based jobs.
Let’s say you get some great experience in a mid-range job and want to move up to the next level. After a few years of work developing your portfolio, you could try becoming a Design Director (or Graphic Design Director) to make good money. In Atlanta, you’ll earn an average salary of $181,000 and between $164,000 and $200,000. That’s an amazing earning potential for this career, but it requires you to have more hands-on work in animation and general design.
For example, if you become an Animation Design Director, you’ll have to lead a team of developers and artists to create things like video games, movies, television, online, and advertising animations that capture an audience’s attention. You’ll develop visual strategies and concepts for your team, provide them with great training, and ensure they create gorgeous work. It’s a challenging but rewarding career, especially if you’re into earning a high salary.
By now, you should feel pretty excited about the possibilities of animation classes in Atlanta! Even if you’ve never drawn well in your life, you could easily master this skill and start a career in many fields to transform your life for the better. Thankfully, there are many animation classes in the metropolitan area that you can take. No matter your skill, a course should be available.
These include in-person courses that include hands-on learning opportunities, as well as virtual lessons that provide an immersive and entertaining experience. The options are nearly limitless in the bustling Atlanta area! Below, we’ll discuss the school that provides each course (highlighting what makes them interesting) and highlight at least one class that they provide.
Kennesaw State University or KSU is a well-respected school that teaches a broad range of different courses. It provides over 180 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees alongside certificates and minors. These courses can help you prepare for an advanced career, particularly if you’re interested in moving up in your field and making a strong income. Its animation program includes a bachelor’s degree you can earn in four years, if you want.
KSU’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Animation prepares you for a full career in animation and covers traditional (hand-drawn) animation, two-dimensional cartoons, three-dimensional work, motion graphics, and even stop motion. Though it might seem strange to study old-school techniques like stop motion and hand animation, understanding the context of these techniques (and mastering them) can make you a better overall Animator within a digital format.
Costs will vary depending on your location, with a typical three-credit course costing about $1,224 for an in-state resident and much more for someone outside the state. You’ll study other subjects as you master this skill, including English, History, and even math courses. These broader subjects help you prepare for life outside of college by giving you a stronger overall knowledge base. If you’re not interested in that, other learning options are available.
SCAD is an art-centered school that focuses on teaching various creative careers, including preparing for jobs in animation, filmmaking, and more. Its Atlanta location provides a variety of degrees, including bachelor’s, master’s, and Master of Fine Arts degrees. Completing its programs can help you prepare for a career in animation by providing hands-on training that improves your abilities. Thankfully, it focuses almost exclusively on art to make learning more effective.
If you’re interested in a course that focuses exclusively on animation, getting a B.F.A. in Animation from SCAD is a smart idea. It includes 30 hours of foundation studies, including drawing, designing, and storyboarding courses. General education classes (55 hours) include visual culture, presentation skills, reading films, the history of cinema, and some business courses. You also need a math and general education elective to complete these hours.
Major curriculum courses (another 80 hours) include surveys on animation careers, the history of animation, capstone projects, and internships. You can choose multiple concentrations in subjects like 2D animation, 3D animation, storytelling, concept development, and technical animation. Over these 180 hours of classes, you get an intensive and effective education with only a few general courses over four years of concentrated study.
Emory Continuing Education is a branch of Emory University, an Atlanta-based college that provides unique learning opportunities in many fields. Designed for adult learners, corporate education, and much more, this school provides a unique opportunity to take your career to the next level with hands-on and effective education. Its animation program can help you master various digital software to make your artwork more attractive and visually compelling.
This fast-paced course (19 hours spread out over three weeks) teaches you the foundational skills necessary for mastering Adobe After Effects. You’ll learn about importing footage onto the platform to add attractive and fascinating effects that can make your work more engaging and interesting, layering, transparency, and other effects make this a unique experience that can improve your abilities and help you become a more skilled Graphic Designer and Animator.
Other subjects you’ll learn include enhancing two-dimensional footage with three-dimensional elements, utilizing the 3D camera tracker, trying out motion tracking to produce compositions that generate movement and excitement, integrating transparency, mattes, and other effects, manipulating keyframes and layers to add extra depth to a project, and even cleaning up unwanted elements from your animation that can ensure it looks more attractive and engaging.
Over the years, Ledet Training has expanded to include multiple locations nationwide. These include Washington, Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Portland, Houston, Fort Lauderdale, and Atlanta. It’s a respected graphics and mobile training team that can provide hands-on classes that focus on building skills in a real-world context. In other words, you’ll craft attractive animations that capture the eye, intrigue the audience, and improve your overall job options.
