When Weinberg sophomore and Wildcat Animate co-President Lucia Rodriguez Agusti arrived at Northwestern, she had one goal in mind: to find fellow animation enthusiasts.
But, despite the thriving film community on campus, Rodriguez Agusti didn’t find a space dedicated to animation, the art form that had inspired her since childhood.
“I’ve been watching cartoons all my life,” Rodriguez Agusti said. “But I think around fifth grade, I realized this was something that I wanted to do, something I wanted to invest my time in.”
From that moment forward, animation became more than a hobby. She began drawing constantly, following professional artists online and studying the production process behind her favorite shows and films.
That same boundless creativity inspired Rodriguez Agusti to launch Wildcat Animate along with her co-President, Communication sophomore Patricia Liu, in Spring Quarter. She wanted to give students a structured, collaborative environment to learn how animation actually works — from storyboarding, to editing, to production pipelines used in the professional industry.
“The only limit to what you can do in animation is your skills, your creativity and then your budget,” Rodriguez Agusti said. “But there have been people, in animation’s history, who have been so invested in their work that they find ways to get around.”
Rodriguez Agusti noticed that opportunities for group collaboration in animation were limited; there seemed to be a real lack of spaces where people could come together and create animated projects as a team.
This realization sparked the idea for what would eventually become Wildcat Animate, a club made to fill that creative gap and bring aspiring animators together under one roof.
“I just love doing art in a group,” Communication freshman Chloe Wang said. “This is not an experience I got a lot of in high school because a lot of the projects were independent, so working with a lot of people on the same projects together is really exciting.”
This fall marks Wildcat Animate’s first official quarter as a recognized student organization. Members meet weekly to study different aspects of animation production. Recent sessions have covered topics like storyboarding, animatics and layout design — all presented by the club’s executive team.
Rodriguez Agusti said she and her peers are also preparing to launch their first major project: a two-to-three-minute animated short film. Throughout the fall, members can pitch ideas, and the chosen concept will go into full production during the winter and spring quarters, involving a crew of more than 20 students.
As members prepare for the club’s first short film, each brings a unique vision, turning Wildcat Animate into a space where imagination and collaboration drive the storytelling process.
“I’ve had this imaginary world in my head since I was 3, and I’ve been developing it for my life. Basically, every story I write is from there,” Communication freshman Henry Gutkin said. “So it’s all just like an expression of that and a way to get that out of my head.”
Rodriguez Agusti hopes to ensure Wildcat Animate’s lasting presence and meaningful influence by submitting their projects to film festivals and building recognition outside NU.
In the future, Rodriguez Agusti plans for Wildcat Animate to explore multimedia and hybrid animation, blending techniques like 2D, 3D and stop-motion to push the creative boundaries of their work.
“We’re just opening up the floodgates,” Rodriguez Agusti said.
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