Louaye Moulayess - Animator

Louaye Moulayess
animator

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Teaching Reviews

All of my reviews:

"For the past 20 years I've been a part of many different education systems and had a lot of great professors. Louaye is hands down the best of them all. Every advice and lecture he ever gave was so clear to the point. Even though I didn't find the exercises too challenging, I feel like I have taken an enormous leap just by being in Louaye's class. The biggest part for me was the care he took to show examples, to recommend films, to teach staging and appeal even though those weren't the goal of his class. I could go on forever, but to finish... I am personally in love with the art of animation and Louaye teaches exactly that. I can't recommend him enough."

"Louaye was a great instructor and I had a great time in class. I felt the critiques were very helpful, clear, and honest while still being respectful. I enjoyed the inspiration videos we watch at the beginning of class, and I liked how supportive and engaging the students were as well. I also appreciated when Louaye would answer our questions about the industry and share information helpful to us in our animation career. I think everyone in class got along great and all improved thanks to Louaye's guidance. Overall wonderful class! :)"

"Louaye is awesome! So impressed by his effective communication skills, organization, punctuality, and skill with 3D animation. He really pushed me to reach my potential and even though it was very difficult, he was kind and patient with critique. He is a great teacher."

"He always give honest critiques to improved my shot's. Teaching method is 10/10 for me."

"Louaye was a great teacher we learned a lot from his workflow. During critique classes he always made sure , that every note he was giving was crystal clear for the person and let us ask questions anytime. He also showed us cool animation videos to inspire us at the start of every class. That was nice!"

"Louaye is a very good instructor. I learnt a lot in just 3 months"

"Super friendly, I expected he would be much more harsh and strict, but it turned out he isn't like that at all. Even in critique classes - he gives constructive criticism, always in a very nice and well-thought-out way. He’s also always good prepared. I like that he watches the animations before the critique class so he already knows what he wants to say and we don’t waste any time during the class. He really tries to stick to that 2h time frame for the classes. I loved watching the animation shots in the beginning of the class, it left you super motivated to learn more. I think that he wants his students to follow the reference video very much, so at the end of the term the produced shots are more on the realistic side than cartoony. All in all we had a great atmosphere in class and I really enjoyed it. He’s a very inspirational person, answers all the questions and tries to push his students."

"Louaye is a great teacher and I found his Maya demos especially helpful in terms of understanding how to better manage curves and make a clean blocking with a smoother transition into spline. It was fun to start each class by analyzing inspiring animated clips from film and TV. Students' ability to each choose a clip throughout the weeks helped make the exercise more interactive, and also helped me prepare to focus and get excited for that day's lesson or critique. Louaye's critiques are very thorough and he calls out what's not working well in students' scenes, but he also lets them know what is working well. Both the criticism and especially the positive reinforcement are worth a lot and help a student feel confident enough to improve a scene which with they may have been struggling. My work has grown very much this term while in Louaye's class!"

"I learnt a lot from Louaye's class, he gave me a lot more confidence in my skills going forward, and anyone taking him as a teacher is lucky to have him. Nothing that he chose to do in that class was a waste of time, even the inspirational videos were very helpful. I am glad I enrolled in his class."

"My instructor is very thorough with everything, gives many good examples, shares a lot of information and encourages us to be vigilant, look at good things, be analytical and always have fun. The only thing I don't understand is why he takes 5 minute breaks when class is 2 and a half hours long. "

"Like Louaye’class warmup, play some good movie shots and explain why it is good, in the beginning of the class; Like his lecture about what we should do in blocking, spline and polish, and demo the process in Maya; He also open and demo our shots so we understand how we could do to improve. Overall, I learn a lot from my instructor."

"Louaye was a great instructor. He explained things in a very understandable way and furthered my animation skills through his constructive criticism."

"He's a very friendly, makes you feel included in the group, he teaches clearly and he knows exactly what each of his students need to improve!"

Louaye was a great teacher. He is very thorough in lecture classes, and always takes time to answer question/go off script if necessary. He is blunt during critiques, but never in a rude way. He tells you what is necessary in order to succeed.

