About

"As a teacher, it is not what I know that is important, but it is what my students have learned that truly matters"  Van Phan, interests in teaching comes from his love for storytelling, animation, and learning.   His multidisciplinary background and breadth of experiences have given him a unique perspective and teaching pedagogy.   He strives to create “Flow,” in his learner-centered classes which foster creativity, grit, and critical thinking.    He loves it when his students experience their "aha" moments while mastering demanding project-based assignments.  These transformative learning moments leads to creative confidence in his students, preparing them for success in the new world. 

His experience in feature animation, VR, special effects films, motion graphics, commercials, television, console games, tech, academia, social games, mobile games and life experiences have given him a very unique perspective.   These experiences influence his teaching practice.    His passion for storytelling has led him to teach as he enjoys helping students achieve own "AHA” moments through animation and telling compelling stories.   He gives talks or has taught at Cal Arts, UCLA, USC, AAU, CCA, SCAD, De Anza College, Pratt Institute, SAE, Cogswell, Ringling College of Arts and Design, General Assembly, Stanford, Santa Clara University and various other schools.  He has taught the following classes: 2D Animation, Introductory animation, Acting,  Intro Maya, Intro character modeling, Creature Animation, Character animation 1-3, Advanced animation, Group project, Video game animation, Junior project, story development, motion graphics and Senior graduate thesis development classes.   

Teaching Philosophy

Mastering animation and storytelling are as much about hard work, having fun and working smarter as it is about talent. Having failed many times, He has learned from each experience.  As a teacher, it is his responsibility to guide my students learning through first understanding them and tailoring my instruction to fit their unique situations.  As failure is essential for learning; my students are encouraged to fail early and fail faster.    Through teaching student’s industry best practices which help them work smarter and faster, students will approach the animating process with more "Flow".   Besides learning the fundamentals of animation, an animator needs to know more than just movement or acting.  They need to understand everything, design, music, story, entertainment and draw from all these disciplines to truly bring their work to life, as entertainment is just as important as polish.

Through guiding my students to see and how to make better decisions they develop strategies to see and problem solve on their own.   As they see improvements in their work, this will motivate them to work harder as they develop the eye of an animator and acquire the skills and sets goals they never thought were possible before.  As a curious visual storyteller, Van critical thinking drives his approach to his practice and pedagogy.

It is the responsibility of the teacher to constantly keep the students engaged from a creative and practical level.  The teacher should create an environment where theory and practice are intertwined.  What is taught should be actively experienced in classroom exercises that will reinforce the topics recently touch upon which new skills are reinforced in small steps until the goal is reached.  The class should be fluid and allows for mastery of learning that allows every student the opportunity to learn by varying how and when information is communicated.

The class should have some form of collaboration with students giving each other feedback as well as

teacher critique.   Students are also asked to plan and do research before diving into assignments. Great animation is rarely the work of an individual working alone, students must learn to collaborate and get feedback from their audience and peers.  In addition, students also need to be able to analyze the work of others which enables them to evaluate their own work.

Teaching style

My teaching style is based on the flip "learner-centered" classroom environment with more group and individual activities along with more one on one work with lectures kept at a minimum and offloading lectures and materials to blogs.   I try to show them and tell them and have them practice it in class.   By offloading some of the info through blogs and links this allows the students to work in groups and individual activity.  Creating a more hands-on approach to the classroom experience and freeing my time for one on one time with my students.

Advanced students can work on more advanced projects while slower learners get more personalized

instructions and varying learning time as needed.  In addition, the class outline is structured in a way that topics are cumulative and are in manageable small chunks that build on previous knowledge.  To make sure that the students are doing their outside class assignment they are asked to present what they have learned from reading the outside class readings.   I try to have class exercise short and tangible so it is easy for me to see if the students have a grasp what was taught in lecture and apply them immediately in-class exercises.  This keeps them active in the learning process rather than passive observers, as I focus by having students apply what was covered in class in short class exercises they build from previous topics learned and visible.  By doing so, I can see if they grasp the concepts by reviewing their work immediately in class which lets me know if I need to spend more time with them.

Grading policies should be fair and relevant to the topic and mimic production environment.   Students are rewarded on the quality of their work and not on just effort alone.  Classroom assignments should be relevant and challenging, encouraging the student to apply what they have learned in lecture and reinforce prior knowledge.  I also try to relate the classroom assignments to what they will encounter in the real world.   As much as I try to create an environment for success I also try to encourage my students to fail fast and early as failure is required for success.

Having been in the animation field for more over 15 years, first as a student and now as a professional and educator, He has realized that learning is a collaboration between the learner and educator.  As much it is the responsibility of the learner to work harder, it is also the educator to teach effectively and show their students how to work smarter while inspiring them to work harder. It is not how much the teacher knows that counts, but what the student has learned from the class that matters.

He can be reached at: vanphananim@gmail.com