Tim Needles blog for art & media art classes at Smithtown H.S. East
Welcome to Art Room 161
This blog was created as an extension of the dialogue that began in our classroom and the purpose is to share creative ideas, images, and critiscm. All posts should be appropriate for the high school classroom and critiscm should be helpful and positive.
Our first photography assignment is to create 4 photographs showing what winter is like around Smithtown and the images are due Friday February 1. The images can be taken using any camera or device and can be delivered via any sharing method such as an SD card, via the iPhone, Instagram using the #NeedlesClass hash tag, or on a flash drive or CD. The theme is pretty open and with our weather so far this week, it shouldn't be too much of a challenge!
This Friday is the Smithtown East art auction featuring work from Art Honor Society members including the images above by Sabrina, Melissa, Clay, and Jess which will be auctioned off live in support of the Smithtown High School PTA. The event Friday 7:30-9pm in the commons with music and previews beginning at 6:30 and it is being catered by Carrabba's (included in the $20 ticket price). Students donating work can attend for a reduced fee of $10 or if they want to skip the meal they can attend for free. If you have any questions you can email PTA President Debby Eisenson at drdebby727@gmail.com.
Author Chuck Palahniuk's Lit Reactor is running a contest entitled Teleport Us and the sci-fi writing challenge is open to the public so all you would be novelist and screenwriters should take advantage of the opportunity! According to the Lit Reactor website the short story should be between 1,500 and 4,000 words, explore a utopian/dystopian theme, feature a technology that's scientifically plausible, and feature a non-human character.The submission and reviewing period begins Feb 1 and submissions close on Feb 28 with thetop-rated stories will be selected on April 1. This is a great opportunity to get your work read and be part of a community plus the Lit Reactor always
Welcome to the second semester for photography and media art students! Today well be going over the basics of the class and some of our special projects such as working with MSG Varsity, Instagram, & The Japan Society's Going Global project featured in the video below. Both classes require a digital data device such as an thumb drive or a SD card and media art students should also get a package of 100 3"x5" white index cards.
The AP Studio Art class recently welcomed guest artist and former Smithtown East teacher Dan Weldon to our class for a Solar Plate Etching workshop and above are some of the varied results from Clay, Devon, and Samantha. Each student made their own unique etching using different techniques so the class learned a great deal about the process and the possibilities it offers artists. Now that we have etching under our belts we'll be learning about some different techniques like monotypes, linocut, and serigraphy when we return from testing week.
We looked at a number of Bill Plympton's short animated films in Media Art class this year and even had a chance to speak to director Alexia Anastasio who created the documentary on him Adventures in Plymptoons! but now Bill is at work on his new feature film and he's going to Kickstarter to raise funds so take a look!
The great French modernist painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was one of the titans of the 20th century leading the Fauves or “wild beasts”, befriending his former rival Picasso, and transforming his work into the very simplest, essential shapes and the “Matisse: In Search of True Painting” show currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art gives some wonderful insight into his work and development. The New York Times art critic Roberta Smithpraised the show because it is "one of the most thrillingly instructive exhibitions about this painter, or painting in general, that you may ever see" and I fully agree which is why I strongly recommend all of my students who are interested in painting see the show before it closes on March 17. Matisse had a photographer come to the studio and take photographs of his paintings in process along with the models he was drawing from at points so getting to see the master at work step by step is really informative so don't miss out!
Tomorrow is the last day of Media Arts class as well as the final exam which reflects all the things we've (hopefully) learned this semester. Here's one last art attack from Soul Pancake in the fitting theme of mortality to celebrate the end of our time together! Best of luck!
Yesterday we watched two clips from the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry and today we will be writing a short 2-3 paragraph essay on the nature of art's relationship with politics and social issues. We have discussed contemporary artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey recently who also work in this arena so write a short essay about one of the works and how it illustrates the issue. Discuss whether or not the work succeeds in making a point and give evidence to your opinion either way.
As the testing week approaches here's a list of a few terrific films on art and artists for inspiration that all happen to be available on Netflix streaming right now along with a few others below that aren't but are worth getting a hold of in helping to keep the creative juices flowing.
This compelling documentary explores three years in the life of celebrated Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, who uses social media and his art to inspire protests against the state, and suffers government persecution for his actions.
Filmmaker Thierry Guetta's project to chronicle the underground world of street art takes a fascinating twist when he meets elusive stencil artist Banksy, who turns the project around to film Guetta while he reinvents himself as a street artist.
