The Fine Art of Animation: Student and alum create animation for school play

Katie Muggli and Nicole Shoutz had always been told that pursuing a career in animation was a long shot. Growing up, people around them often said it wasn't a practical career choice, and the odds were stacked against them.

Despite nay sayers, they both entered college with a plan. "I decided that if I am going to pay for a degree, even if I don't have a for-sure sign that I will get a related job, I should get it in something that I love and am passionate about," says Katie.

Katie and Nicole have had a love for animation since an early age, with Disney movies as an inspiration. "I realized that other people weren't as interested in animation as they got older, but I was. That was when I realized that I love telling stories through drawings. I couldn't imagine myself having this much fun if I had chosen a different major," says Nicole.

BFA in Animation

Katie, who graduated in 2024, is currently working full time, putting her skills to use working as an animator. Nicole, a junior at MSUM, is learning more and more everyday about the world of animation and what she can do with it. The two roommates got the opportunity to rekindle their friendship over a projection animation project at Liberty Middle School in Fargo, N.D.

 It All Started with an Email

Alex Fogarty, a professor of graphic & interactive design, emailed the two on behalf of Cody Rowe, the Liberty Middle School play director, asking if they would be interested in creating a projection animation for one of his middle school plays. Both Katie and Nicole were surprised to receive Alex's email; they saw it as a challenge they couldn't pass up.

Cody Rowe with Katie & Nicole

The skills and knowledge that they acquired from MSUM have helped them pursue opportunities like this that stretch their skills.

Katie says, about Professor Fogarty, "She was always the most straightforward and honest about things that are going to be the most useful, and the widest range of skills that I use in my job today are all things that I learned from her classes."

At MSUM, Katie and Nicole worked with different design software like Premiere Pro and After Effects, which they utilized often when creating their animation for the play. Nicole says that, "MSUM also taught me how to do animation while working with a team rather than just relying on myself, so they prepared me for this situation where Katie and I had to work together."

 This project was different than anything they had done before. Left to their own devices, they learned better time management.

 Nicole, still a full-time student, says, "Sometimes work is at the fun stage and I wanted to work on that rather than my schoolwork. And during this past finals week, which is also when our animation project was just taking off, it was hard to balance everything, but it taught me to manage my time and to prioritize what I needed to get done."

Getting Started

Thanks to their previous connection as roommates, Katie and Nicole were able to easily slip into the flow of working together. They both knew that this project would be challenging because, "What we do in classes is more geared towards TV and movies, and this project was for a play, so we had to brainstorm how we could take our skills and apply them," says Nicole.

Katie stressed that while they wanted to create this unique animation, they also wanted to prioritize keeping the focus on the students who were in the play. During the scene they developed, students were singing about something that happened in the past. So, the animators created that specific scene to play while the students sang about it.

"The goal of our animation was to give the audience a way to visualize the story being told," Katie says. "We used simple shapes and bold colors to try to portray the motion of the scenes being described."

 They worked equally on the project, dividing things up right away. "It felt like we both had equal input, and while the style of the project was not static throughout, we were receptive to one another's feedback and suggestions," Katie says.

The two also benefited from having a positive client like Cody Rowe. Whenever they checked in with Cody, he gave them positive feedback on their work and let them take the creative lead.

 "I was nervous because that was my first professional animation job. But it was nice to have a client cheering us on the entire time," Nicole says.

 Looking toward the Future

Katie and Nicole learned a lot in their time creating the project and being at MSUM

"The most valuable thing I got from MSUM was exposure to a variety of software and tasks, and the experience of project management," Katie says.

 She advises other animation students, "Do not discredit things being taught in your classes just because they don't seem directly relevant to animation. Learning animation itself is important, but my diversification of skills is what helped me get the job that I have today, so soak it all in."

 Nicole agrees, saying, "Try everything you can possibly think of. I say that because you never know what you like or don't like until you try it. You can always learn something from the experience and take it forward with you."

 Katie and Nicole plan to use this experience as a positive learning point in their careers.