Animation/Illustration: Making a Difference Beyond SJSU
Consistently ranked as one of the premier programs in the nation, the Animation and Illustration program at San José State is no stranger to success. Students regularly win prestigious national and international recognition at festivals, exhibitions, and screenings, and gain opportunities for employment at top studios and corporations. Graduates have gone on to work for companies like Apple, Disney, Electronic Arts, Google, Lucasfilm, DreamWorks, and Pixar, to name a few, and have worked on feature films such as Brave, How to Train Your Dragon, Star Wars, and many more, widening the impact that SJSU alumni are having on the film and game industry.
Noah Klocek, an artist and designer who graduated from the program in 2003, has worked for Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), DreamWorks, and Pixar, bringing to life animated films and shorts as well as picture books. Drawing inspiration from nature, his family, and the stories around him, Noah came to SJSU wanting to be a book illustrator, knowing very little about the animation industry, film design, or production. “I landed at San José State just when the Animation/ Illustration program was making a transition from book and editorial illustration into animation and film design,” Noah recalled. “Along with an incredibly strong design skill set, SJSU’s strongest effect on me and my career was carrying me along through the same transition from traditional illustration to development art and beyond.” This transition would guide his career as he worked on his first project at Pixar Studios, Wall·E; he would go on to work on feature-length films such as Brave, The Good Dinosaur, and Inside Out, as well as the animated short “Partly Cloudy,” which was screened before Pixar’s Up.
Noah’s work in the film industry is done alongside his “passion project” —writing and illustrating picture books. He explains, “I strive to make the kind of books that I loved when I was young—books filled with drawings and paintings; books with characters and imagination and adventure.” His first picture book, Cloud Country, was published in November 2015. As Noah went through the process of creating Cloud Country, he filled sketchbooks with drawings—Cloud Country would go through five complete versions before it was published. The dedication that Noah shows to his projects, both in the film industry and his own undertakings, is a testament to the rigor of SJSU’s Animation and Illustration program.
“There is not a top-tier animation or video game studio I know of in the U.S.A. that does not have one or more SJSU alumni working with them,” Noah remarked, highlighting the breadth of work and impact that SJSU graduates have on the entire industry. “The Animation and Illustration program at SJSU is something the University should be immensely proud of.”
The Animation and Illustration program has also played a role in leading collaborations with other departments. Animation Professor David Chai is working to develop projects such as Green Ninja—an educational initiative created by an interdisciplinary team to spark young people’s interest in the science of and solutions associated with the changing climate. The project, which has garnered more than two million views on YouTube, brings faculty and students from across the university together to make a difference, creating connections between the ever-growing SJSU community and the world around us. The College of Humanities and the Arts is proud that our programs provide students with an opportunity to gain the skills necessary to achieve excellence and effect social change through the arts.
You can check out more of Noah’s work at imageblock.com. To see what Green Ninja is up to, visit www.youtube.com/user/GreenNinjaTV.
By Kaitlynn Magnuson
