Solomon has a lot of experience in animation, having been a critic in this area of film for a long while. I love how he direct quotes conversations with animators he's talked to. A lot of the things we learn are always followed up by watching multiple clips in class. The midterm and final are essays, and we usually have prompts to choose from. Although we cover a lot of information and it's hard to catch everything he says, as long as you can fully understand 3-5 themes in class, you will do fine! He has also brought in special guests currently working in the field, like the creator of the short Bao. She premiered it in our class and talked about the process of producing it. That was pretty cool!

Pros:
- Pretty much no homework
- Professor Solomon is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about animation; he's been in the industry for many years and is (from what I gathered) close friends with some of the most famous directors/producers
- Even though it's "American Animation", he acknowledges the global influence of Japanese anime and briefly covers it
- The director and producer of the new Pixar short came and talked to us about their process, which was very interesting and informative

Cons:
- Lectures could be more organized. A typical lecture involves watching clips in chronological order with the professor making brief comments about the visuals/context of each clip before and after. Viewings would be more insightful if we focused on a few influential films or organized the lectures by big trends
- Almost exclusively focused on feature films after 1960's; we don't really learn much about contemporary animated shows/cartoons
- Midterm and final are free response/essay questions; we pick from a list of prompts and answer with what we've learned from class and our own research. Many of the questions (esp. for the final) relate to current events or film analysis and don't really reflect the histories covered in class
- Grading can be subjective; different TAs may have different grading standards
- Prof. Solomon isn't really available outside of class; he's happy to answer questions during lecture but you can't get any one-on-one time with him because he doesn't have any formal office hours

Overall, the class gave me a sincere appreciation for the art form, would recommend for anyone interested in animation!

Solomon is shit