Summer — 2005

Joe Delaplaine

Academy of Entertainment & Technology

“The AET is just state of the art. Both teachers and students are knowledgeable and generous. And financially, it’s just an incredibly good deal.”

With the Industrial Revolution, the sum total of humankind’s knowledge began to double about every 10 years. With the advent of computers, that doubling is now down to a few hours. Another Renaissance, surely, but one that’s required Joe Delaplaine to jump through a lot of hoops along the way.” I learned graphic design, printing, and layout 10 years ago at SMC. But like all careers these days, there are a lot of ups and downs,” says Joe. “And getting laid off is not a lot of fun, I can tell you. So now I’m back here ‘retooling’ for the next go-around.”

Now working at the Academy on Maya, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Final Cut Pro, Joe reports actually being surprised by the speed of his progress. “All these programs can initially be quite frightening!” he says with a laugh. “But after a while, you find that they overlap in a kind of convergence, and you begin to get comfortable working with them all.” Of his teachers at the Academy Joe reports, “I honestly haven’t had a single bad one! They all have their strengths and they all approach their subject in a different way. And these are not just academics,” he continues. “This is what they do professionally in real life!”

Going to class nights and weekends allows Joe to keep up his temporary freelance career in graphic design, which pays his way. “But ultimately I want to be involved with editing and animation for a network or some large corporation like Sony. That would be ideal. But in the meantime, I’m just gonna keep going to the Academy and learning. It’s all so convenient because you can take classes year round. There are so many classes that anyone should be able to find a schedule that’s right for them.”

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