Aug 3, 2012 | Projects, Students
This has been a busy year in the Learning Studio. Since opening in 2011, we’ve offered workshops to 287 teachers from ACU and other schools and universities. Our records show that 17,278 total reservations were made to the 10 collaboration rooms in the new facility. And we’ve offered hundreds of tours to thousands of visitors interested in the design of the space and our programs.
As we wrapped up the spring semester, staff in the Learning Studio began work on our Year One Report, an interactive overview of our first year of operation. The report tells the story of many of the students and faculty we’ve worked with in Year One with examples of projects and testimonials from the participants.
As the summer winds down, we hope you’ll take a few minutes to hear a few of the stories and achievements of our students and faculty this first year.
Download Report
(Note: To view embedded video and interactive content, make sure to download the iBook Version. Apple iBooks require an iPad running the iBooks 2 app and are not currently viewable on a Mac, PC or smartphone.)
Highlights
- The 35-page report includes interviews and projects from 35 faculty and students
- Our 8,800 square foot facility is presented from early design sketches to a full virtual tour
- 7 content galleries and 14 movies—including the Year One feature video—introduce major projects
- A “by the numbers” section summarizes facility usage, workshops participation and equipment checkout
About the Report
Learning Studio staff produced the Year One Report using iBooks Author for display on iPad, in part to better understand the software and assess its potential in producing next-generation learning content.
On September 19th, we’ll be presenting on the process in an NMC Connect webinar hosted by the New Media Consortium. We’ll post more details when we have them to Twitter and Facebook.
Jul 28, 2012 | FilmFest, Projects, Students
Stay tuned for the Learning Studio: Year One Report. Here’s one of the profiles from the iBook.
Last fall, Lawson Soward and Caitlin Bradford submitted their first film to the Sundance Film Festival. It started with a conversation in January 2011 about a story idea Caitlin had been chewing on. The two of them began artistic design for the production in our screening room during the student grand opening in February. Lawson was the first in line in March when Canon made DSLR cameras available for checkout to student filmmakers. And the two of them spent Spring Break editing in the media lab where Adobe After Effects made the final montage possible.
Since 2004, students have produced 100 films for ACU’s FilmFest, a student short-film competition. The contest began as an iMovie contest with Apple providing access to iMacs and digital camcorders. By 2011, most entries were edited on Apple’s FinalCut Pro, so the move to DSLR cameras shooting HD video was a natural next step. Paul McAniff from Canon joined us for a pro video workshop the week before FilmFest officially kicked off, making Canon 5D bodies and pro-series lenses available for checkout through the Learning Studio.
The result of this unprecedented access and opportunity is a film like “Hazel & Jack.” At the FilmFest premiere downtown at the historic Paramount theatre, Lawson and Caitlin went home with 10 awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Writer. The film wowed industry judges at the symposium the next day, where Randy Brewer, executive producer at Revolution Pictures in Nashville, Tenn., was the first to encourage them to submit their film to other festivals like SXSW and Sundance. “FilmFest was exciting to be a part of this year due to the beautiful photography in a lot of the pieces,” said Brewer. “I use the Canon 5D in music videos I shoot with major artists and the increased image quality really showed in the student films.”
Student Film: Hazel & Jack (2011)
Jul 3, 2012 | Gallery, News & Events
This summer we’re putting the finishing touches on our Year One Report, providing an inside look at our work with students, faculty and educators from around the country in our first year. One interactive feature in the report will be a virtual tour that allows those unable to visit us in Abilene a glimpse of the new facility.
Mathew Bardwell, a media production specialist in the Learning Studio, produced the virtual tour and Nathan Driskell, another specialist designed the map overlay along with the rest of the iBook. Step inside and enjoy this unique walk through our facilities.
Open the Virtual Tour
Jun 22, 2012 | FilmFest, News & Events
Thanks to student media specialists in the Learning Studio, the FilmFest archive is now online. The blog contains lists of participants and winners going back to 2004 with links to all films on the FilmFest Vimeo channel.
The blog is built on the same WordPress system used to support class blogs and portfolios on campus. Student specialists are available in the Learning Studio for those working with campus blogs for the first time.
FilmFest Archive
Past Winners
For those who haven’t been going to FilmFest since the beginning, here are a few past winners.
Jun 18, 2012 | News & Events, Storytelling, Students
This summer the Learning Studio worked closely with students in ACU’s first Summer Academy. High school students from around the country joined us in Abilene for 9 courses that included Digital Media, Film & Faith, and Photography.
Students in select classes worked with faculty and media production specialists for training in photography and audio and video editing. The main photography students with Nil Santana worked with Canon 60D DSLR cameras from the checkout pool. Each student was issued an iPad for submitting content via course blogs and producing final media projects in Dr. Kyle Dickson’s Film and Digital Media classes.
One unique feature of the courses in the first session in June was a 4-day, 2,000 mile visit to three World Heritage sites in New Mexico and Colorado. Fifty students and faculty members toured the Taos Pueblo, Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, and the Carlsbad Caverns producing images and video that would later be submitted as part of digital stories.
Under the clear sky of Colorado, Nil and Kyle also offered an evening of lightpainting that students from all courses were invited to attend.
The Learning Studio was honored to be part of the teaching and support for a group of excellent students. Thanks to Dr. Kristina Davis and the Honors College for including us in their inaugural summer.
Sample Projects
Students from the Film & Faith class analyzed a short scenes from one of the assigned films for the Mise en Scene project. Here are a few of the Hitchcock films they looked at. Images were cut together with audio narration using iMovie for iPad.
The Birds
Rear Window
Strangers on a Train
(*Screenshots from each film were used under Fair Use as an educational, non-commercial use.)
