Thanks to so many in the College of Arts and Sciences this week, we had a great visit with Bill Frakes and Laura Heald from Sports Illustrated and Straw Hat Visuals. Bill and Laura were open to working with a wide range of students, so we had a full week.

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Studio Talk with ART 440

Before Bill’s evening presentation in the WPAC Recital Hall, he joined Nil Santana’s Advanced Photography class to reflect on his photo and video work in a three-hour session. Students were able to ask questions about journalistic ethics in sports coverage, lighting technique in his editorial portrait work and see some stunning images.

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James Leddy Boots Project

Then Bill and Laura visited Alvaro Santos, a local bootmaker and owner of James Leddy Boots for a short film project they worked on through the week. On Wednesday they did a site visit and got footage of Al at work in his workshop on Treadaway and then filmed an interview with him Thursday morning before the shop opened.

The Advanced Photography students joined Bill and Laura again on Thursday afternoon downtown at the Paramount. We had a dozen pairs of boots that they would shoot with film and still cameras for cut-aways in the final project, including for most their first experience with a 5k Red Epic cinema camera.

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Lightpainting at Fort Griffin

The week wrapped up with students from the Honors College in a short film colloquium who joined us out at Fort Griffin in Albany. They worked with Bill on some long-exposure photography around the old fort ruins. The students were challenged to think about capturing stars under the big Texas sky. At the same time, Bill and Laura were capturing time-lapse footage on one corner of the site for a film they premiered at a reception in the Shore Art gallery on Friday.

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Overall it was an energizing week and we’re thankful to Bill and Laura for their investment in ACU students and to the College of Arts and Sciences for making it possible.