Director: Tamra
Davis
Controversial, charismatic artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is the subject of this
insightful documentary from director Tamra Davis, who has uncovered a
never-before-seen interview with the artist conducted before his untimely death
at the age of 27.
Director: Arne
Glimcher
Director Arne Glimcher (The Mambo Kings) and narrator-producer Martin Scorsese
present this art-filled documentary that explores the connection between cinema
and the Cubist paintings of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Extraordinary film
clips from Georges Méliès and others offer a cinephile's delight, as interviews
with filmmakers, artists and historians, including Scorsese, Chuck Close, and
Julian Schnabel, give insightful commentary.
Spalding Gray, known for his radically minimal solo shows staged on equally
spare sets, is the focus of this unconventional documentary that compiles rare
footage of what amounts to a posthumous monologue by the writer and actor.
Director: Heinz
Bütler
Exploring the life and work of influential French photographer Henri
Cartier-Bresson, this captivating documentary tells the story of a camera-shy
photographer whose vision quietly shaped the emerging field of photojournalism.
Focusing primarily on the artist's career from the 1940s to the '60s, the film
features memorable images of Marilyn Monroe, Henri Matisse, the liberation of
Paris and the death of Gandhi.
Director: Lucy
Walker, Karen
Harley, João
Jardim
Renowned artist Vik Muniz embarks on one of the most inspired collaborations of
his career, joining creative forces with Brazilian garbage pickers who mine
treasure from the trash heaps of Rio de Janeiro's Jardim Gramacho landfill.
Director: Thomas
Riedelsheimer
This astonishing documentary from Thomas Riedelsheimer shadows renowned sculptor
Andy Goldsworthy as he creates works of art with ice, driftwood, leaves, stone,
dirt and snow in open fields, beaches, rivers, creeks and forests. With each new
creation, he carefully studies the energetic flow and transitory nature of his
work. The film won the Golden Gate Award Grand Prize for Best Documentary at the
2003 San Francisco International Film Festival.
Director: Terry
Zwigoff
Director Terry Zwigoff spent six years compiling this portrait of the
underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, an animation cult hero whose characters
Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural became counterculture icons. Candid interviews
with Crumb's friends, family and the artist himself render a compelling profile
of a tormented man who transcended a harrowing upbringing. The film won the
Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Director: Vanessa
Gould
Filmmaker Vanessa Gould takes you on a provocative odyssey into the mesmerizing
world of modern origami, where artists and scientists use the ancient art form
to craft works of delicate beauty and to model cutting-edge mathematical
theories. Pushing the envelope of origami to include caricatured portraits and
elaborate abstract designs, these experts examine how paper folding can reveal
the profound connection between art, science and philosophy.
Director: Sydney
Pollack
In this intimate documentary, Sydney Pollack explores the signature style of
architect Frank Gehry, whose famous works include the Fish in Barcelona, the
Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and various residences. Pollack starts
with Gehry's original sketches and follows their evolution from a 3D model to a
computer-assisted rendition, on to construction and, finally, to the polished
finished product.
Director: Gary
Hustwit We use it every day on our computers, we see it on street signs -- and we take
it for granted. Now, Gary Hustwit's unique documentary introduces us to
Helvetica, a font whose readability has made it the most popular font in the
world. Basquiat
Director: Julian Schnabel
Director Julian Schnabel's biopic won an Independent Spirit Award for its depiction of Jean-Michel Basquiat's meteoric rise in New York's art world, his anguish over his family, and his hatred of a society that both courted and exploited him. In 1981, Basquiat (Jeffrey Wright) was a 19-year-old graffiti artist living on the streets. Eight years later, he was a world-renowned painter -- and the tragic victim of his own addiction.
Documentarian Nathaniel Kahn examines the life and career of his father, architect Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974), whose work included the Salk Institute and the Parliament and Capitol Buildings in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Among other surprising facts, the Oscar-nominated film reveals that the elder Kahn died of a heart attack in a Penn Station bathroom, unidentified and broke despite having been one of the century's most influential visionaries.
In Media Arts class we have been drawing our 50 page animation and today the 50 drawn pages are due (40 pages of your story and 10 pages which morph your story into your classmates). After the 50 pages are complete each student needs to scan their index cards (3 at a times is most efficient and make sure to remember to save them to your H drive in a folder) and the use Photoshop to clean up any errors and adjust the brightness, contrast, and levels (all which are found under IMAGE - Adjustments) then crop each image separately and name them alphabetically (a1 a2 a3, ect.) After your frames are all separated and ready they can be animated in Windows Movie Maker (as well as iMovie and other similar programs).