My instructor was overall great. Everything was explained well and he made expectations clear. Near the end of the term though I felt a bit confused about how to improve my work beyond just the notes given from critiques. It is amazing and super helpful that speed critiques are also implemented by the instructor at the end of lecture days.

I believe Louaye is a fantastic teacher. I am happy that class always started on time and he took the time to inspire us with animated content before the start of class. The assignments were challenging however he was very thorough in the critiques.

Louaye overall was a great teacher to have. He was very professional and made his class feel like a studio environment. That being said, this is a beginner's course still, and I feel like maybe he took for granted how new we were. I think his inspirational clips to get the class started were far too long and could have been trimmed to one-minute sections as I would have rather that time spent in Maya demoing and learning more.

"Louaye is a great teacher and I learned a lot from implementing his approach to animation. AnimSchool is very good. For some reason I found myself enjoying less and demotivated compared to the school I was attending before.

These are some possible explanations I thought about:
1. I found the block rig to be uninspiring.
2. The nature of more advanced animation compared to the introductory course, the tedious process.
3. My instructor's approach, which is more inclined towards 2D style than technical, since I am more technical.
4. More capable classmates and inability to show off awesome work. Also due to a more structured approach compared to the creative freedom I've had before.
However I think the school's approach is very effective how it focuses on quality over quantity, and hopefully I will find animation more enjoyable in the next courses (especially when we get to acting and normal rigs)."

Like last semester it was great and I really appreciated Louaye.

"Louaye was an excellent teacher. Loved everything about his class. Apart from the technical stuff he was also very inspiring. I left every class with a list of movies to watch, artists to observe and books to read. He had every file open and ready, very cool presentations where he explained the subject perfectly, he showed us a clip from an animated project to inspire and motivate us. He was on time 100% of the classes. The demo classes where amazing, he shared so many valuable things. I think he is an unforgettable teacher, I leave his class with more knowledge, with motivation and ready to give my 100%."

"My instructor loves to teach and it shows. I learned a lot from him! and my experience in AnimSchool has been amazing!"

"First I would like to say overall the class is great. Although I don't have much class-time under my belt with other instructors to compare (I only took Intro to Animation) I still notice a big difference in teaching style and how you run your class.

Audio and Video - I think the microphone (audio) and webcam (video) are both very clear and your internet connection is strong. Mango may have tried to sabotage it by biting the cables, but overall its never an issue. I bring this up because this was one MAJOR issue in my first class, couldn't hear, internet was lagging badly, when a video was shown we could barely make it out etc.. I've had zero issue with that in your class so its much appreciated.

Lectures - I appreciate the time taken to open up Maya and take us through what is most likely very simple for you and repetitive, but to us is very new and a bit overwhelming, so its helpful to see the demo, watch it and then watch the recording again and really see visually how its done. Helps a lot! Again, clear and consistent video make the lectures great to follow along with.

Time - I'm an on-time person myself and I have a lot of respect for people who make an effort to give me their time so I make sure I give respect for theirs. Always on-time is noticed and appreciated. My last class, although great when it did eventually start, being on-time was more like a suggestion? Anyway, I enjoy the 7:00pm and 9:30am START times, especially for online classes.

Animation Inspiration - Keep doing it! I look forward to it each week, its different, its fun, it gives us insight and motivation and I personally haven't been exposed to some of the great videos shown in class that otherwise I probably wouldn't have seen yet. So this is fun, hope you keep doing it.

Critiques - I'd be lying if I said they didn't make me a bit nervous, I think its the "I hope he likes it?" mentality of us noobies presenting our probably sloppy, crappy animation work to a seasoned professional asking for his thoughts. It definitely gets the nerves going because nobody likes to be embarrassed in front of people, but I think you do an excellent job balancing between being firm and being honest and not making us feel incapable. I always come out of the critique feeling like although obviously I didn't "ace it" nor did I think I did going in - I can improve, I can learn, I can try to see what you see and fix it and accept the notes and apply them. I think its very easy for people to get defensive and protect their "beginner" level work and make excuses, when really we should just LISTEN to the professionals.

