Exploration of the Development and Education Model of the Animation Major
The animation major covers multiple disciplines such as art, design, programming, music, film, and television. With the development of society and the continuous upgrading of people’s cultural consumption needs, the animation industry has received more and more attention and investment (Hoic-Bozic et al., 2008). Generally speaking, the traditional teaching of animation in universities is divided into three main categories: public courses, professional basic courses, and professional core courses.
In recent years, with the continuous development and application of science and technology, animation production technology is also constantly improving (Krasnova & Shurygin, 2020). For example, the application of technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality has strongly promoted the development of the animation industry. At the same time, with the increasing emphasis on animation education in colleges and universities, more and more students choose animation as their learning focus (Yigit et al., 2014). However, the traditional educational model and methods can no longer meet the learning needs of students and the development needs of the animation industry (Dwivedi et al., 2019). Therefore, it is an inevitable choice to explore an educational model that is more suitable for modern development. The scale and forecast of the online animation market in China from 2015 to 2022 are shown in Figure 1:
Figure 1. Online animation market scale and forecast in China from 2015 to 2022
During the period of 2016 to 2018, the animation industry in China was in a highly active period of capital operation after being stimulated by the general environment of the entertainment industry, so the financing amount increased substantially, and the market made prosperous showing. However, influenced by the cold winter of capital that began in the second half of 2018, the amount of animation-related financing in China began to plummet in 2019, reaching a level even lower than that of 2015. The financing overview for animation-related enterprises in China from 2015 to 2019 is shown in Figure 2:
Figure 2. Overview of financing of animation-related enterprises in China from 2015 to 2019
While social enterprises are vigorously developing online education, blended teaching, as applied to the major in animation in universities, needs to accelerate the pace of reform. The general trend of education is the integration of traditional education and internet education. Animation teachers cannot be complacent about the current situation. Teaching ideas must be changed, and new teaching concepts should be constantly introduced in teaching to guide oneself in exploring new teaching models.