Portland Community College plans to offer an animation degree beginning in 2025, partly funded by a $60,000 donation from Oregon film studio Laika.
Laika announced Tuesday that it will give $30,000 to the PCC Foundation in each of the next two years to help fund three new classes in animation and stop-motion filmmaking, and the new degree in animation and motion graphics.
PCC said it has been developing its animation degree program since 2022. It requires state approval before the college can formally begin offering it.
Stop-motion animation is a signature Oregon art form, dating back to the establishment of Will Vinton Studios in the 1970s. Laika has made five Oscar-nominated animated films at its studios in Hillsboro and is at work on its sixth, an adaptation of the fantasy novel “Wildwood.”
Another Portland stop-motion studio, ShadowMachine, won an Oscar last year for “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.”
PCC already offers some animation classes as electives through the college’s multimedia program. The school and Laika said they will collaborate to offer internships to PCC students and portfolio reviews by Laika staff.
Laika is owned by Nike’s billionaire co-founder, Phil Knight, and run by his son, animator and film director Travis Knight.
Laika said it made the donation to encourage diversity in the animation industry, noting that nearly half of PCC’s enrollment consists of students of color. In 2021, Laika donated an unspecified sum to build a stop-motion animation studio at Bowie State University, a historically Black school in Maryland.
-- Mike Rogoway covers Oregon technology and the state economy. Reach him at mrogoway@oregonian.com.
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