The Art and Media Art Honor Society will be donating artwork to the Smithtown East PTSA for their upcoming art auction which will take place in the commons on February 1 and will be catered by Carrabba’s, which is included in the $15 ticket price. The previews begin at 6 pm and the auction is from 7-9:30 pm.
This morning we are welcoming guest artist Dan Welden to our class for a special workshop on solar plate etching. Dan has been working in printmaking for over 40 years authoring books and films on the subject such as Printmaking In The Sun and participating in countless shows around the world. He has also worked with a number of well known artists that we've discussed in class ranging from: Robert Dash, Willem de Kooning, Dan
Flavin, Esteban Vicente, Kurt Vonnegut, Alfonso
Ossorio, Jane Freilicher, David Salle, and Eric Fischl. The workshop runs period 2-5 so make sure your prepared with the drawing that you are going to use, it should be fun!
With just 8 days left of the semester we have one last extra credit assignment for our Smithtown East MSG Varsity page. This assignment is in the theme of school spirit- create a gallery of 10 images of your new photos of any school sport, sporting event, school event, club, or school theme and hand them in digitally by next Wednesday January 16th for extra credit. The images will be uploaded to our MSG Varsity page and viewable online next week!
Today we begin our final hand drawn animation project and above is a short tutorial on the basics (and remember it is more basic then what we are doing). This week each student should complete 10 frames per day drawn in pencil which will then be inked in marker and by Friday we will have our 50 page animated flipbook complete and ready for digitizing! Below is a great example of a finished example.
Next week we will welcome guest Dan Weldon into class for a solar plate etching workshop so in advance of his visit we will be creating small 5"x7" drawings to potential use with the process. Traditionally etching often looks something like the image above "Abraham's sacrifice" from Rembrandt but the process was adopted by some abstract artists thanks to its ability to produce unexpected results as well as some photographers thanks to technological advancements. Students should produce a work due Tuesday in order to create a solar plate etching during our in-school field trip on Wednesday. Below is a short video showing Dan Weldon's recent workshop in Florence to give you an idea of what to expect from the process, it should be fun.
This week in media arts class we will be creating a short black and white hand drawn animation and we'll begin by looking at Simon Tofield's short animations entitled Simon's Cat which are both simple and funny. They were drawn in much the same style we'll be working in and when creating your own characters and below is an example of Simon drawing the character- look at the simplicity of Simon's Cat, it has all the trademarks of a cat but it something that is very easy to draw repeatedly (the frames are hand-animated in a traditional manner, frame to frame, it usually takes between 12 and 25 drawings to create 1 second of a Simon’s Cat film). Today you'll begin sketching out ideas for your own character and tomorrow well begin assembling storyboards and character sheets in order to complete the 50 frame animation for Friday next week.
The world of Children's_literature has evolved a great deal even in modern times as demonstrated by example such as: the webstory Inanimate Alice, The book and Flash game Bembo's Zoo, the video above for The Heart and The Bottle and this week we will create our own short children's picture book for the illustration unit of class. Think about what your favorite stories were as a child (take a look at this list of The 50 Best Book for Kids for a refresher) and think about what they had in common and soon well be sketching out your own ideas. Well begin by working on a classic ourselves "The Farmer and the Dell" and then everyone will develop their own short story with illustrations.
We had an amazing Art Honor Society field trip to the MoMA and 5 Pointz today. Above is a short video of one of my favorite pieces an interactive media piece from Philip Worthington called Shadow Monsters which allows anyone to interact and make a monster with their own body.
In Media Arts class we have been looking at the history of Walt Disney animation studios and PIXAR in order to prepare for our short hand drawn animation. Friday we'll have a short quiz on the material but check out the short clip above showing the PIXAR animators discussing their student films!
This year the Strictly Students Festival will hold a Screenwriting Contest sponsored by Final Draft and just as a reminder the due date has been extended to December 21, 2012 because of the recent hurricane the deadline. The screenplay should be 5-12 pages in standard format and in standard format. Below are a few great writing tips from a terrific author Neil Gaiman who wrote Coraline and The Sandman enjoy and best of luck!
Neil Gaiman's "8 Good Writing Practices"
• Write.
• Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
• Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
• Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it
to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing
that this is.
• Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or
doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you
exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost
always wrong.
• Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it
ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and
start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon.
Keep moving.
• Laugh at your own jokes.
• The main rule of
writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence,
you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as
well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write
your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as
best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that
matter.
