Still image of Bennys Story, an animation produced by Exceptional Minds about a child with autism. The short was featured on Sesame Street. Discover More
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Im into changing the world one kid at a time, says Howard Hoffman, Howie to those who know him, inside Cartoon Networks Burbank headquarters. Hoffman is an animation industry veteran who worked on shows like Doug and Action League Now! for Nickelodeon. Eight years ago, he started teaching people on the autism spectrum and, for the past five years, hes been an instructor for the Sherman Oaks-based visual effects and animation school Exceptional Minds.
On this particular Sunday in June, Hoffman, who is also an animation content developer at Exceptional Minds, is leading a team of three students, all of whom have autism, in the first Cartoon Network Animation Jam. The students have been spending the weekend working on an animated short based on the game O.K. K.O.! Theyre working alongside teams from renowned institutions like California Institute of the Arts and Rhode Island School of Design, as well as the studios own staff. In the process of that, they have had the chance to meet acclaimed animation professionals, including Ian Jones-Quartey, creator of O.K. K.O.!, and Rebecca Sugar, who created the networks hit TV series Steven Universe.
Its a wonderful experience, says Michael Schiu, a 20-year-old second-year student at Exceptional Minds, when we meet at the schools campus a few months after the Animation Jam. Its also an impressive feat for a school thats only been around for half a decade.
Students at Exceptional Minds pose for a group photo. | Image: Liz Ohanesian
Established by parents who wanted a curriculum that could prepare autistic children for jobs, Exceptional Minds has quickly made a name for itself in both the visual effects and animation worlds. They have taken on work for both small businesses and large entertainment companies. In 2015, Exceptional Minds students made an animated short about a child with autism, called Bennys Story, for an Emmy-nominated episode of Sesame Street. They also created a series of shorts for Cartoon Networks anti-bullying campaign. Meanwhile, their on-site visual effects studio employs graduates, who have had the chance to work on high-profile projects like Marvel movies, The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones.
The founding premise of Exceptional Minds was simple: There were detail-oriented jobs that studios sent abroad and a population of people that was underemployed, but capable of doing those jobs. The school was designed to prepare students for some of those frequently outsourced tasks - stuff like rotoscoping and title credits - and launched with just nine students. Today, Exceptional Minds is doing double-duty by helping keep some entertainment jobs in Los Angeles and employing people from a community that has a high unemployment rate. The program has become so popular that they now have three potential students vying for every single spot in the school. People have traveled from as far as Argentina and Singapore to learn here. Currently, there are 32 students in the full-time, three-year program. Another 40 are part-time students. Their summer session draws about 160 students for two-week classes. Thirteen of the graduates now work in Exceptional Minds own studios and a few others have been placed at outside companies.
The students work in small classrooms with teachers who largely come from the film and animation world and continuously train in working with autistic students. Whats most important to me is creating art and serving my community, says Kat Cutright, who is the academic lead for Exceptional Minds and teaches first-year students. So this school was a great opportunity to do both things.
Animation by Andrew Dugan, an Exceptional Minds student.
Four weeks into the school year, Cutrights students are still new to the Exceptional Minds program. Theyll spend the year mastering Photoshop and Adobe Animate while learning to work in group settings. In the first year, we focus a lot on performance and theyre constantly presenting their work, Cutright says. Theyre getting used to the critique process and getting feedback, not just from us, but from each other, and they really grow in that way. You see their confidence grow, their ability to present themselves in a professional way improves quite a bit. Every time we have a guest, the students have an opportunity to stand up, shake the peoples hands and present their work in a professional way and we practice that in class as well.
The first-year students will also learn the basics of design and animation and all of those skills will carry over to their second year, when they learn production and editing. In their final year, theyll move on to visual effects and learn Maya, the computer animation software. Theyll also continue to learn how to be prepared for real world jobs; theres even a fake elevator door in one of the classrooms so that they can learn how to give an elevator pitch. When theyre done, theyre ready to work in a field that has long mesmerized many of the students.
The truth is that a lot of these guys learned to talk by watching animation, so its something that is very near and dear to their hearts, says Ernie Merl n, executive director of Exceptional Minds. Really, what makes anyone good at anything is passion and if youve got the passion for something, then youre able to learn it. These guys are really passionate about animation. Youve got so many coming in here and theyre so excited to be working on something that has characters in it, that has
