Animation in Utah

The NYT profiles Brigham Young University's animation school.

... Out of nowhere, B.Y.U. — a Mormon university owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — has become a farm team for the country’s top animation studios and effects companies. Unlikely as it sounds, young Mormons are being sucked out of the middle of Utah and into the very centers of American pop-culture manufacturing.

Praising the program in a speech on campus in 2008, the president of Pixar, Edwin Catmull, noted: “It’s the perception not just of Pixar, but also at the other studios, that something pretty remarkable is happening here.” (During the production of “Brave,” for example, a 14-person team tasked with rigging the complicated musculature in horses and wrangling Princess Merida’s curls included six B.Y.U. alumni.) ...

Makes sense to me that Brigham Young turns out top-flight artists.

Many are older when they start their education, and they don't get slowed down or hampered by booze or drugs. And being older they have a clearer idea of where they want to go with their careers and the road they need to travel to get there.

Adding, TAG Prez Bob Foster just pointed out to me that some of the best animation artists he's worked with have been Mormon. So there's a history of quality work that goes back a few years.