Animation club offers artistic opportunities

A new media club at UNC is giving students an opportunity to be a part of a group interested in learning about and creating animations.

The Carolina Animators Anonymous club, or AniAno, is a new student organization looking for creative and interested students to join.

Diandra Dwyer, president of AniAno, said during her first year, she and other students at UNC decided to create an animation club. Last spring, the club became an official UNC organization.

The term “Anonymous” reflects how the club came to be. At first, AniAno wasn’t an official club at UNC and was just a group of students with similar interest meeting on their own.

Dwyer said the club’s mission is to have students gain experience in the art of animation, so they will be able to take what they’ve learned into their future. AniAno is not just about technical skills in animation, but also lets students tell stories through their work.

“It’s through these technical skills we can eventually tell stories that are compelling and that are relatable to different people in society,” Dwyer said.

Dwyer said the Carolina Animators Anonymous club does not require any experience to join. New members will have the opportunity to get acquainted with Photoshop, then will move onto rotoscoping.

Rotoscoping involves downloading a GIF and uploading it into Photoshop to be split into frames. Members will be able to draw over each frame using their unique and personal style and then put it together as a video.

As a new club, AniAno is receiving a lot of interest such as a sponsorship from Door of Clubs, an organization that helps students find jobs.

Maggie Shibley, vice president of AniAno, said if a student is looking for a way to get involved in media art at the University, AniAno is the club to join.

“(AniAno) fills that gap of a 2-D animation class that we don’t really have here at Chapel Hill,” Shibley said.

Shibley said members come in with interests in American and Korean cartooning, but these are not the only kinds that one can focus on.

Executive Officer Regina Lee is in the process of learning animation and has already completed one from a fish tail GIF.

“The people who founded it want to make this friendly, open and easy to learn for everyone,” Lee said.

AniAno’s meetings are two days a week, and members are only responsible for going to one of them.

“We have two per week since we understand that a lot of people might not be able to make it, and we are encouraged to work outside,” Lee said. “It’s very openly-structured.”

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