A big chunk of AnimSchool is constantly being critiqued to improve your work, so if the instructor is being very condescending or rude I could see how that would affect a students mindset over time. Fortunately, you are not like that and give very fair and honest critiques that I agree with. I haven't received a single note from you that I don't agree with myself, and when you are not sure or you want us to search for the answer, you say "I'll let you find it" and I appreciate that because it lets us try things and learn and its not hand-holding copy-paste everything. I hope I make sense here. Short form - Critiques are good!

Grades - This is probably the only section I don't really understand too well, I believe at the beginning of class you mentioned we are being graded against ourselves? I don't focus too much on grades, I focus more on what you're saying in critique and if you like where my work is going (up or down), its just difficult to gauge how well I'm doing overall. I've noticed I'll get a C on blocking, C+ on revision and finish with a B- and I'm not sure if that's because C,C+,B- means "going-up" so I'm learning? or B- because A is where you need to be at this level and my animation isn't even close to A. Then I question myself, whats an A standard... professional animator? Well then B- isn't so bad... but what if an A is just a really good student? Well, then I'm not doing well at all, almost failing, scraping by. I think its because the first class I took graded me a 94% overall final so I thought oh I'm bouncing a ball look at me, Im an animation student, and this class, boom! C on first project.. reality check. But you know what, its made me push much harder than just assuming I'll get an A. Its brought me back down to reality and shown me I have a LOT to learn. So either way, this class is tougher, less hand-holding, and more work and its made me try harder and push way more, so I appreciate it because I feel like I'm learning a lot.

Class Involvement - Its great! Take 11 strangers, 1 professional animator, give them all webcams and microphones and put them in an online chat room weekly for 3 months (sounds crazy), but I think you've managed to take our awkwardly quiet class (day 1) and turn it into a fun involved environment. I really think it makes a difference that you ask us to talk, put on our mics and communicate. It helps break the ice and makes for an enjoyable 2 hours. My last class was very quiet.. at least for the first month! So very quiet. But yes, you've managed to wake us up! Break us out of us shells with our funny hats and mango visiting and just being present in class. Its fun!

In conclusion, I'm enjoying your class very much. As per above, the audio video, being on-time, animation inspiration, and critiques all make for an enjoyable learning experience. You mentioned at the start of the first class "Don't worry, you guys are in good hands" and I honestly believe that to be true as we enter our final weeks. Excellent class. =) I guess this is more a review than criticism, but I'm racking my brain to think of things and I can't, its a well thought-out an organized class. So.. all good with me."

"Good but strict"

"I like how he take a look at our assignments before class, so he know exactly what he wants during class, and that saved us a huge amount of time."

"Very good instructor. Enthusiastic about animation and his students' work and presents his critique and direction notes in a way that is easy to understand. I would really enjoy going through another class with Louaye as the instructor. Would love to spend more time talking about and analyzing animated clips or movies, but I think time can be tight as it is."

"I loved this class, learnt a lot :). One thing I would add: before reviewing my shot, I think it would be great if we would talk about it as students what we want to achieve in some part of it, or where we felt that our animation is lacking something or something is off, this way we could get confirmation if we were right or not then next time we could be more confident on thoose things(like pushing the poses more or less, adding more keyposes on some part of animation, etc)."

"This was my second class and it was a huge challenge! Louaye was an outstanding mentor and I would highly recommend him to others. His demo's where very clear and easy to follow and the way he explained things just clicked for me. I really appreciated the how we went over an animation before class. It was nice to hear and see how animators approach a shot and to see the arcs the choose to use. Sometimes the videos would have things that I was doing and it was nice to see how that animator would approach that challenge. When it came time to Critique Louaye was awesome, he would do draw overs and would tell us to hit our notes hard! I am not gonna lie I didn't quite get this until the end when I went back and corrected some old animations from this class and had fresh eyes. I wish I new/ comprehended that when you hit notes hard its not just tweaking curves here and there sometimes its taking another stab at it reworking sections of the shot. Also I enjoyed the speed Critique's on Monday because it was nice to check in and make sure I'm heading in the right direction"

"My instructor for this term was very clear and took a lot of time to critique our work. Usually the class takes longer then planned, but that's something i liked about it. He would do a extra quick critique after we "finished" our assignments so we could improve our shots as much as possible for the next assignment. Also i liked the fact he always shows a shot from a movie at the start of the class to learn something and get inspiration from it. I did struggle with the assignments but in the end it will all be worth it"

