Teaching Teachers: Giving Educators Insight Into Production 

Saturday, 19 December | 5:30 AM - 7:15 AM | Room 414/415

In this talk, Tad Leckman, Lucasfilm Animation Singapore’s Director of Training, discusses how the studio has used unconventional methods to engage with instructors and student, and give them insight into the production process. While most studios engage in outreach to schools, these efforts most often take the form of recruiting trips and presentations aimed at students. Some studios also work with higher education faculty, offering studio visits or a chance to spend a day or two in the studio's training department. Lucasfilm has gone even farther to bring the experience of working in a studio to faculty and their students.



To date, Lucasfilm has concentrated its educational outreach efforts in three areas:


1. Continuing Artist Education 
The Jedi Masters Program, launched in 2007, focuses on continuing the education of promising artists through six-month, production-based training at Lucasfilm's Singapore studio. The talk summarizes the impact of the program on not only Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, but also on schools and other studios in Singapore. 
And it reviews the challenges the studio faced in bringing a large number of apprentices into the studio for an extended period of time.


2. Direct Faculty Education
Lucasfilm believes that the single most important factor in the success of any digital media program at any level is the quality of faculty. Helping an experienced artist learn to teach effectively is often much easier than giving an experienced instructor production experience. Lucasfilm gives its artists opportunities to teach and introduces educators to the tools, theories, techniques essential to production. 


3. Inspiring the Next Generation of Artists and Educators
Lucasfilm inspires Singaporean youth to pursue careers in digital media and educates the general public about career opportunities related to production. In areas of the world with longer traditions of animation, visual effects, and game production, such efforts are not really necessary, but in Singapore, they are extremely important to the continued growth of the industry. 

Instructor(s)

Tad Leckman
Lucasfilm Animation Singapore

Instructor Bio(s)

Tad Leckman
Tad Leckman has over 12 years of experience working in visual effects, starting as a model maker for commercials and ending up at Industrial Light & Magic where he acted as production manager for the "Rebel Mac Unit" and previsualization supervisor for the ILM Art Department. In the Fall of 2002, he transformed his hobby of teaching, writing, and lecturing about visual effects into a full-time career. He served as chair of the Visual Effects Department at Savannah College of Art and Design, and he has taught at the Academy of Art University and New York University's Center for Advanced Digital Applications. In 2007, he returned to Lucasfilm as Director of Training for Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, where he is responsible for all aspects of artist training and talent development.