>Is this school recommandable?
Depends on your major. SVA is at its absolute best for advertising/design art I've heard, since New York loves that shit. Their CG animation department also seem to get a lot of mentions, internship opportunities, and most of the people who makes films during their school year end up being very successful in festivals.

I've graduated from SVA with a BFA in 2D animation, and it really, really varies. My first couple of years were not so great, but once I got to pick from the advanced teachers for my third year, it seriously picked up and I felt like skill level take a sharp turn upwards. The students also vary. There were a lot of talented people, but also a ton of "How did they even get accepted into an art school?" people where their art was bafflingly bad.

It was slightly difficult for me to learn from other students because we were either on the same level, they were below my skill level, or we just weren't friends. Maybe I could have been more social with people, but it often felt like everyone just wanted to do their own thing or was constantly busy. I might've just coincidentally joined during a bad time, but I've heard that since graduating, their attendance has doubled to the point of opening more studio rooms, so maybe the student ambition level has gotten better?

>>2507063
Second post. For drawing teachers:

Matt Archambault: Fantastic for semi-beginners at figure drawing. If you're more advanced, you'll mostly be using his class to figure draw rather than learn. You take him freshman year.

Stephen Gaffney: Great for everything non-beginner figure drawing. He'll get you out of that "Draw with boxes for heads" phase.

Don Poynter: The best for perspective and layout drawing. He has a pinpoint eye for perfect perspective, and a really good storyboard class as well.

Richard Gorey: Great storyboarding teacher, he'll help you understand the pitching process, practice with it, building a pitch bible if you wish, etc.

James Grimaldi: Great screenwriting teacher. He is listed as storyboard and you will be doing storyboards, but he can't draw, he's a writer through and through and will improve purely your storytelling skill, not so much your drawing skills.

Mario Menjivar: The best 2D animation teacher the school has to offer. He has a ton of Disney animation experience, will teacher students how to flip, how to quickly animate, and get them used to drawing on paper before they move digitally. Downside is he has no digital animation training, so you need to learn that in Digital Composition Class or on your own.

There's a lot of humanities classes, too, which I think is SVA's downside because you will be taking almost more humanities classes than art classes and most of the time, students phone them in and it eats up A LOT of your project time. I will be doing a second post on that.

>>2507069
Third post. For humanities classes.
Carl Skutsch: He's the best at any history class. Makes the topic interesting, easy to learn, pretty easy tests. He gives you homework for every class, which is the only downside if you're busy, but he's really solid at teaching that it shouldn't be a struggle and pretty lenient if you're struggling with your schedule.

David Borg: Solid at psych classes. Will show and discuss quite a few documentaries, gives very little homework, and likes to have discussion-heavy classes, where people ask questions and he answers and if people disagree, they can comment on it. Never talks down to students during these discussions.

Audrey Rapoport: I took him for a comedy writing class, and it was more like a comedy history class, with most of the lessons focusing heavily on the "commedia dell'arte" subject and seeing how it's still relevant today. Gives practically no homework.

Tom Gorrell: His science classes are absolute shit and you won't learn anything from it. But the plus side is that he gives the easiest homework and tests imaginable, so if you ever need to phone it in because you're busy, take him.

Meir Gal: I'm not sure what his classes were. History? Philosophy? He would do whatever the fuck he wanted and the experience varies. I didn't like his classes at all, but the design students LOVED him. He taught you how to see subtle messages in work, how to create gallery work that matters, but he gave a shit ton of homework and was a little bit pretentious about his teachings. For animation, I say avoid him. If you want to be a gallery artist, take him.

Those are the most honorable mentions I can think of. These posts were more of a general to other people as well.

>>2507082
Final post.

Do you want to spend $120k + more for housing to go to SVA for four years? You've already gotten a BFA in animation, so going for an MFA in animation is practically useless. I don't think you need to blow money going to school again, just start looking for work or get better at drawing if you think you're too shitty to get work.

>>2507084
Thank you for your honest review and information

Actually I've already worked at a televisionserie and a feature film in my country, I just have this urge living in New York for a few months to experience the culture and get some live experience. So that's why I was interested in the Continuing courses to evolve more in animation.

Maybe a bit of a crazy plan, but I just would like to do something like that before I'm stuck in a house/relationship etc.

>>2507084
can you give some insight into what the CG BFA were like compared to the 2d BFA?

>>2507229
If you were interested in learning and spending some cash, you could take one or two Continuing Education classes at SVA for way cheaper. I think it's like, $300 - $400 for eight weeks? And you could take one with one of those drawing teachers that I've mentioned. I think almost all of them have Continuing Education classes.

>>2507266
Unfortunately, the CG and 2D buildings were very far apart. The CG building was on the West side and the 2D studio were on the East. The faculty have since taken note of this and built another studio right across from the CG studio to make the students somewhat closer to each other so if they wanted, they could collaborate, but I don't know how much has happened with that since then. They don't work together as much as you would think. Everyone is always working on their own projects or their own film, so it's VERY hard to do collaboration unless you have a shit ton of free time (Most students work part time jobs to afford school since they are from out of state).

However, when studios like Disney, Pixar, Blue Sky, etc went to SVA to do some internship scouting, the majority who tended to get picked up came from the Computer Animation department. And as far as thesis films go, the CG department seems to have a better overall output quality than the 2D department, where most of the thesis films submitted are laughable or amateurish. The 2D thesis films have gotten better in the last three or so years, but the general quality is still far less than something like CalArts.

Outside of that, don't know much about the CG dept, sorry.

I met Bruce Wands the chair of SVA NYC last week. You can`t go wrong with such caring and talented people as him around!

i was at SVA this spring, really enjoyed my time.
Living in NYC is expensive as fuck tho, the housing in ludlow is great if you can afford it.
teachers are industry professionals and it really shows since they often talk about real life experiences.

the reason i went is for the connections, as someone from Europe i really wanted to get to know people in the american animation industry and see how it all works.

so if you are an european student looking for an exchange id recommend it, more so if your school helps to fund you.

P.S theres like 3 tards in every class. its something im not used to in europe? is it some kind of special needs quota? they are slow thinking and draw like shit.