Page 16 - 2019 Observations ~ The Montessori School

Alumni Spotlight:
Sam Alkaitis

the time, it was like we discovered it our- ately recruited for contract work on an
selves.” animation project and gained experience
Sam started at The Montessori as he moved from one project to another,
School in Primary in 1992 and contin- challenged by the constantly evolving
ued through Lower and Upper Elemen- technology available. He has worked on
tary, graduating in 2001. Beginning in programs including Rick & Morty (the
seventh grade, Sam studied at Greens top-rated animated comedy) as well as
Farms Academy in Westport, CT, com- Jake and the Neverland Pirates and the
pleted his senior year at St. Mary’s High new Donald Duck Three Caballeros on
School in Annapolis, MD in 2008 and Disney’s streaming service.
went on to the University of Virginia. In order to keep Sam engaged be-
The summer of his junior year, Sam tween projects, one company tasked him
landed a coveted “dream job in environ- with learning a new animation program
mental science,” an internship working —Toon Boom Harmony—“You draw
for the National Fish & Wildlife Founda- things once, and the computer fills in the
tion in Washington, D.C. His assignment motions between the images. We inher-
within the Eastern Brook Trout program ited season three of Jake and the Nev-
was to restore the fish to cold water erland Pirates and [the prior animation
streams. The role focused on looking at company] was using complicated rigs of
Sam, with his brother (also a Montessori Alum) Matt
Alkaitis, rock climbing in Boulder, Colorado. success metrics of the various initiatives the characters. (Rigs are the programs
within the program. Most interesting to that enable movement in 2D animation,
t all started with a swamp water proj- Sam was speaking with scientists directly and make it so that the animator does
ect from his days in Upper Elementary. to learn what was working. Sam com- not have to draw every micro movement
Students Sam Alkaitis and Kyle Miller pleted his degree in biology and earned a from pose to pose.) We had to replicate
Iheard that there were a bunch of sin- bachelor of science in biology, launching the rigs without knowing how. It was an
gle-cell organisms in swamp water, and him on an optional pre-med path—with impossible situation, and I was tasked to
this ignited the natural curiosity that con- a minor in English and a “strong interest figure it out. In a month and a half, I had
tinues to motivate Sam to this day. “We in art” in 2012. to learn how to do the whole process.”
went into our backyards, grabbed some Following graduation, Sam harkened Drawing from his primary research strat-
swamp water, looked under a micro- back on a question his aunt posed while egies from the National Fish and Wildlife
scope and drew what we saw.” The boys at UVA, “What would you be doing if internship, Sam called everyone he knew
ran to Teachers Kathy Allen and Gerry you weren’t doing pre-med?” The answer and was able to reverse-engineer the
Leonard for an explanation of what they for Sam was clear: animation. His answer rigs. “A lot of it was biology! The code
saw. “They got us the right books, they prompted him to consider a broader path they used to make the rig is node-based
guided us…I still remember the volvox and with his interest piqued, he enrolled with if-then logic.” Drawing on his sci-
in the swamp water…a living pseudo in a one-year program at Vancouver Film ence training and logical thinking, Sam
multicellular organism…they form these School. In a program that afforded him learned the programming necessary to
communal groups into a cluster…and the opportunity to directly enter the ani- build the code. His training as an anima-
then we learned about it in Intro to Cell mation industry, he travelled to the west tor helped him understand how to apply
Biology in college. It tied into theory and coast of Canada, and earned a diploma the code to the design. Drawing from his
history and who discovered what. But at in animation in 2013. Sam was immedi- Montessori schooling, embracing learn-
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