The Animation Program provides students with a unique opportunity to experience a broad range of possibilities within the world of animation. From fine art to cartoons, this program encourages students to explore their potentials, and bring movement to their artwork through an intense and rigorous curriculum. CSSSA Animation students learn diverse experimental and traditional animation techniques under the guidance of leading artists in the field. They study the history and work of animators from all over the world, they participate in figure drawing classes, and they learn from professional animation artists. Animation students at the summer program are dedicated, hardworking, and open to new ideas. The Animation Department is very competitive; typically, only one-in-three applicants each year are invited to become Animation students.

CSSSA Animators spend Mondays through Saturdays in workshops and classes on animation, storyboarding, life drawing, movement and other related subjects. They also attend screenings of animated films (historical, contemporary, international and experimental), and a Movement Workshop. Students complete several projects during the program, involving zoetrope, flipbooks, stop-motion and cutout animation techniques. Over the course of the session, each student produces five animated projects. At the end of the program, they have acquired an extensive toolbox for expressing themselves through the art of animation.

Visitors to the program over the years have included French Animator Rene Laloux; Sally Cruikshank, an internationally renowned independent animator whose work includes several shorts for Sesame Street; the late puppet animator Helen Hill, Steve Hillenberg, creator of Sponge Bob for Nickelodeon; Balbina Bruszewska, the Polish Princess of Animation; Conrad Vernon, the director of Shrek 2; the late Joe Ranft, storyboard artist for The Nightmare Before Christmas and Toy Story II; and Pendleton Ward, creator of Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time. Guest artists meet individually with every student to critique work and provide personal advice on career and artistic development.

Bobby Podesta, Stephen Gregory, Mark Walsh, and Sanjay Patel, four of the top animators from Pixar, Inc., whose work includes Toy Story, Toy Story II and Toy Story III, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, and Ratatouille often come to The California State Summer School for the Arts to share and discuss their films. These accomplished artists started their careers in animation as high school students in the California State Summer School for the Arts Animation Program.

The department takes at least one field trip each year. This outing emphasizes observation and drawing from life; and often also concentrates on exposing the students to local museums and/or animation studios. Past drawing field trips have included the Los Angeles Zoo and Venice Beach. The students have also visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and animation studios such as Nickelodeon and Klasky-Csupo.