Media: Filmmaking Basics

Today in media arts class we began going over the basic film making terminology and discussing how a film or television show is made.  We'll be using much the same process in class with all of our projects including our next one, the montage project, which will help you get introduced to the equipment.  Above is one of my favorite film montage segments from the Pixar film UP which shows the relationship between the main character Carl and his wife Ellie.

Media Art Honor Society: Volunteering at the Hampton's Film Festival

The Media Art Honor Society will be volunteering at the Hampton's Film Festival on October 10-14 and in order to participate you need to fill out a volunteer agreement and email it to volunteer@hamptonsfilmfest.org.  We've had students volunteering for the past 12 years in East Hampton, Sag Harbor, Southampton, and Montauk and it's been a great experience.

This year there are a number of really interesting films in the program such as: Alexander Payne's Nebraska, Jason Reitman's LABOR DAY, Spike Jonze's HER, Alex Gibney's THE ARMSTRONG LIE, as well as Kill Your Darlings featuring Dane DeHaan and Jack Huston and the Conversation with actress Helena Bonham Carter.

Studio Art: Gesture Drawing

This week in Studio Art we'll be going over the basic design elements and principles and use some of the different drawing methods such as gesture drawing, contour drawing, and blind contour drawing.  The example above shows the basic of gesture drawing which we'll be doing in class today.  We'll be reviewing them before the test on Wednesday but you can study the terms on my studio art drawing quizlet if you want!

AP Art: Young Arts

The Young Arts Scholarship Competition (formerly known as the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts) is open to creative students grades 10-12 and in addition to the millions of dollars in awards (up to $10,000 to each student), they also award students participation in Master Classes with the likes of: Edward Albee, Frank Gehry, Julian Schnabel, James Rosenquist, Kathleen Turner, Bruce Weber, and Robert Redford.  Some of YoungArts’ work is featured in its Emmy nominated HBO series YoungArts so you can take a look on the web and see how it works.  I've had a few students win this award in the past and trust me it's well worth applying for!!

Photography: Looking with a new eye

This week in photography we are photographing the school from a new perspective with an emphasis on detail and looking at what's often overlooked.  Students should take at least 20 photos around school (some of which we take in class) and edit the best 9 together into a collage like the demo I did above.  We are going to use Adobe Photoshop to edit and combine the photos together with our new keyboards shortcut "Annoying Contemporary Vampires" along with other tricks we will go over in class.

The school days collage is due at the end of the class on Friday along with the extra credit (if you choose to do it) which is a spin off from last week's assignment pictured above.  These self portraits are from Sophia, Alix, Irene, and Nick.  The assignment is from IG photographer Josh Johnson's #JJ weekly challenge and it asks for a great black and white portrait which can be tagged @TimNeedles #needlesclass and #jj_forum_0685 on Instagram or uploaded into the public drive by the end of class on Friday.

AP Art: Portfolio Development

The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington has 3 upcoming PORTFOLIO DEVELOPMENT SERIES that is free for interested students.  The first is with my alma mater SVA and helps students arrange their portfolio and the send two have a number of colleges attending.  If your interested in more information call 631.351.3250 or check their website which is linked above.  If you happen to attend make sure you look around at the work such as the Stan Brodsky Retrospective (pictured above) and the Color show because we have an upcoming contest based on the work in the museum.

 
Portfolio Advice
Wednesday, October 9
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
An admissions counselor from the School of Visual Arts will discuss how to develop a strong portfolio for the college admissions process.
 

Portfolio Review I

Thursday, October 17
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Students are invited to bring their portfolios for one-on-one evaluations by college admissions counselors from Adelphi University; Boston University School of Visual Arts; Hartford Art School; Massachusetts College of Art and Design; Molloy College; Montserrat College of Art; New Hampshire Institute of Art; Pratt Institute; and St. John's University

Portfolio Review II
Thursday, October 24
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Students are invited to bring their portfolios for one-on-one evaluations by college admissions counselors from Center for Art and Design at the the College of St. Rose; Cooper Union School of Art; Dowling College; LIU Post; Maine College of Art; New York Institute of Technology; Purchase College, SUNY; School of Visual Arts; and Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts

Studio Art: Drawing From Life

In Studio Art this week we are beginning to learn the basics of drawing from life including figuring out proportions, value, and materials.  Above is an example of how to sketch out the basic proportions of a face before you begin adding value (shading) and below is an example of the same technique with the whole body.  These are the same techniques that I demonstrated in class and that you should begin using before you really start drawing.  Today were going to take the next step and draw the skeleton so make sure you sketch out the proportions lightly before you really get going!

Media Art: The Emmys

The Emmy Awards were last night and there were a number of surprises and big moments.  The big winners were AMC's Breaking Bad and director Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra along with Emmy regulars Homeland, The Colbert Report, and Modern Family.

Media Art: Bully

October is National Bullying Prevention Month and we'll be creating a short film about the subject in partnership with classes in Japan and Pakistan through the Japan Society Going Global project.  We'll begin by taking a look at a few clips from the film Bully and discussing them and explore what has come from the film in the Bully Project.  Below is the short PSA the media class created last year in conjunction with the School Improvement Team for reference.

Studio Art: Going Global

We have finished the introductory project of creating a crane so next log on to the Japan Society's Going Global social network and share their work and begin a conversation.  We will upload photos of the crane's we created and introduce ourselves to the classes in Pakistan and Japan.  The crane above was created by Gabby, a senior who was with the Japan Society this summer for the student trip through Going Global.  She spent 3 weeks touring the country and attending school with her "host sister".

Media Class: Photo Editing

 In Media Class we are currently learning the basics of edit with a simple 20 image Photo Edit which is due at the end of class on Monday.  Each student should create a short edit via Windows Movie Maker and add a short soundtrack using Position Music or their own MP3.  Above is the demo created with the class earlier this week.