"Louaye Moulayess is very enthusiastic and very expressive in his teaching. He is able to push your shots to be more expressive and interesting, pushing you to better improve both technically and artistically"

"I have loved being apart of animschool for the short time I have been involved, everything runs smoothly and if help is needed you find it very quickly. I found that because I have quite a large class I haven't had enough time on critiques which I understand, having to get through everyone takes time but I find that sometimes there are a few extra notes I could be told and we could go through it in more detail, this is why I really like the general review sessions animschool has, I have gone to most of the general reviews when I felt I needed to and I got some amazing feedback from them, that either gave me big idea changes that helped my work dramatically or that they liked my ideas and helped with the smaller refined details I was missing which was great because it will teach me to look for those smaller details again in the future. I really can't wait to see what the other terms and classes have in store for me. Thanks Animschool"

"Louaye is a fantastic professor, I learned a lot at his class. I'm very happy with my experience at animschool so far"

"Louaye is great! He demonstrates so much energy and love for animation and inspires us to be just as motivated =) He spends a lot of time trying to get us to more than learn the subject, but shares with us how he approaches the work and his techniques, which I find so helpful. His critiques have been fair and I like that he always gives us a mini critique at the end of lecture - which is great"

"My instructor was really good. So far I like him the best. He never let you get bored with animation and gave us a lot of interesting material."

"My instructor's performance this term is great. I feel like my learning curve is more of a linear line straight up. Louaye did a demo with our own work and I felt that was a huge help. The clips of animation he shows at the beginning of the class, frame by framing it and showing us why it works is helpful. I am excited about animation again and inspired. General reviews last term I maybe attended two or three reviews. This term I tried to attend the Thursday review every week, I find Kevan Shorey reviews very encouraging and helpful. I like how it is more like a class setting as he encourages other students to pipe up as well. I have learnt just as equally from other students as well as from Kevan."

"I improved a ton from taking my class from Louaye, I love him as a person, and I feel the results from the students in my class are - on the whole - some of the best between the three classes this term. So it's with reluctance (and a few grains of salt) that I want to say that Louaye has many areas in which he could definitely improve. The first area is in his lectures. When doing demos or examples he could do a better job explaining the specifics of what he's doing, rather than just doing it and hoping we follow along. This goes along with my general issue with AnimSchool as a whole: Technical instruction. There's almost none of it once you leave "Intro to Maya", and I'm beginning to feel bad mentioning it in instructor reviews when it's appearing to be more of a school issue. Regardless, this lack of clarity and detail made me constantly mess things up without realizing it, forcing me to redo large sections of animation over and over again when I discovered my mistakes on the next step. This of course frustrated Louaye at times, as I was not consistently hitting his artistic notes. (A note he'd left in blocking would still be there in spline, for example, because I'd spent all week fixing issues caused by improper technical instruction.) Easily my strongest assignment was my last, where I went into the assignment choosing to selectively ignore some of Louaye's instruction and "faked" certain details until further down the road. I consistently excelled across that assignment, whereas I watched as my peers regularly ran into the same issues I'd been struggling with on all prior assignments.

This leads me to Louaye's critique sessions. Artistically, he was excellent! However, he didn't seem to be well-prepared. Often his notes would directly contradict the opinions of several General Reviewers (but Louaye was the "supervisor" so we followed him), and several times he gave a note to a student just to tell them the opposite next class. This made for great practice for the "real world" of supervisors, but could make it difficult to figure out what to learn. It also seemed random as to what he'd notice; there could be an important note that would go unnoticed for a week or two, only for him to JUST realize it later when it was harder to fix. He could do with a more methodical approach to his notes. (But then again, I could be spoiled from the amazing critiques of my previous instructor, Alexander Snow.)

That may seem like I'm leaving the class frustrated and disappointed. This is most certainly NOT the case! I'm VERY glad I took this class from him in particular! Some of my complaints may stem from the fact that he probably approaches animation completely differently than I do. At the end of last term, I actually talked to my previous instructor as to who I should take. We both agreed Louaye would be most likely to push me in my area of weakness: Appeal and posing. Louaye has done just that, making me infinitely better than I was. My latest assignment is unquestionably my best. The trick with Louaye was just to sort out what he had to offer in his education (and what he didn't), and then learn everything I could from him in that area. Even then, all of the struggles I went through with him made me stronger - even if it wasn't what he was trying to teach. Despite my harsh-sounding review I couldn't imagine taking this class from anybody else, and his approach - foibles and all - made me view animation in a completely different way. As much as I excelled going back to MY way, being able to selectively view it HIS way when needed is a skill I wouldn't have been able to do without.

