This entry is in response to a few postings we’ve seen on Facebook and Vimeo over the past week or so.

Animation Mentor supports animation all around the world, and we love to see student work.

We are flattered that students of animation are choosing to emulate Animation Mentor student and graduate work in their quest to learn how to animate, and we want to offer a few guidelines to help them in their journey:

1. If you want to receive feedback on your work, or use it in a demo reel, it should be ORIGINAL work. Please do not reference another animator’s work.
2. If you do reference another animator’s work for the purpose of practice and learning, and the work is a straight copy, it is my humble opinion that this work should not be distributed on the internet and called a show reel.
3. It's also an incredible amount of work to recreate someone's short film shot-by-shot AND light/render it. We'd much rather suggest you work on original work that is uniquely yours showing the value of what your voice has to bring to the craft.

The industry is super duper small and word travels fast when work is copied or plagiarizer and we encourage those folks, I'm sure their intentions were not meant with any ill will, to rather work on new, original works instead.

And a note to Animation Mentor students and graduates: Please remember that what you post online is often public, and not easily deleted. We appreciate supporting your fellow students, and we encourage you to keep it positive, professional, and supportive. Thanks.