The computer graphics academy where an Oscar winner teaches.

Teachers at the Verona school include Sarah Arduini, “guru” of special effects

Of digital there is much. In fact, there is everything. But, at least in this case, it is not a virtual reality. And making it absolutely concrete are 60 young people. Or, rather, sixty pupils.
Those who attend a school, an “academy” to be precise, which for those who love computer graphics is like Harry Potter’s Hogwarts. Where to teach the magic and wizardry of digital you also get an Oscar winner. She is Sarah Arduini, 34, from Rome, who won cinema’s most famous statuette with her special effects in The Jungle Book, in which she animated the bear Baloo. And whose “magic” can be seen again in Italy from August 21, the release date of Walt Disney’s 3D colossal “Lion King.” And she is also — staying with the “special effects” theme — a kind of Minerva McGranitt, the transfiguration teacher in Harry Potter. That’s right, because Sarah is one of the teachers or-as the Anglo-Saxon industry jargon would have it-one of the “top trainers” of an absolutely real school. And based in Verona. That Side Academy where she teaches 3D animation. “In fact,” explains Stephen Siganakis, who founded and directs the Academy, “all the teachers are celebrities in their field.

Headquartered at Via del Fante, the Academy. But branches all over the world. “Almost all of the kids get jobs before they finish their three years of schooling, and once they finish they go to countries where digital graphics has far greater outlets than in Italy.” Form of the “brain drain,” the school that was founded four years ago in Verona almost by accident. “My partner had to move here, and I found the location,” Stefano says. “At first I had thought about Bologna, but Verona is so beautiful. Academy teachers also come from all over the world.
They do “modules,” intensive courses with the kids, “some two, some five weeks. And they are bombarded with questions, including about the practical side of the job

And on their lives.” The Veronese Academy is unique in Italy because it also has an in-house production studio, Side Animation, so much so that the boys are working on their own digital animation story, the fantastical one of Beatrix the heroine moving through a surreal Verona. “A project whose implementation takes years. And funds.” But the boys don’t give up. In fact. They also have other ideas in the pipeline. All to be accomplished with the sacred monsters of the field serving as their trainers. Also because Verona’s is the only Academy to have a three-year course of study, an alternative to professional courses. “Our goal,” Siganakis continues, “is to get them to work in advertising, entertainment and film. They, of course, would like to go right away and make great cartoons, but they often start with video games.” Long road, as it almost always leads abroad. But of which, if nothing else, the starting point is known. Those classrooms open to both the real and virtual world on Via del Fante.

• The Side Academy is a course of study in computer graphics related to the Side Animation Studio, which does animation and computer graphics
• I course of study, post graduate, lasts 3 years and is currently attended by about 60 students. Teachers come from all over the world