Due to my struggles, I also took the plunge and attended my first General Reviews! I attended those by Kevan Shorey, who was an absolute pleasure and, at times, a complete lifesaver. I always left his sessions feeling confident and knowing where to go from there. I didn't get a chance to attend too many due to my job (so I don't want to review him too much), but it's clear he's popular based on how long his sessions are. He's really building a community in his sessions, and we love it.
And finally, the school itself: It has been years and years since I've been this pleased with my personal education. You see, I was THAT kid in school. In the second grade I once refused to do an in-class math assignment on the grounds that it was "too easy" and "a waste of time". With my parents' grade I once refused to do an in-class math assignment on the grounds that it was "too easy" and "a waste of time". With my parents' approval the teacher kept me for two hours after school trying to get me to do it (and just 10 minutes is often considered a lifetime for a child that age). Eventually they told me to "prove it", and I immediately wrote down the correct answer with no work or effort.

I'm not ashamed to say I've always been picky about my education. I always made my teachers' lives difficult in my pursuit of knowledge. This pickiness only followed me and worsened as I went through middle-school and high-school. The more pointless, useless busywork I encountered, the greater my disgust with the typical education system grew. But I persevered, following the promise I'd always been given that college was where I'd truly get to thrive in the pursuit of knowledge! So I grit my teeth and pushed on. I became a straight-"A" honors student in the hopes of landing the best college I could get. ..."College" was a lie. I originally landed myself in a small, somewhat-prestigious private college in my area on a great scholarship, so you can imagine my disgust when I discovered that everything I hated about school was multiplied tenfold. There was even LESS organization to my education, FEWER standards for the teachers, and MORE busywork! And yet I ended my first year with all "A"s and "B"s in difficult classes, albeit disheartened. The next year? I would discover that my college took away my financial aid with no explanation, forcing me to switch colleges last minute. I entered a public state college where my professors proceeded to teach me in methods that ran completely contrary to what the industry required and demanded. Further, I ran out of money and suffered trauma at the hands of my "fellow" students. I dropped out.
I then spent years trying to gain a career I could stand in something - ANYthing - that wouldn't require school. I was a straight-"A" honors student who had given up on higher education. At one point I almost became homeless. After 20 years of working toward college, college had failed me. I gave up on my dreams. ...And then, years later while working insane levels of overtime at a job that was sometimes illegal in how it treated its employees (being forced to work with a concussion, no access to restrooms, etc), I discovered AnimSchool. AnimSchool was affordable (especially due to my savings from overtime), and it appeared to offer me a chance at doing what I'd always wanted. Honestly? It looked too good to be true. Yet further research lessened my suspicions to the point I was willing to give it a try. Boy am I glad I did! I have given all of this backstory because I want to make it ABSOLUTELY clear as to how great AnimSchool is.

AnimSchool is everything I've always wanted out of my source of education, even ignoring the fact that it revolves around a topic I've always dreamed of learning! It has some of the best structure and organization I've ever seen. I know what to expect every step of the way, and there are always astoundingly knowledgeable and helpful people available to help me when I need it. Further still, the education has a purpose; a clear example is how my current assignment at the end of this term seems to be a perfect amalgamation of every single assignment I've done across the three classes I've taken thus far. Whereas in other schools I've always felt like 80% of the classes are only worth it so I'm allowed to take the other 20%, I find myself sad that I do not have the resources to take absolutely every single course AnimSchool has to offer. That is not to say AnimSchool is without its faults. I do wish AnimSchool did a better job of explaining to newer students how all of its wonderful resources work and how to get use out of them, although I've picked some of this up over time. Also, I feel AnimSchool doesn't do quite enough technical instruction in the earlier classes, opting to focus almost entirely on the artistic instruction (I hear this gets better later on). That said, this is all nit-picky seeing as it's clear just how much I'm learning in such a short span of time, and how much I'm loving almost every second.
In summary: "AnimSchool is my dream coming true."

