Why is A Course In Production Free?

May 05, 2025

Why is A Course In Production Free?

The most common FAQ for A Course in Production is why don't I monetize or charge people for access to this course? I attribute my reasoning to my values as someone with a Japanese-Canadian background.

I’ve been making A Course in Production since 2020 and by the time this video posts, I will have made sixty videos with my own time and money for this free career resource. As I film this, I’m actually unemployed as our industry is in a downturn and I have very much been affected by that. At any rate, I am often asked if I ever want to monetize A Course in Production. I have reflected about this over the years and I keep coming to the same conclusion: it is very important to me that A Course in Production remains a free career resource.

There are two reasons why. The first is very practical - I am unwilling to put more production value into these movies and blog posts, and I don’t necessarily think it's fair to charge for access to these unpolished videos, even though the average video takes me about ten hours each to produce from writing to filming.

As I say this, I’m making this video using iMovie, and on my personal laptop which is about ten years old now. I use a ring light that was a gift from my ex-wife, and I use these old, aux-input headphones as my mic. The books that I research I purchase myself, or borrow from friends or the library. Truthfully, I don’t plan on investing in new equipment any time soon, and another reason for this is indeed budgetary. At the time of writing and filming this video, I am once again facing a term of indefinite unemployment, which is common in the volatile Animation industry.

What does it take to make A Course in Production?

Laptop (my personal one is 10+ years old)
iMovie (which came installed automatically on my laptop)
Headphones/microphone
Ring light (though early videos in ACIP I didn’t have one!)
Research materials

Books from the library, purchased on my own, or borrowed from friends

Average 10 hours/video from writing all the way to editing and advertising
Keeping it lean - I don’t pay for hosting for my blog where I share video transcripts and resources

The second reason I want to keep A Course in Production free can be attributed to some of my values as someone who has a Japanese-Canadian background. I very firmly believe education should be a right, not a privilege. Indeed, Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to education.”

The belief that education is a right is very personal for me. In 2012, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Arts. This very same year, entirely thanks to the efforts of Vancouver activist Mary Kitagawa, UBC honoured 76 Japanese-Canadian students who were unable to complete their university studies or missed their graduation ceremonies when they were sent away in 1942 to internment camps during World War 2. Please note the initiative to grant these former students their degrees did not come from within the university, it was all Mary Kitagawa.

One of these 76 students was my maternal great-Uncle Roy, who passed away in 2016. When I was preparing to graduate in 2012, I had no idea that a member of my family had gone to UBC before me, or at least had attempted to. Realizing, and indeed, graduating with my Great Uncle, who was in his nineties at time we both crossed the stage (in separate ceremonies), made me angry at this injustice he experienced.

Education is a right, yet here was a member of my own family who was denied his education by an institution I had taken such pride in attending. I choose to recognize graduating with my Great Uncle Roy as a defining moment in my life because, as Paula Gunn Allen reminds us, “The root of oppression is the loss of memory."

And as someone who is of Japanese Canadian descent, I must remember.

Further reading and resources: 2012 Honorary Graduation Ceremony for Japanese Canadian Students at UBC

UBC awards degrees to interned Japanese Canadian students

The Ceremony: Honorary degree ceremony for Japanese Canadian students of 1942

70 years later, Japanese Canadians kicked out of UBC get degrees

The Canadian Enyclopedia: Keiko Mary Kitagawa

Further, I am reminded of the Japanese concept of giri, which roughly translates to or refers to an obligation and loyalty to a social group. I guess you could say I have a sense of giri for the animation community in Vancouver. I have benefited enormously, again and again, from the generosity, support, tutelage, and kindness of many mentors and colleagues over the years in our industry. I personally feel the best way to express my gratitude is by paying it forward with A Course in Production, by helping to educate more people in this industry, making them feel welcome, via my own efforts and commitments, not by profiting.

I mentioned earlier that I started A Course in Production in 2020, and indeed, it did start partially as a pandemic project. It was rather serendipitous that the same summer I started making videos for A Course in Production, the documentary Magical Imperfection: The Life and Architecture of Raymond Moriyama, directed by Scott Calbeck was released.

The late, great Raymond Moriyama, like my Great Uncle Roy, had been imprisoned in a internment camp during WW2 because of his Japanese descent, despite being a Canadian citizen. I was very moved by this documentary, and inspired by Moriyama’s commitment to social justice, and giri, in his work.

Moriyama was an architect, and I strongly relate to his feelings about work in architecture with how I feel about my Production work in animation. Moriyama says in the documentary,

"Whatever I do as a person, as an architect--its not so that it looks good on paper or in a magazine; its not a statement of one's ego; it has to express democracy, equality, inclusion of all people. And social justice. If not, then architecture is really a hollow sham."

I quote Moriyama once more to reiterate why it is important to me that A Course in Production remains a free learning or career resource. He said, "I try to work with honesty and integrity. The greed is conquering too many of us. You wind up doing things just for the money. There is more to life than just making money; my life has to mean something"