Your Story Starts Here: A look behind the scenes

Sep 30, 2018 | Projects, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Since 2011, the Learning Studio has offered ACU students and faculty the tools, spaces and training necessary to share your story with the world. We keep our gear, facilities and tutorials up-to-date so that your next project can have the same polish as the pros.

We wanted to make it easy to get to know the resources we offer at the Learning Studio, so we decided to do what we do best: We made a video.

It may seem simple, but this one-minute video really involved our whole team in its creation, along with several student actors, and seven film shoots over the course of four weeks.

We started with a script, storyboarded the whole thing using Adobe’s great mobile tools on iPad Pro, and then we rounded up our actors and gear and started filming. We edited the finished product using Adobe Premiere Pro, along with After Effects for motion design.

Do you have a story idea? Develop it with us here at the Learning Studio. Our media staff is available every day at the Learning Studio’s front desk if you need help or get stuck. And if you’re just getting familiar with what we have on offer, you can check out our Start Page for a quick rundown.

Your story starts here.

Video Storytelling for ACU’s Presession

Aug 24, 2018 | Featured Video, Projects, Storytelling

For this year’s ACU Faculty Presession, the Learning Studio was tasked with spotlighting Summer Shakespeare in the Department of Theatre, and the NEXT Lab in the Department of Engineering & Physics. The resulting short videos gave our faculty audience a window into a couple of the campus’s recent successes.

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

 

Storytelling with Students in Oxford

Oct 11, 2015 | Storytelling

Enjoyed working with Dr. Jeff Childers and Jacque Morrison and students in the Oxford Study Abroad program to shape digital stories that reflect on their international experiences this semester. Students were asked to produce projects that reflected on how experiences, people, or places they encountered this semester changed the way they looked at themselves, making them feel like an outsider or tied to a new community.

Really pleased with the work these students produced alongside their other work and to the collaborations with on-site faculty. A great few days.