Webster University Graduation 2016

Graduation season is my favorite time of the academic year.  It is full of the excitement of students realizing the major milestone they have just accomplished, mixed with the anticipation of the unknown next step into the "real world".  As an educator it is also a bittersweet moment to join in the celebrations of the accomplishments of your students, but also to say goodbye as they embark on their next journey.  It is a great moment to reflect on the previous year and recall the successes both in and out of the classroom.  Of course this is also a great time to identify areas of improvement for the next year, next class, or next cohort.  I truly believe that each year we build upon those before and continue to iterate ourselves as educators, and administrators of higher education.

I feel very fortunate to have had the experiences to preside over my students graduation in a special historic venue located in Leiden, the Netherlands.  The commencement ceremony is held each year in the historic Pieterskerk an early 12th Century Gothic Church dedicated to Saint Peter known informally as the "Pilgrim Fathers Church".  It is a rather special experience to address the audience of graduates, parents, families, and staff from the nearly 900 year old floor and to hear the audio echo off of the impressive chambers and pillars. 

While the students will be missed in class, and in the halls, and around campus, I am very proud of our graduates who will be continuing to work hard to make a positive impact on our global community.  Our graduates are headed in many directions, all across the world, be it through employment opportunities or the continued pursuit of knowledge in a graduate schools. 

Media Communications Graduates Class of 2016    |    Webster University, the Netherlands

To all of our bachelors and masters graduates from the Department of Media Communications I wish you all the best, and know that you are now part of a wonderful Webster University Global Community of Alumni. 

NASA Space Apps Challenge 2016

I recently had a wonderful opportunity to participate in this years NASA SPACE APPS CHALLENGE hackathon as a jury member for the ESA SBIC location in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.  I was already familiar with the event from the previous year, but this was the first time I was able to officially participate.  I had a wonderful time meeting the fellow jury members, and most of all meeting all of the participants and getting to see all of the creative and innovative proposed solutions to this years set of NASA challenges.

NASA SPACE APPS CHALLENGE 2016

To better understand how this event works, NASA releases a set of challenges that range in scope and complexity for a community of "thinkers or hackers" to work together and come up with creative solutions. 

“Global Community, Out-of-this-World Innovation
For 48-72 hours across the world, problem solvers like you join us for NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge, one of the largest hackathons in the universe. Empowered by open data, you collaborate with strangers, colleagues, friends, and family to solve perplexing challenges in new and unexpected ways — from designing an interactive space glove to natural language processing to clean water mapping. Join us on our open data mission, and show us how you innovate.”

— NASA Space Apps Challenge 2016

The participants gave their 4-minute presentations to the jury and peers after 48 hours of hard work, collaboration, and I'm sure many energy drinks. It was a hard group to judge since there were so many strong ideas.  In the end three groups were selected to move to the next round of the global competition. 

• Toilettronic - a project aimed at simplifying the toilet experiences of space flight and stay at the ISS through wearable technology and gamification.  This group impressed the crowd with their "in-the-box" thinking on how to reduce the stress of toilet experiences in space.
• Leaky Rivers - a mobile application focused on the use of public data and geographical information systems to inform the public on dangers of floods, with the aim of providing real-time warning systems for those who may be in or near areas of flood waters.
• SenseAIR - a mobile platform using public data that helps inform individuals of their exposure to pollutants by using real-time spatial information. This group was chosen as the "People's Choice Award"

For a full look at all of the groups and their projects please visit the Noordwijk Location NASA SPACE APPS CHALLENGE 2016 page.  Currently the SenseAIR group is a semifinalist in the People's Choice Award category and is in 7th place overall.  With a little luck and some voting they have a good chance to make the finals. 

I am looking forward to next years competition and to see what the new challenges will be.  Hopefully I'll see you there.

Creating a Visual Narrative: Animal Kingdom

This multidimensional photographic project was focused around the core concept of creating a visual narrative using a set series of three images to tell a story.

PHOT 3195: Fall 2015

This project was created for use in my Fall Photography 3195 Digital Imaging II course to challenge the students to first think creatively about the "story" they wanted to tell with an "animal" of their choice, and then to think critically about how they would execute their vision of this story with only three images. Below you can see the various animal "characters" chosen by some of the students. 

The Assignment

Students were given a lot of creative license to interpret the assignment in a way that was meaningful to them personally, and to tell a story they felt a connection to. The students were given a set of constraints, such as choosing from a finite set of paper low-poly animal masks, all work was to be printed in Super A3 format, and all students must create an image series of three works, no more, no less.  All of the work was to follow the distinguishing characteristics of the visual narrative:

• contain a persuasive story with a point of view
• high quality imagery, still or moving
• subject matter with pressing social, environmental, or spiritual value
• an appeal (explicit or implicit) for transformation in attitudes and behaviors

The Masks: The low-poly masks are a component that I have worked with a few times before, and it is a rewarding object to use, as students assemble and decorate the masks however they like, and the ease of which they can be put together makes them very accessible, even to students who claim not to have any skill in the "arts".  The masks come from http://wintercroft.com/ where you can choose from a growing selection of masks.  They are relatively simple to put together, and only require cutting, gluing, and taping (and in some cases using some push pins) and can be assembled in a couple of hours. One of the reasons this element was incorporated into the project was to provide a prop element for the students to use when creating their work.  This provided an added element for their execution of the project, by working with elements that needed to be shot correctly in-camera and balancing the work load from in-camera and post production. 