"Louaye its an awesome instructor. Its very clear, exigent but friendly. I learned a lot from him. I would like to attend more classes with him in coming terms"

"He is a very good teacher who clearly has passion on what he is doing. Each class is very informative and there are critiques every meeting which I really like."

"My Instructor was amazing! He really took the time to critique each of our work in a constructive and very helpful way each week. Classes were so much fun with him and I learned a lot of very helpful tips and tricks to make my animation workflow much easier and faster"

"Great instructor, always ontime, always well prepared. Passionate about animation, did demos in his class using Maya which was very helpful. I don't mean technical demos, Louaye would work on one of our files or his own to show examples of blocking, splining and polishing. Very cool. Always gives great feedback, encourages students to get involved in class. I'm still struggling with 3d animation, spacing, timing and just not sucking. I learned a lot in this class. Great teacher!"

"Louaye is an incredible artist, he have a lot of knowledge on animation. He teach us to improve the shot in all ways (also in how to use colors and BG in a simple but beautiful way). He is so talented, I loved taking his class and I've learnt a lot from him. One of the most usefull things he did was to show us in the maya file how he animate. He also made demos on our own files, which was so helpfull."

"My teacher produced a wonderful creative environment that embraced the process of animation while always encouraging us to move forward to push through our mistakes. It was my favorite of the three classes i've taken at animschool by far. I felt like we could have worked a little harder to push techniques that would prevent us from counter animating. There were always those things going on in his examples, but I caught onto it a bit late. So, I feel like I keep struggling with a messy scene. Even so, Louaye's notes always kept me moving in the right direction, and he always critiqued in a way that smoothed over those panicy feelings that come from having no idea what i'm doing."

"This was my instructor's first time teaching in Animschool, and I believe he did great! He always gave us some inspirational videos and reference before starting the lesson, which made it even more enjoyable. His positive energy while teaching made me want to be at my best when it comes to my assingments and like this term even more (I honestly don't want it to end!)"

"Louaye was a great teacher especially during the critiques, he always discussed what was needed to make the shot look better and gave time to clarify notes. He made sure to spend as much time on notes for anyone to understand which was great and showed his patience. Louaye had some wonderful references and examples of animation as well, but my only two criticisms is that his lectures could have been organized better, simplified and speak just about the basics of the assignments. The dog walk was pretty good, he could have given us some more specific notes on the dog in the first lecture like how the graph editor should look like. Would have been very helpful in the blocking, he did it in the second lecture but I think just showing a pic of the curves would help a lot, he should hold on to julietas assignment for further use. The obstacle course could have been simplified. Perhaps just showing the blocking would be fine and then go to some ones work and show some polishing notes would work better then doing a full animation. I think the way he explained how to do a dog walk was better than the obstacle course, this is a note for future classes. I did enjoy the lecture on how to build a set like the one he did in the obstacle course, that was extremely helpful. Also the lectures on graph editors was cool. I wish he could show simple tests of that and explain it because he knew a ton about curves. He could ask the class to do some and have more class discussions instead of asking questions like did you understand that he could ask what would this curve do or how do I make a ball bounce by only using the TY curve, how does this work? This would allow more open discussion which is something I see tough to do in online classes. That's about it, my critiques are mainly suggestions to improve the class experience and also to highlight the important parts of the lecture. Louaye was great and I did my best dog walk/body mechanic test with his guidance and I am super proud of that. For the other instructors I guess they can review more about quad walks, but they always had a ton to say and their advice was super beneficial to have."

"My instructor is so great, he is so inspiring and his passion for animation is so contagious. His critic are amazing too, I really felt I improvement a lot in this class. Also his learning a lot about how see and analyze movement and animation,showing animation or live actions movies. .He also do a blogs which for me was amazing a learn a lot with this. This blogs is amazing and did it just for us: http://theanimationcommonroom.blogspot.com other good things is his complete honesty,that is really helpful for my critic and improvement. I not have any complain for Louaye. I go to the critic with hans and he was amazing like the before term i am really happy to see him again at school."

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