If you’re interested in a fast-paced course that takes place over just three days, sign up for Adobe After Effects 101 – After Effects Essentials. This course will teach you how to use Adobe After Effects and transition to an exciting career in animation. During this class, you’ll learn how to create visually stunning video assets, produce unique and appealing cartoon-style animations, integrate standard workflows that make your art professional-looking, and even find a job.
Costing just $1,299, this class is a great alternative if you’re looking to cut back on costs and save money. You can also move on to Adobe After Effects 201—After Effects Advanced for the same amount of money and time, which makes it a smart option for budding animators. In this class, you’ll build on the lessons you practiced in the other class and can expand your skills to prepare for a fascinating and unique career in animation, regardless of your background.
Lumenbrite is a popular training team that provides educational support for various skills, focusing heavily on tech-based careers. For example, you can learn about InDesign, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Creative Cloud, Animate, Dreamweaver, and Illustrator. These tools can help you create high-quality graphics, including interesting animations for films, cartoons, and even marketing advertisements, particularly in graphic design fields.
After Effects Training: Bootcamp is a five-day, two-part course that costs $1,995 to complete. It starts you off with a beginner-level understanding of Adobe After Effects, a popular graphics software that can also produce animation and attractive artwork. As you take this intensive course, you’ll learn about video blending, keying effects, advanced text integration, track mattes, motion tracking, masking, and pre-comping your work to make it even more appealing visually.
Note that you can also take the two main courses in After Effects Training: Bootcamp if you prefer, though it will cost more to use that approach. After Effects Training: Essential Skills 1 takes three days and costs $1,295 while covering the most important and fundamental techniques with this software. After Effects Training: Essential Skills 2 is the more advanced course and will cover the more expert-level techniques that can enhance your career opportunities.
NextGen Bootcamp is a well-respected training provider that provides high school students with life skills training to prepare for college or an advanced tech career. With intensive summer camps and after-school programs, NextGen helps teens master various skills, including animation, in a welcoming environment. NextGen Bootcamp operates primarily online using the Coursehorse platform, where you can book and take reasonably priced training courses.
If your teen is interested in making videos and animations (probably for YouTube or TikTok), they may enjoy Video Editing and Motion Graphics (High School). This course will teach them important lessons such as filming footage, organizing media properly, importing it to a computer, speeding up footage, correcting it, and even adding animation to it to make it more appealing. They’ll use Premiere Pro and After Effects to create fascinating videos and cartoons.
Furthermore, your teens can learn how to make animations for TV shows, movies, and video games—the latter is particularly popular with younger students. Video game animators may work on backgrounds, characters, or both to produce engaging visuals. Taking eight sessions (for a total of 48 hours) and costing $2,495, it’s a good mid-level class: the time and investment is reasonable but your teen will get enough attention to improve their skills.
Motion Graphics Certificate is a 102-hour, $3,495 course that teaches you how to get started in motion graphics and video editing. You’ll learn about Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, and other popular animation software. As you progress through this class, you’ll learn important concepts like cel production, background integration, and much more. You’ll also learn about 3D animation using Cinema 4D Lite, a great software tool for animators in many unique industries.
Cinema 4D Lite is a powerful animation program that lets you create 3D models using dynamic motion graphics, enhancing the impact of your work. Taking just 18 hours and costing only $975, this class will teach you how to create and animate 3D objects, integrate attractive animation concepts, move characters through a scene, produce visually appealing backgrounds, integrate lighting and shading, and utilize After Effects with this software.
In fact, this course requires you to either take After Effects Bootcamp or an equivalent course because you need to understand the basics of that software before trying Cinema 4D Lite. Remember that After Effects comes with a free edition of this program that you can use to master animation. Investing in After Effects and the more advanced Maxon Cinema 4D program is critical if you want to become an Animator and enhance your career skills.
What if you’re running an extensive animation department and have a team of newly hired and skilled artists who don’t have much experience with the ins and outs of animation software? Do you have to pay for them to get individual training from costly academic institutions to train your department efficiently? Or are you stuck waiting for them to learn on their own, hoping for the best? No, because you can book corporate training with Noble Desktop. This online provider includes several great corporate courses that might appeal to your team.
These animation classes cover the same subjects as other Noble Desktop programs to ensure excellent comprehension. However, they come with discount bulk vouchers that reduce your expenses and ensure you avoid overspending for training. Furthermore, you can schedule in-person (New York City only, so keep that in mind) and live online classes with skilled professors. The latter option should work well for Atlanta firms like yours, so contact Noble Desktop at corporate@nobledesktop.com if you’re interested in setting up corporate animation lessons.