Chris Fria

Professor

“I went to grad school at a UC, and it was amazing to find that the facilities at SMC were so much better. It just blew me away!”

‘New kid on the block’ Chris Fria has been focused on getting his academic feet firmly beneath him in his first semester. “As a first-time instructor, it’s all about energy levels and being able to keep talking,” he says with a laugh. “I’m just learning how to keep everybody with me and somehow manage to cover everything people need to know,” says Chris, who was most recently an animator for the hit show ‘South Park.’ He adds that, “teaching is something I’ve always wanted to do. And when I checked out the amazing facility at the Academy of Entertainment and Technology, I knew I’d found ‘home.’”

Chris says that worlds of waltzing dragons and tap-dancing hippos are given birth to and nurtured at SMC’s Academy. “When you’re in animation production, you’re often not able to just be creative,” he says. “I wanted to be around people who were enthusiastic again. So teaching is perfect. I get to bounce ideas off students and get involved in this whole collaborative process. You can become a little cynical in the Industry,” he adds, “but here, we’re giving students the skills—the ‘ammunition’—to go out and make success happen for themselves.”

Chris states that he was “stunned to find the Academy right in my backyard. It’s like this little world unto itself where incredible things are happening. It’s a small, fiercely focused program with great potentials. We’re very deliberate in choosing our applicants,” he says. “But you’ll get out of the Academy what you put into it. There’s just a lot of opportunity here for you.”

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