Chapman Animation & Visual Effects Student Association creates a vibrant community for animation hobbyists and majors alike

Flyer courtesy of Rebecca Chivers

If you’ve ever entered Chapman’s DMAC (the affectionate abbreviation of the Digital Media Arts Center), you’re probably familiar with the Chapman Animation & Visual Effects Student Association (CAVESA). From the art covering every wall and window, frequent events, screenings, workshops and games, they take charge of it all.

CAVESA (formerly CAVE Club, and even before then the Chapman Digital Arts Club founded by Professor Emeritus William Croyer) has been a Dodge College of Film and Media Arts fixture as long as the animation and visual effects major has been. Created as a crucial social and networking space for animators of all kinds, it is in many ways an extension of the school’s program rather than an independent club.

“Animation students don’t join CAVESA, they are already in CAVESA from the moment they are in this major,” said senior animation and visual effects major and CAVESA President Rebecca Chivers. “Orientation day one, join the Discord server, this is CAVESA.”

The Discord server in question is their primary intricate network of communication. Encompassing over 300 members — including officers, alumni, faculty and students — it is the central hub for all CAVESA announcements and chatter. 

“Professors are on the server and you can ask them questions at any time, which is so much more convenient than email,” said sophomore animation and visual effects major Sam Seyedhosseini. “And it’s great, because that’s where all the discussion about the major happens.”

Among the announcements on the Discord server (open to all students, regardless of major) are CAVESA’s many big events hosted throughout the year: ScareGames, a series of collaborative challenges to bond students and create mentor-mentee relationships, Senior Thesis Pitch, an opportunity for seniors to wrangle talent for their projects, Beach Day, a self-explanatory low-stress outing, the Alumni Mixer, a helpful resource for networking and making industry and personal connections and a big, cosplay-filled Halloween social, among other gatherings and screenings throughout the year.

“You kind of think all of that is put on by the school, but it’s not,” Chivers said. “It wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t for CAVESA.”

Senior Thesis Pitch, held last Friday (Sept. 13), was a resounding success for eager animation students looking for experience.

“It was super fun,” said sophomore animation and visual effects major Alec Barker. “I especially liked how they showed us rough animations and works in progress. And for up-and-coming animators who want to help but don’t know what to do, they offered to train us. Whether it be specific techniques or software, they offered to show you. Also, there were a lot of new techniques that I’ve never seen in a thesis before, like painted textures in 3D animation and paper puppet animation.”

According to Seyedhosseini, this semester’s Senior Thesis Pitch was historical, due to Chapman’s new usage of the TVPaint animation program. A relatively new and unfamiliar program in the digital animation space, it has been slowly introduced to Chapman students. The program has been widely adopted at Gobelins Paris, one of the world’s leading animation schools. If there was ever a school to try to adopt influence from, it would be them. 

“We want people from all majors to come,” said CAVESA Vice President and junior animation and visual effects major Courtney Chung. “It’s open to anyone. Sometimes they need people for sound design. It’s not always gonna be they’re looking for animators or people that can do storyboarding, it could be honestly anything.”

Despite the resources and backing support of the CAVESA network, the stress of animation is more palpable than ever. The Stand With Animation movement has been gaining traction online, a reflection of the dour conditions of the current animation industry. Between concerns over the proliferation of AI, increased demand, unchanged wages and dwindling staff numbers to maintain corporate profits, the state of animation is more unstable than ever. The Animation Guild (TAG) has been in talks with executives over their concerns in the past few months, with tensions growing and the possibility of an industry-wide animation strike potentially looming. It may seem pessimistic, but it’s a concern that permeates all facets of the animation industry.

“You can’t talk about animation for very long without getting to that point,” said Chivers. “It’s like a shared existential dread within the whole major.”

That’s what makes CAVESA, though, such an invaluable space for students. Given the mounting anxieties in the industry, it becomes vital to have a space to unwind. And even with its focus on animation connections and resources, CAVESA forms a space for much more than that.

“There’s events to help you destress, because I think that’s a very real thing that everyone goes through — burnout,” Chung said. “I definitely went through that sophomore year, where I was so stressed with my thesis, and just having CAVESA as a space to just not think about animation for a little bit.”

For students without a space to be themselves, unwind and let loose — creating elaborate Halloween cosplays of their favorite characters, competing in Super Smash Bros. tournaments, or playing large-scale sharks and minnows on Memorial Lawn — the stress can get to be too much. One of CAVESA’s most important events — a Holiday Mixer close to finals season — is a blend of relaxation and connection-building.

“It’s more of a networking thing, but in a fun way, so we bring board games and snacks and we encourage people outside of animation to come to that one more than any other event,” Chivers told The Panther. “The animation major gets a little bit of the rough of it from Dodge, we don’t get treated the best, we don’t really get respected in the same way.”

Chivers continued: “I’m sure you’ve seen the Dodge College memes where it’s like directing, producing and then sound design, writing and then animation all the way at the bottom of the forgotten children. It’s really a mix of trying to get Dodge to know who we are, because we need screenwriters, we need sound designers, we need producers, we need those things for our thesis films, and a lot of us struggle to make those connections naturally because Dodge doesn’t really facilitate them with us. They don’t really advertise that these events are happening, they don’t really think to include us because we’ve got our own little separate building and we’re kind of an offshoot.”

According to Chivers, animation is about community. Without CAVESA and their mission of collaborative animation camaraderie, it’s hard to imagine what that community would look like.