By Matthew Cornwall, Nadine E Promes, and Vaniele Casimir, contributors
Generate is a challenge designed to pit students against projects which would normally take a month to complete. It started on Oct. 4 at 10 a.m. and lasted for only 24-hours. There were eight challenges to participate in with awards such as pitching a show or exclusive portfolio review from a publisher. Although many participate to win, some take it as an opportunity to test their skills in an unconventional way.
Generate has expanded since it started seven years ago. In fact, this is the first year that SCAD Savannah participated in their own separate Generate challenge. Patrick Quinn, Associate Dean of Academic Services, hopes that Generate can expand to all the campuses one day. “We’ve already achieved doing this on the Savannah campus, so next year maybe it’ll be in Hong Kong as well? It’ll be tougher to manage because of the 12 hour difference, but we’ll see,” says Quinn. This year, more than 300 students, 15 percent of SCAD Atlanta’s student body, participated.
Fourth-year visual effects student, Eric Anderson participated in Generate last year and learned that, “Managing a team and making sure everyone stays happy is important. Morale drives teams in Generate.”
Generate takes college competitions to a whole new level. Competitors sometimes drop out because they feel they don’t have enough time or they find competition is too stressful. The competition is not everyone’s preferred use of a weekend. Alexa Riley, third year animation student says, “It depends on your personality. If you’re the type that wants to push yourself and get to that next level and be better, I think you’re going to show up’.
Students worked all throughout the third floor. Animation students were tasked with a cartoon for a wrestler. Illustration and advertising students worked with Midtown Alliance to create banners to be shown throughout the city and sequential arts students created a 24 page long black and white comic from scratch.
The 24-hour competition was an effective way to gain experience, test one’s abilities and add to one’s resume. For some students, like Brooke Sprickman, a graduate student studying illustration and advertising, the short deadline is viewed as a motivational factor; “The time limitation is fun, makes it more of a challenge obviously.” says Sprickman
Kathy Ryan, a fourth-year animation student says, “Doing this on top of other projects and having to work on all that stuff, you end up balancing everything but its totally worth it”
Networking is another reason for participating in Generate. Collin Wheeler, a fourth-year animation student says, “Networking is a big aspect of it because this is the opportunity to speak to people from Adult Swim and Floyd, show them what we can do, and flex our animation muscles. It’s an opportunity to put something on our resume,”
