Please note that applicants must be intermediate or advanced level animators, proficient in Autodesk Maya or equivalent, and must 18 years of age or older.
If that’s you, go ahead and apply here. Within a few days you’ll receive a response, and one of two things will happen:
The mentorship is run on a four week schedule, roughly aligning with each month. Please see the calendar for each month’s exact start and end dates.
A week and a half before your month begins, we’ll host a Meet and Greet for that month’s mentees where we can all meet each other, ask questions, and outline your goals for that month’s work. That way, you can be ready to show some blocking during your first week!
Once the mentorship starts, mentees meet once a week with Janel in a group setting for Dailies (typically Tuesdays from 6-9PM Pacific Standard Time), where everyone can show their work and get feedback from Janel and from the group—just like we do in an animation studio! (Normally in a studio this meeting would happen every day, hence the name “Dailies,” but for us with a smaller group, once a week is a bit of a better cadence.)
Mentees also have the opportunity to receive an extra round of offline notes before the next Dailies session, if they’d like to really rev up the feedback!
At the end of the month we also host a Q&A session with the entire JDA Workshop community. This is an opportunity to ask Janel questions about the animation industry; everything from workflow to salary negotiation will be covered.
You will need the following:
Not at this time. However, if you’re enrolled at a qualifying educational institution you can obtain an educational copy of Maya for free. This version is identical to the commercial version of Maya, but you cannot use it for commercial purposes; in other words, you can’t use it to create anything you may profit from, but you are free to use it for creating demo reel pieces during your mentorship. You can learn more here.
If you’re not enrolled at a qualifying educational institution, Maya offers an Indie License for $305/year, which is much more affordable than a full commercial license. There are a few restrictions on how much can earn from projects using this license, and some restrictions based on where you’re located, but for most folks this is our recommendation if you can’t obtain an educational license. Find out more here.
Sure! Janel won’t be able to offer any tips and tricks like she can with Maya, but you can receive animation notes all the same.
We don’t offer any exclusive rigs at this time, but students are free to use any rigs they’d like, so long as the rigs are not associated with/exclusive to another online animation school. We have a list of recommended rigs here for everything from the basic exercises to advanced acting.
Yes, the application deadline is two weeks before any given month’s mentorship start date. Please see the calendar for each month’s application deadline.
After you receive the acceptance email, you’ll be able to go to the shop page and purchase the mentorship month or months of your choice. This happens on a first-come, first-serve basis so it’s a good idea to grab your desired spots as quickly as possible!
In your acceptance email you’ll also receive the following info:
There are no formal assignments at this time, but in your Meet and Greet, you and Janel will discuss your goals for the month and outline what type of shot you’d like to work on, and if you’re stumped Janel will be more than happy to help you figure it out!
We use a web-based software called Syncsketch where Janel can draw directly over your playblasts. The video playback syncs in real time, so you won’t have to deal with the dropped frames over Google Meet playback. After Dailies are over, students can even import the drawings directly into Maya!
Nope! Unlike other programs, we don’t grade any of your animation—we simply encourage continual improvement at each students’ own pace.
Life happens! Luckily we record all of our Dailies sessions, so no worries at all if you have to miss out; you can always catch up at your convenience! You can still get notes from Janel in Dailies even if you’re not there.
Absolutely! Signing up for multiple months in a row is a great way to secure your spot if you know you’d like to stay in the mentorship for multiple months. In other words, you can turn this into an 8 week mentorship, a 12 week mentorship, or even longer! And you’re also free to take a month or two off and return for future months, spots permitting. We’d love to have you back!
Discord is a chat room app similar to Slack, where you can meet up with other members of the JDA workshop. It’s a fun space to get to know your fellow animators, talk shop, and find community support.
You don’t have to use the Discord—you can access everything you need on our website alone—but we do encourage mentees to drop by when they can; animating can be a lonely job, and it always helps to pick your head up once and a while. If it feels overwhelming at first, just reach out; we’re happy to help you get a handle on it!
After you’ve completed your four week mentorship, you’ll be granted the role of “Mentorship Alumni” and gain access to alumni-only sections of the discord. Meaning, you get continued community support even after you’re done! We’re all here to help each other for the long haul.
Each month’s mentorship payment includes a non refundable deposit of 25% of the full price. If you need to withdraw from the mentorship before that month’s application deadline, you will receive a refund, minus the non refundable deposit. If you need to withdraw from the mentorship after that month’s application deadline, no refund will be issued, due to it being unlikely we can fill your spot on short notice.
Click here to read our refund policy in full.
At this time we’re only accepting intermediate to advanced students into the mentorship. You must already have mastered the fundamentals and have a strong knowledge of how to animate in Maya.
We do offer offline shot reviews where you can buy a bundle of shot review sessions on a more flexible timeline than the live mentorship. Janel would be happy to review your fundamental exercises in those reviews. Find out more here.
We are working diligently on other beginner offerings as well, so be sure to sign up for the newsletter to stay up to date on what we’ve got cooking!