Welcome new Art Honor Society members!

This wee we had our first meeting of the Art and Media Art Honor Society and we'd like to welcome all of our new members.  We had an amazing turnout with 70+ students so we'll be arranging some welcoming activities later this month to get to know everyone. 

The first items on this year's agenda is setting up volunteers for our 12th annual year at the Hampton's International Film Festival.  Students that are interested should fill out the volunteer request then email it to volunteer@hamptonsfilmfest.org.  We'll also be organizing our first field trip to Manhattan in October and putting together a haunted house for the Spooky Hallways Safe Halloween program in October so it'll be a busy month!

Join the Art Honor Society this Wednesday

 

The National Art Honor Society and the National Media Art Honor Society will have it's first meeting of the year this Wednesday in art room 161 at 2:05 after school.  We are currently accepting new members and will highlight some of this years activities, field trips, and volunteer work including the upcoming trip to Manhattan art museums, the Hampton's International Film Festival, and the Haunted House for Safe Halloween in October.  If you are interested in art, film, animation, photography, or culture stop by and learn more about the honor society and some of the benefits of joining.  Below is a short video showing some of the thigs we did last year.

Studio Art: Introduction to Japan

Now that we have finished our origami cranes we will be creating a short introductory video featuring photos of our cranes and images of the class to begin our exchange in the Going Global program.  It's always a good idea to learn some basic greetings and know how to introduce yourself in another language when you are working with a different culture so here are to short videos from the Japan Society that teach us the basic greetings and introductions in Japanese.

Media: The PSA Project

Here's a great short PSA (Public Service Announcement) from Columbia University's Water Center and the Global Citizens which explains the pretty frightening situation we are heading towards with water consumption.

This year we'll be creating our own PSA as part of the Going Global project with classes in Japan and India so it's important to look at a concise and effective example such as this for insight on how it shares information without overwhelming the audience leading to better comprehension and retention.

Our PSA will be on an issue some of you may know well, bullying.  I was a bit surprised in this summer's conference to see it was an big issue globally with many of the same symptoms so we'll be talking with the students around the world and looking at what the commonalities and differences are then brainstorming ideas for our own PSA.  We'll start today by asking everyone in class to write a short paragraph on what they think "bullying" is and how it's dealt with positively and/or negatively.

Photo: 34th Annual College & High School Photography Contest

The Photographer’s Forum Magazine recently announced their 34th Annual College & High School Photography Contest which is open to October 14, 2013 and only costs $4.95 to enter.  Prizes include being published (with rights remaining with the photographer) and 100 High School Honorable Mentions in addition to the grand prize of $2,000 for the Best HIGH SCHOOL Color or BW along with Nikon D7100 camera and lens system.  Check out pfmagazine.com/ for more information.

Photo: Shanti Peace Poster

This week we are working on the Shanti Peace Poster Contest where students create images to celebrate the idea of peace in honor of Gandhi's birthday for the Shanti Fund.  Above is an example I created after the demonstration on Photoshop.  In creating the poster you can use any materials, fonts, concepts, or images as long as they are respectful and created by you.

Smithtown Red Fridays

Here's a short video from Smithtown East's Leadership students to start the year off Red.

Studio Art: Japan Society’s Going Global Social Networking Project

 
Today in Studio Art we will begin working on the Japan Society’s Going Global Social Networking Project with classes from Tokyo, Japan and Karachi, Pakistan.  I had a chance to meet all the global educators this summer at a conference and above I am pictured with the teacher of the class in Pakistan Iram Sadiq who we'll be interacting with shortly.

Before we begin its important to understand a bit of the different culture and environment of these to give us some context for understanding so I designed and began putting together a short, simple game which asks questions about the countries, states, cities, towns, and schools of the participating classes. 

Above is an image of 6 of the facts that I included now it's your turn to do some research and contribute to the game before we play it.  Each student will go online and research the given locals to find an interesting fact which will be added to the game (try to think of what might be interesting about your hometown, state, or country to someone who has never seen it or been there).  Next week we'll load the questions into the game along with the facts collected from the other classes then play it.

Studio and Media Art: Remembering 911

Today is the anniversary of the September 11 attacks so well take a moment to look at two short films from StoryCorps animated by The Rauch Brothers of two very personal stories from that day.  The first about John and Joe Vigiano (a firefighter from West Islip and a police officer from Medford) and the second about Michael Trinidad (who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald).

Media Art: Shorts- Paris Je T'aime

We are beginning our film class by looking at a series of short films from Paris Je T'aime in order to go over the basics of film and critiquing in addition to getting some international perspectives before starting the Going Global project next month.  We'll watch 5 shorts which are listed below and after the films you'll need to choose 2 to critique using the template on the assignment drive. You can use imdb.com and the NY Times Film Section to aid you in your critiques.

Director		Segment
Tom Tykwer		"Faubourg Saint-Denis"
Gurinder Chadha		"Quais de Seine"
Wes Craven		"Pere-Lachaise"
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen		"Tuileries"
Alexander Payne		"14e arrondissement"

Welcome Smithtown 2013-2014

Welcome back to school, I hope everyone enjoyed their summer!  Next week we are going to begin working with students from Japan on a project from the Japan Society so I thought this short video can give some insight on the other side of the world!  I hope everyone has a terrific year!

Chuck Close at Guild Hall

Guild Hall in East Hampton is currently showing a retrospective of the work of one of my favorite contemporary artists, Chuck Close, that is well worth a visit before it closes October 14.  The show has a variety of work including paintings, photographs, prints, and some amazing tapestries.

 I was on hand for the Chuck's talk at the opening which is embedded below. He gave some great support to the arts in education as well as some terrific insight on his work and it's growth.