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As published on page A1/A2 on April 13, 2005
Animated Women
New video gamers
GAMING SMARTS (THE DAILY
GLEANER/RICHARD DUPLAIN
PHOTO)
Centre for Arts and
Technology student Tiffany Baxter, left and
Lauren McIntosh, campus manager, explore the
technical aspects relating to video game
production.
| | RICHARD
DUPLAIN
The Daily
Gleaner
Playing and design ing video
games is no longer the exclu sive domain of males and
one Fredericton student hopes to one day make her mark
in 3-D game designs.
Tiffany Baxter, 19, of
Amherst, N.S., is in the animation and visual effects
artist course at the Center for Arts and Technology on
King Street.
"I don't know why few women enroll
in this course but I'm having a lot of fun," she
said.
Baxter said she'd like to go to work for
Disney or Pixar and help develop movies similar to
Shrek, Toy Story or Finding Nemo.
"This is a very
fascinating field of study," Baxter said during a break
from her studies Tuesday. "I've always liked animation,
including movies and cartoons. Someday I'd like to work
for Disney."
Baxter is well established in her
68-week course.
"I've completed the initial
foundational courses in 2-D and 3-D animation," she
said. "This year I am studying more about 3-D and
synchronization as well as classical animation,
character design and story boarding."
It's an
unusual field for females, Baxter said.
"Perhaps
it's not the typical role for females because it is
similar to engineering or computer related science," she
said.
The school's campus manager Lauren McIntosh
said post-secondary programs in digital animation are
gaining popularity. She said those courses are not
traditional yet they are creatively challenging and
feature hands-on classroom settings.
"We're
definitely seeing an increase in the number of girls
enrolling in our animation programs," McIntosh said. "I
think girls understand they have a unique opportunity to
stand out in the digital arts industries and offer
different points of view or perspectives that would work
for women."
McIntosh said roughly 40 per cent of
gamers are now females.
"Now that women are
getting more into gaming, the stereotype of the gamer is
changing," Baxter said.
"Creatively women pay
more attention to detail," Baxter observed. "And we can
create heroines that are more identifiable to the girl
gamer and heroines have more personality."
Baxter
encourages young women to consider careers in digital
arts, but she said it's not a simple course.
"You
need to be committed to the course and you should have a
passion for it," Baxter said.
"There's a lot of
training and instruction and the teachers are very well
versed in the subjects," she said. "It's a heavy course
load with a lot of lab and practical work
exercises."
Michele Wilby, the school's program
adviser said she sees an increase in the interest level
expressed by young women.
"Females always played
computer games and now they want to help create them,"
she said. "There are many doors open to women in this
field."
Wilby said animation and visual effects
were once thought of as an exclusively male
arena.
"That has all changed," she said. "We are
dealing with a younger generation and the stereotypical
views of the past don't hold anymore."
Wilby said
as more and more women become interested in the field
more talent is being discovered.
"We are seeing a
lot of hidden talent," she said.
"Women have a
different point of view," Wilby said. "Historically we
haven't seen games designed for women but now both men
and women are collaborating on various projects and they
are developing games that aren't gender
specific."
The Center for Arts and Technology is
a network of affiliated colleges with campuses in
Fredericton, Kelowna and Halifax.
The centre is
Fredericton's only post-secondary institution offering a
wide variety of private occupational training
organizations accredited programs in digital arts and
information technology including recording arts and 3-D
animation/gaming and
others.
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