Arts Schools Network "Life in the Arts" Video Series 
Season 2, Episode #5 on-demand May 15, 2012. Click here to see all show listings.  

Production Notes from HSPVA Technology Lab Students 2011-2012

Freshman Video Workshop: For one week in the spring, freshman learn the basic vocabulary and techniques in filming. What began as a Pixar workshop has now evolved into a fast paced shooting-and-editing marathon that involves planning, cooperation and teamwork among first-year students. Students receive a prompt and must fulfill the requirements in a week. Emphasis is on creating artistic shots that convey a message. Students learn how to edit shots, work with text and sound, and compose a complete narrative. At the end of the workshop, there is a film screening.

Animation Class: Sophomore animation is a nine-week class taught every fall. The students, at this point, have learned Photoshop and have taken a weeklong video workshop. Students create a 15 second flash animation and a 1-2 minute animation with audio and a narrative.   Over the years, the animations have become more complex as students integrate scanning and drawing. Students easily access sounds and images from the Internet, as well as use imagery from their journals.    Recently HSPVA animations have been featured at Houston’s downtown park, Discovery Green and the University of Houston’s VisVid Festival.

"Animation class was a great, fun experience for me. All the steps taken to learn how to edit were pretty easy and fast to get a hang of. It lets you explore your imagination and see what you can come up with. The teacher is great and works with you, gives you some ideas and helps you develop your own ideas so they can actually appear as you want them to on the screen. The teacher shows you step-by-step on how to work with the animation but at the same lets you learn new things on your own. Animation was a great experience and some tips for someone new to it would be, developing their ideas on paper first and making sure they have all the important events before they actually go up and start working on the piece." -Dieudonne Kabongo, 2012 sophomore 

“When creating an animation, you encounter problems in both technique and what to decide to put in and leave out. When it comes to technique, you need to visualize what you're going to do before you can find out how to do it.  Remember that with implied information, the viewer’s imagination can be stronger than the actual images you put on the screen. When starting, you need to choose an idea, and that often requires inspiration. As corny as it may sound, this can be found anywhere. Look to your interests, and try to put something of yourself into the piece. Personally, my dad watches a lot of crime solving TV shows. I found the mistakes some of the criminals make rather stupid, so, I made a piece about what I thought about them.” -William Graham, 2012 sophomore

Sophomore Video Class: Sophomore video is a nine-week course taught in the spring. After tackling animation in the fall, students expand upon time-based media by using a flip video camera to record footage outside of class. Within the classroom, students learn how to use Final Cut to edit their footage to create short films. Different prompts include self-portrait and reappropriation. 

“Coming up with an idea and planning is the most difficult part of making a video. Changes and new ideas will pop up when you actually film it. But it all comes together when you edit the video and you see your creation come to life.”-Suzuka Sampson, 2012 sophomore

“I learned film lingo and alternative methods of taking film. I learned how to use video editing software and when to trust actors to show up.  This class allowed me to experiment with different ways to express ideas through film.” –Nancy Hicks, 2012 sophomore

“Filmmaking is an excellent method of self expression and provides ample opportunities to step outside of your comfort zone. If you have an idea you like, don't be discouraged just because you feel you might be embarrassed filming it in public or presenting it before an audience.” -Michael Black, 2012 sophomore

Alternative Moving Images/Digital Media Mania: (Junior/Senior Elective Class) Upper classmen meet once a week to work on various projects involving the technology lab. As juniors, students begin to develop their own personal ideas into a body of work. Within each assignment, they should incorporate individualized themes. They can use resources such as Final Cut, Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, and our scanners. The projects range from illustrations and projected slideshows to video installations and animations. The work in this episode are from AMI in the fall, which focused on editing and familiarizing oneself with Final Cut. Projects include self-portrait, five action shorts, reappropriation and an ode. Madison Irelan used voiceover and sound editing to take us into the past. Jane Foreman reappropriates sounds from nature documentaries and incorporates animation in her comedic piece. Emma Daffin’s stop-motion is a quirky fun ode to travel.  Estephania Garcia takes inspiration from one assignment, “five actions”, to bring her characters to life. As you can see, there are a variety of options and approaches. In the past, students have been included in Aurora Picture Show’s Short Film Festival.

"I was inspired to make the video from many different sources including a book I read named A Monster Calls, and my personal experience with the subject of actually being invisible to some people. I wanted to integrate a real life concept into a short, very brief film." 