Below you can see a few of the student projects (in no particular order).

Wolf Mask: Amanda Cochran
Hare Mas: Yogesh Sajnani
Bull Mask: Daniel Cuadra
Owl Mask: Kylie Luteraan
Stag Mask: Valentine Billette de Villemeur
 

2016 Faculty Exhibition - May Gallery

I am happy to announce that I will be showing some recent work in the annual faculty exhibition in January 2016.  The work I have selected to show was from an earlier post on Low-Poly Portraits I created.  

Gallery Dates & Times
January 22 - February 19th, 2016
May Gallery - 2nd Floor Sverdrup Building
8300 Big Bend Boulevard
Webster Groves MO 63119

Opening Reception on Friday January 22nd, 2016 from 5-7pm (CST). 
For more information on the photography exhibition, and a complete list of other artists please visit the May Gallery Website.

For more details on the creation of the portraits, please see the original Low-Poly Portraits post detailing the idea and process of how the images were created and how the masks were made.

General Relativity Explained

One hundred years ago, Albert Einstein completed his general theory of relativity, which explains how the gravitational force works. This made Einstein an international celebrity during his time, and the theory is widely recognized as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science.

I recently discovered this great video from Fusion featuring biographer Walter Issacson, in which he narrates a concise explanation of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity in 3 minutes.  

“One hundred years ago, Albert Einstein completed his general theory of relativity, which explains how the gravitational force works. This made Einstein an international celebrity during his time, and the theory is widely recognized as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science.”

— Fusion

New Promo Video for BA in Media Comm

To help increase the exposure of the BA program in Media Communications at Webster University the Netherlands, I created a short promotional video to serve as an attention-grabber, and a visual interest tool.  This short video was developed and rendered through Adobe AfterEffects CS6 last spring.  The visual intent was to showcase the four production tracks in the program offered at our campus.  To this end the video rolls through Media Communications, Interactive Digital Media, Photography, and Video Production.

The visual assets in the video are all videos, images, and graphics that are currently in use by the department in some form.  Part of the mission of this video is to showcase not only what students can study, but to show them this by example of using images, and other assets that are actually from the department. 

Bringing back the Flash!

“Presenting for the first time on radio, the amazing interplanetary adventures of Flash Gordon and Dale Arden.”

— Flash Gordon 1935

This rendition of Flash Gordon Ep1 On the Planet Mongo was performed by Webster University Leiden Media Communication Students as part of a learning exercise on script reading and audio production. This recording is from the original script that aired on April 27th, 1935.

In a recent graduate course for Webster University (MEDC 5331: Communication Production Tools: Video) I was looking to create an experience for the students that would allow for a fun yet practical hands on in-class exercise that would allow them to practice recording high quality audio.  This exercise would give the students the experience recording audio in a guided low stake environment where failure or technical issues can be addressed.  What I developed was a quickfire based on recording an oldtimey radio show, from pre-television days.  This in class activity served as an active learning experience in which students needed to move quickly to organize radio performance parts, and discuss and plan out how they would record this performance all within two hours. 

Students rose to the challenge of this in-class assignment to recreate the 1935 radio performance of Flash Gordon “On the Planet Mongo”. This rendition of Flash Gordon Ep1 On the Planet Mongo was performed by Webster University Leiden Media Communication Students as part of a learning exercise on script reading and audio production. This recording is from the original script that aired on April 27th, 1935.

Project 5x5: a video vignette

What is Project 5x5?

Project 5x5 is a short and simple video project.  To shoot a 5x5 you need to come up with a story, or theme to use (this can be almost anything) and create 5 shots each 5 seconds long.  Only the original audio is to be used, no additional audio tracks etc. Further, no use of titles, transitions, or credits, just pure video.

Project 5x5 has been around on vimeo for some time.  The inspiration behind this post is the successful use of the 5x5 project to help teach video production students how to think in shots and to take a story or theme and distill it down to the bare essential components.  One of the main advantages to using this project to teach video production is the highly structured yet simple parameters for the video.  This allows students to focus on the steps and process of video production without letting the project get too big or complicated.  This project lends itself nicely to be paired with a storyboard project as again, the main parameters of the video are set and are short and simple enough that it is not overwhelming. This short project allows students to go through the entire pre-production, production, and post-production phases of video production in a short amount of time with limited stress or confusion.

For the project I assigned, I broke the assignment up into two main parts, the written portion and the video portion.  To complete the written portion, students go through the pre-production phase and develop a video "pitch" or concept that distills their story or theme into a one or two sentences.  Students will then prepare a short but descriptive storyboard to go along with the pitch.  Once completed, students move onto the production phase and shoot their 5x5.  When all of their shots have been filmed they then move onto the post-production phase to edit the final video together.  To edit the project, any non-linear video editng platform will do, for my class I had the students use Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, but any will do.

Storyboard:

storyboard of iced coffee video

Behind the Scenes:

video camera recording coffee maker

Video Tutorial: