Portait Photography this Spring

Apr 4, 2016 | News & Events, Workshops

This weekend the Learning Studio brought in Asia Eidson to lead two workshops in portrait photography. Asia is an ACU grad and LS alum now running a wedding photography business in Dallas. This was our first advanced photography workshop focused on portraiture, and we had talented groups of faculty and students who worked with student models to gain experience shooting their own natural-light outdoor portraits.

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One powerful part of both workshops was getting to hear a professional walk through her workflow for bringing hundreds of photos into Adobe Lightroom to organize, edit, and export high quality images for print and web. Many who picked up Adobe’s advanced image editing software for the first time were producing striking images by the end of the workshop.

If you’re looking for a way to jump-start your own image-making this spring and can’t wait for our next workshop, check out Lightroom CC Essentials on Lynda.com.

Special thanks to the ACU student models and to Rachel and Chris Riley for a great couple days of location shooting.

Web Portfolio
http://www.photobyjoy.com

Design workshop back in LS

Feb 29, 2016 | News & Events

This last week the Art & Design department brought Andy Pratt back to campus to lead a workshop on Interactive Design. He led the workshop with ACU alum Paige Baumgartner who met Andy on a trip to New York City in 2013 led by Mike Wiggins and Ryan Feerer where students visited a number of agencies. We were glad to have both of them back on campus and sharing their work in the main studio.

Andy Pratt WorkshopAbout Andy

Andy has fifteen years of experience creating award-winning interactive media. He is an Executive Creative Director for Favorite Medium, a global design and technology agency with offices in Seoul and Singapore. Prior to this, he worked as a creative director at Funny Garbage, an interactive agency in New York City. This position afforded him the opportunity to work with some of the largest brands in the world, including the Smithsonian Institution, Cartoon Network, Noggin, Lego and Turner Broadcasting. His vision and strategy is showcased in apps, websites and on air content for these powerhouses, among many others.

Web Portfolio

Awards
Emmy Award Winner, Global Media Award Nominee (x2), Webby Award Winner (x4), Webby Award People’s Voice Winner (x2), Webby Award Honoree, Webby Award Nominee (x10), Times Magazine Top 50 Sites, 21st Annual Mark Award Gold (x2), 21st Annual Mark Award Silver, Creativity 34 Winner, Interactive Media Award (x3), Print Regional Design Annual, Communicator Award, W3 Award (x3), HOW Interactive Design Award (x3), Spark Award Nominee

 

Episode Xmas Premiere

Dec 18, 2015 | Adobe CC, News & Events, Students

Thanks to the ACU faculty and students who joined us in the Learning Studio last week to audition for Star Wars: The Final Exam.

The #EpisodeXmas event went well and we wanted to share a quick trailer before you head to the theatre to see the actual film. The students brought great energy, costumes, and some mad jedi skills to the event.

In case you’re looking to create your own Star Wars trailer over the holidays, here were a couple blog posts on adding some Adobe CC magic to your next project.

    Special thanks to faculty who joined us on the day (hoping not to leave anyone out): Cole Bennett, Dena Counts, Brad Crisp, Cherisse Flanagan Houston Heflin, David Kneip, Andy Little, Steven Moore, Jason Morris, Laura and Mark Phillips, Brent Reeves, Tracy Shilcutt, Jessica Smith, and Jeanine Varner.

    Film Studies Projects

    Dec 10, 2015 | Adobe CC, Storytelling, Students

    This semester Al Haley and Kyle Dickson taught Introduction to Film for the first time and students were asked to produce a major project that demonstrated their mastery of core concepts of the course. Learning Studio staff spent several class days introducing students to camera movement, audio, and editing before they produced their projects in Camtasia and Adobe Premiere Pro.

    Here are a few of the final projects.

      Film Analysis Digital Essay – Working individually or with a partner, produce a short 3-5 minute analysis of a film from our semester that accounts for the technical aspects of its production within the context of the director’s work or genre. Your digital essay seeks to highlight an informed point of view with carefully chosen stills/clips from your film(s) synced to your audio commentary. (For examples of this type of video essay, see Tony Zhou’s Every Frame a Painting).

      Short Narrative Film – Working individually or with a partner, write, direct, and produce a short film, following ACU FilmFest guidelines, that builds on your working knowledge of story structure, character development, and genre this semester. The short film should demonstrate mastery of the fundamentals of camera movement, shot composition, lighting, audio, and editing, all of which we’ll introduce in workshops in the Learning Studio this semester. (For inspiration, see past projects on the FilmFest Archive).

    Coffeehouse Projects

    Dec 10, 2015 | Storytelling, Students

    For several years students in Dr. Kyle Dickson’s Eighteenth-Century British Literature have produced research projects as a way to share key texts from the Enlightenment with a broader audience. It’s easy to complete academic research for an audience of one–the professor–so this assignment has attempted to ask students to communicate research from an upper-level course to general audience.

     

    Jonathan Swift and Ireland – Victoria Stowe

     

    Coffeehouse Chatter – Chander Gum & Lauren Shrader

     

    The Collier Controversy – Ashley De Pree

     

    Satire: From Swift to Colbert – Julia Curtis