One of the hardest challenges on making the short was the actual in set filming. It was difficult getting accurate, and consistent footage, but thanks to all the practice I had already from the other short videos we had previously made in video class, I was able to get around the problem."-Elizabeth Sandoval, Sophomore 2012

Ayjai Watts
12th grade
Digital Media student

3 Films About Oakland is a small sample of the enourmous creative community in Oakland, California. We plan to continue the theme suggested in the title and eventually title it "100 Films About Oakland." Someday, maybe one thousand. We are proud of the fact that we can never hope to contain the ever-expanding creative force of Oakland. As a member of Digital Media's Press Corps cohort, I assisted in creating the third film, Maleable. This was the 2nd major documentary I have participated in, and my classmates and I were able to have Jenny Chu as our video journalism instructor. Ms. Chu is a professional videographer, and really helped us step up our game learning to carry ourselves professionally on set. We faced the challenges of having a very large area to cover as well as a noisy space. This made b-roll very important, and we focused closely on sound quality. We also brought in our own lighting for the first time, and learned how to set up key and fill lights on location. We are grateful to Jenny Chu and Karen Cusolito, and we were proud to represent our school at a location as exciting as American Steel.

The 84th year of the Academy Awards has been an awesome year for the Oscars! There were representatives and entries from almost every continent and profession.

In the many acceptance speeches, appreciation and awe poured from the mouths of the Oscar recipients in English, French—and occasional profanity. Although they were gracefully cut off by fade away music, recipients (aka winners) were given the opportunity to extend their “thank you’s” off-stage while other nominees were recognized.

And who did they thank?

They thanked critical thinkers and problem solvers, communicators, collaborators, creators, and innovators…Actually, who did they not thank?

French connection: The Artist took Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Costume Design, Directing, and Music Original Score. The recipients stumbled through English and soon slipped into hyper-fluent French to thank producers, art directors, and crews for lighting, animation, sound, casting, etc.

Where are these expert talents cultivated? And how do they reach a level of super proficiency, as Malcolm Gladwell describes in Blink?

One of the goals of arts education is to produce the next generation of articulate, scholarly entrepreneurs who dare to have a vision and see it through. And only through practice, internship, shadowing, and real-world experience does one reach proficiency.

Italian connection: Hugo. I say Italian because the Set Decoration co-winner Francesca Lo Schiavo said only “Thanks for Italy.” Among all the longer free-flowing thanks, this was speech was the shortest, punctuated with a salute of the Oscar into the air.

Hugo was born as a graphic novel translated into a film. For it, Martin Scorsese declared a genius and treated as a saint by recipients in all winning categories Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Affects.

What is the environment that cultivates such talent?

One Oscar winner thanked the equipment crew while another thanked specific products and companies for pushing their existing technologies ahead to meet the events in the storyboard.

Arts education needs those tools and resources being used in respective industries today, and even pilot them.
Iranian connection: The Separation, which won Best Foreign Language Film, was about an Iranian middle-class couple who separate, and the complications that follow when the husband hires a lower-class caretaker for his elderly father. (That situation probably sounds familiar to many Americans).

In the acceptance speech, the recipient thanked America for allowing him to share a story and build a bridge with us.

Our students need to know about the world, the conflicts and resolutions unfolding, and how to make one voice count.

United Kingdom connection: The Iron Lady’s Meryl Streep taking Actress in a Leading Role, directly thanked and credited the makeup artist team for making her believe she was Margaret Thatcher and enabling her to make the world believe it.

Back in the USA: Octavia Spencer was awarded Actress in a Supporting Role for The Help. She was so overwhelmed with joy, she could barely hold herself from sobbing and in between breaths, she thanked, “my agents for believing in me when no one else seemed to…and for making me feel beautiful.”

In the end, who was not thanked? Well you know who you are…

The internet gives today’s teenagers the kind of freedom that driving a car gave teens in previous generations. But unlike learning to drive a car, kids today can teach themselves to navigate the internet. Growing up in Key West in the 70′s and 80′s, I didn’t have a car or the internet. However, I quickly understood the power of networking.

The ability to seek and find people, places, and things can have as much if not more impact than mobility from automobiles. And, just as with cars, good and bad comes with the “license.” Think of the good the internet can do for the police assisting 911 callers, a parent keeping up with a teenager, or a principal searching for a truant student. Or consider the bad aspects of a crazed ex-girlfriend stalking an unknowing ex-boyfriend, or a child molester waiting for parents to leave their children unattended.

Parallel parking seems simple, but takes years to perfect, however, the gaming industry exponentially produces high concept high skill activities for your entire body that completely engage, absorb, and hypnotize players. Traveling at 80 mph in a car or online is exhilarating, scary and fast!

Recently, I met a 14-year-old entrepreneur who customizes Xbox controllers for hardcore players. He was taking a film and production graduate course alongside me to learn how to improve his editing skills in his own gaming efforts and to speed his score acceleration. He sought out this skill set; he didn’t wait for school to teach him.