This week we will be creating an illustration based on a NY Times article- Hailing a Yellow Cab with an App. Above is a short time-lapse video showing an example of how to create an illustration but basically it is a piece of art that visually describes or explains a work of writing. Start by reading the article and then create a few pencil sketches of ideas of how to visually portray the article. Then create a final drawing, ink it, and color it using marker, color pencils, or watercolor paint.
The focus for the next AP Art breadth piece will be using repetition and rhythm in Art. When we talk about repetition and rhythm the names Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol often arise and for good reason because Pollock's drip paintings are somewhat related to Jazz music and include beautiful rhythms and Warhol is the master of repeating an image for effect but there are many other more subtle ways to include these elements in your work as well. The time-lapse video above is from the Soul Pancake website and shows artist Jeni Yang creating a piece in the theme of 'protection' which incorporates these elements in an interesting and unique way. What's your unique way of working with repetition and rhythm? Let's find out and share the results when the pieces are due on Monday!
If you want to check out more from Soul Pancake look at some of their creative activities
Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.
This weeks Media Arts assignment is to create your own short digital animation on the GoAnimate.com website. Above is a short demo of how the film works with instructions on the assignment. I'll do a short demonstration in class and go over some of the basics but you can begin by creating a free account and adding me as a contact, my user name is VoteNeedles2012 and the email chunckerthedonut@aol.com. The animation is going to be due Thursday and it should be 2 minutes long and about 25 frames.
I had an opportunnity to see the Regarding Warhol show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday and I would definitly encourage all my students to go and check it out before it closes at the end of the year. The show looks at Andy Warhol's work and his influence in artists such as: Chuck Close, Keith Haring, Ai Weiwei, Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst, and Takashi Murakami. There are some terrific pieces and nearly everyone of my favorite modern artists are included plus it ends of a great not with the cowprint wallpaper room complete with 'silver pillows' giving a pretty authentic taste of the Warhol experience!
Above is a clip from the work of the Quay Brothers, one of the featured exhibitions at MoMA, their animation is pretty amazing and inspirational. Below is a really interesting time-lapse film of one of the 5 Pointz pieces being painted, it should be a great trip!
Yesterday we had filmmaker Sean Apuzzo and photographer Kate Le Roux visit and speak to classes and the Media Art Honor Society about their work and their experience at SCAD. They both offered some great advice for students from wide ranging suggestions such as taking advantage of some of the grants an scholorships offered for college to more specific advice such as how to structure a screenplay and the importance of keeping it dynamic in the first 12 pages.
Tomorrow we will welcome two guest speakers, Smithtown alum Sean Apuzzo who is a filmmaker and Kate Le Roux from Australia who is a photographer both of whom are currently finishing up their degrees at SCAD in Savannah. They will be speaking to the media classes and after school to the Art & Media Art Honor Society about their work and college experience and what they have learned.
Today we will be welcoming some students from Denmark into our classes and as we are reviewing the artists and styles we learned about in our art history unit I though I'd share some well known art from their home country. The sculpture below entitled "Boy" is a favorite of mine from artist Ron Mueckand is one of the spotlight works from the ARoS museum in Aarhus.
Here is a piece from which was installed nearby in NY from Danish artist Olafur Eliasson from 2008 where he created 4 New York City Waterfalls (this one under the Brooklyn Bridge) that flowed for a little more than 3 months and were illuminated at night as a public art project.
After this week's privacy status hoax on Facebook I thought it was a good time to speak about internet privacy specifically for artists. The nature of privacy and the importance of maintaining your rights to work as an artist has become an increasingly necessary discussion in the new millennium so we will talk about some of basics of copyright, privacy, rights, watermarks, wrongful appropriation, and digital citizenship today in class. At this point everyone should know the how to copyright your images in programs such as Adobe Photoshop but its also important to know some of the details of the agreements that we approve when using programs such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Blogs. We will begin by reading the two articles and viewing the short video about the hoax posted below then we will have a discussion:
I came across this video of a SENSELESS DRAWING BOT which manages to create some pretty interesting street art in a seemingly random way, I think we found our new AP Art mascot!
This week we learned about the artist Robert Rauschenberg who is in the news this week as one of his most noted pieces,“Canyon,” a combine with a Bald Eagle attached to a painting is being gifted to the MOMA. Above is a short video interview with the artist discussing another one of his famous animal combines and here is a link to the New York Times article about the coveted gift: MoMA Gains Treasure
For the next 2 weeks AP drawing students will be working intensely in their sketchbooks with a new focus every other day and to begin we will look at East End artist and writer Robert Dash who created the Madoo Conservancy and look specifically at a work from the Heckscher Museum in Huntington entitled Sagaponack (which you can view in the link above).
