Stop. Before reading any further, watch this video and then come back. Yeah, I’ll wait.

Back now? What you have just witnessed is the talent of a 9th grader. Yup, a freshman, and a self-taught one at that. Andrew Stille, ‘20, has been animating for about two  years now. He says that he loves to animate because “it is a fun way to express my creative thinking”.

He also enjoys it because he feels like he can make an impact on others’ lives. This became most clear to him when he looked at the comments on one of his videos and saw people saying how good he was or how much he had improved. “I  wanted to make more animations to make more people happy,” said Stille. Eventually, it just all became second nature for him.

Like many things, animation has a process, and a long one at that. The first thing that Stille will usually do is think of an idea. He looks at different songs that seem interesting to him and relate to the type of animation he does.

Next, he begins to brainstorm ideas for the animation, as to which movement will go where.

Finally, he has to finish the overall animation which takes longer than many might think. Stille says that an animation can take anywhere from a few days to a couple months. The amount of time it takes usually depends on how badly Stille wants to see it done.

Stille is mainly self taught with the exception of a few YouTube videos. He also learned from those more experienced than he. He “met” some of these people through a gaming app called Steam and began making friends with them. This allowed him to share his work and have the others critique it.

Stille does many different types of animations, but he usually bases them around popular game franchises. Some of these include Undertale, Five Nights at Freddy’s, or Team Fortress 2. He mostly animates songs, with the exception of a few random videos.

Stille typically animates whenever he has free time. The thing is that, when he sits down to work on an animation, it could take up to 5 hours to make any real progress, keeping him from finishing any animations quickly. Once again the amount of time that he puts into an animation is solely based on how motivated he is to do it.