The iPad2 enables youth with undeveloped dexterity to explore anything from Angry Birds and Disney starlets to funny pet videos. My friend’s children, six and nine years old, showed me how to use many features on my own iPad2, which is the first one they have touched. The iPhone allows people to run their entire lives — from banking to driving directions, giving face time or Googleing facts to win an argument. The critical success factor, no matter the gadget, is interactivity.

Sweat Monkey, a website for those 13 years and up, is a social networking tool that matches students to volunteer and paid work opportunities. Sweat Monkey has been designed to offer students and their schools an easy-to-use, state-of-the-art service learning platform. It is a friendly and low-risk way for students to explore new interests, develop new skills, get into college, and maybe even find a job that earns a good paycheck. Arts students don’t  need road maps and GPS; they have social media and networking.

Talking about finding one’s way, Arts Schools Network has launched a new program called On Your Way. Created in partnership with ArtsApp, the On Your Way student recognition program helps students on their way to success by enhancing their portfolios and auditioning skills as it promotes migrating portfolios to a standard, online digital format for auditions, admissions, and competitions.

Additionally, this platform gives students the power to allow their peers, mentors, teachers, and potential colleges and employers, the ability to view their work, make comments or suggestions; back seat drivers with good intentions.

Cars are liberating, but students today are speeding forward full throttle into places our cars have never been. Be safe in your travels!

Listening to my grandmother tell stories about her youth, I cringed at the gallows humor of her siblings grabbing chickens by the neck and swinging them around their head trying to make a quick break, or their mother harkening out not to chop the head off too close to the clothes line.

Today’s youth are learning how to make their way a wee bit differently, instead of killing and eating their beloved livestock, they have really cool games to play, with titles like the just released Homefront for Xbox 360.
The plot is fabulous, the year is 2007 and the U.S. is pit against North Korea on our own killing fields, American soil.    
Yes, fiction, yes a top seller before even released 2 days ago.
A great example of capitalism at its best, but is this how we want our children to learn about their culture and history, or how to create their own future fiction?

Our current course of action is striping away our diversity, narrowing our outcomes, while widening our gaps.
What doesn’t get learned at school is scary. What is being self-taught outside of school is even scarier.
We are a nation of curators, critics, consumers, and killers.

Thank goodness for the refuge the arts provides in allowing us to be edgy, provocative, and experimental.
There really hasn’t been any gaming software that I’ve seen that replicates what the arts feels like while doing them. You can’t displace expression.

I’m no chicken little here and I do have an idea.
I dare the gaming industry to become arts patrons and donors at the highest levels.
Show me the money that you made and reinvest in our infrastructure.
We could even do an annual fund drive, for every kill, a dollar goes to the arts. Now that’s cool!

My southern heritage speaks, “I’m not one to talk, but…” then proceeds to the insult and ends with “…bless their heart.”
What I know for sure is that the scientific method should be trusted and I like micro advocacy. Our ancestors could mark on cave walls, create flutes from bones, and push their humanity forward through oral and physical traditions, mostly improving their lot along the way. We have been governed by scientific methodology since we hungrily poked sticks in anthills a million years ago.

Today, the wiggling things are us.

What is at stake?

Our legacy and future humanity!

In a recent op-ed piece to The Washington Post, Bill Gates detailed research findings for student achievement. The single most decisive factor is excellent teaching. And learning can only happen in the third space between teacher and student.
Class size doesn’t matter; quality of environment does. And like language acquisition, mastery takes tens of thousands of hours.
As evidenced in the arts, advanced degrees don’t solely qualify a master teacher; experience over time and regeneration does. Excellence indicators abound through economic impact studies, career progression and recognition metrics.
Arts Schools Network invests in the myriad roles and responsibilities of arts schools leaders who invest in their staff and students. Last November, in partnership with McBassi & Company and Performance by Design, we conducted an informal survey inquiring about work culture within our member arts schools and then compared responses to those of the control group: non-arts schools.

Our findings were as follows: 1) Skills that staff members need to be successful are clearly defined; 2) Processes for getting work done are well defined; and 3) School leadership teams are actively engaged in managing and developing school staff.
Other national arts education groups invest in advocacy, artists, learning opportunities, specific skill sets, etc. But lately, local, state, and national governing bodies fail to be brave, to cultivate their testicular fortitude and stand for something.
Most folks find it easier to respond to an event rather than to invent—to critique or curate rather than create.
Peter Senge’s organizational learning model is described as, “…where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.”  Micro is a quick, small pill aimed at the source of noise.
Let’s get back to the basics and apply scientific method.  Like my grumpy dead grandmamma said, “If you are hungry enough, you will eat anything.” Will arts education governing policies evolve towards extinction or regeneration?
Please consider this micro advocacy moment for arts education.

As my final offer, I demand excellent teachers, a quality environment, and equal access across the student demographics. The rest is obvious. Right?