This week we will work on video game design and motion graphic in media art class and we'll be entering some of the games we create into the annual Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. We will begin with a simple program that introduces the basics called Gamestar Mechanic. A few of our alumni have found interesting and creative jobs in the field of game design so we will look at their work and see what it takes to really create an amazing video game from the art and creative side.
As we head into the Thanksgiving break we are taking a look at some clips from the Oscar nominated documentary from BanksyExit through the Gift Shop which features Mr. Brainwash and Shepard Fairey among others. Here's a short film with an update on Mr. Brainwash from the opening of one of his more recent shows.
Tonight is Smithtown East's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream which features a number of our art and media students in the production so come out and support your classmates and take in a little hometown Shakespeare!
Our final assignment for the first quarter was the theme of 'weather' and while we looked at a number of images taken from our recent Hurricane and Nor'Easter I chose to spotlight Clay's image above of a West coast sunny day with palm trees because it's a gorgeous image and, well..I'd like to be there right now as I sit in our cold classroom with my jacket on!
This week in class we are studing how films are made and we began by screening the TED video above from producer and director James Cameron who's known for creating the two biggest moneymakers in film history Titanic and Avatar. His story is pretty remarkable and inspirational and he ends his talk with a terrific quote-
"Failure is an option but fear is not"
We will also be looking at clips from producer Lynda Obst's documentary based on her book Hello, He Lied and Other Truths from the Hollywood
Trenches which gives insight into the real world of film production and what's involved. There will be a short test on Friday on the basics so make sure you take notes!
I had an opportunity to attend an awards presentation by the not-for-profit Little Kids Rock program which was started by former teacher David Wells 10
years ago to help restore the arts in public schools and I spoke with Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band and The Soprano’s who was being awarded the “Big Man” award (named for his band mate Clarence Clemons who passed
away last year) for his charitable work in
music education. Steven had a number of interesting things to say about art and music in schools but he made one point which really stuck with me:
"We're the only country in the world which thinks art is a luxury, it's not"
I certainly have seen this thought evident as I've traveled around the country and seen the cuts in arts education nationwide but I think something that can be learned from the unfortunate reality is for artists and educators to remind the public why the arts are important and to understand the impact they have on our culture and our economy. The event featured an array of guests who I spoke with including: Elvis
Costello, American Idol winner Kris Allen, Robert Randolph, The
Midtown Men (the original cast of
The Jersey Boys) and I was also lucky enough to photograph surprise guest Bruce Springsteen and
Southside Johnny who joined Steven onstage for a few songs so for the complete interview check out my article on Short & Sweet NYC.
Quarter 1 ends this Friday so make sure all of your work is in this week because we'll be discussing grades and looking over the grading rubric used for the different classes later in the week. In the Media Arts classes this means we are now at the halfway point because it is a semester class so it is especially important to make sure you are up to date with all of your assignments!
This week the two works from the art history unit are due above is an example of the first which was to take an aspect from one of the artists you studied in class and use it in your own piece this one from Gabby references Duane Michals and the second was to take a piece from one of the artists who uses a different media than you and interpret it in your media (do a famous painting using photography or a photograph as a painting).
I hope everyone made it through the Hurricane and Nor'easter without too much trouble so welcome back! The end of the quarter has been moved to next week on November 16 so there is quite a bit of work to catch up on and below is the run down for the major classes:
AP Art- Art history visuals test tomorrow, assignment 2 due Tuesday
Studio Art- Drawing self portraits due on Wednesday
Media Art- Screenplays due tomorrow, montage films due Wednesday
With the devastation and power outages from Hurricane Sandy this week we will not have class again until November 7 (and November 9 is the end of the quarter) so for any art and media students who want to work on an extra credit assignment in the meantime create a series on the Hurricane and it's aftermath.
Photographers should take 4 images and we can montage them like I did with my photos above when we return (or you can use a free app like Pic Stitch or Photoshop.com to do that on the computer or your mobile device and montage like I did above). Fine artists can craw or paint a scene using any media. If you want to share them now you can post photographs to Instagram and add #NeedlesClass or post them online and tweet or email me the link and I'll take a look and comment this week or else I'll accept them when we return.
I hope you are all safe and warm, I'm still without heat & power but luckily there's a Starbucks not too far from home!
This year's Media & Art Honor Society Haunted House for Smithtown High School East's Spooky Hallways was a big success with lines of kids, teens, and even some adults who wanted to see what was causing all the screaming and experience it first hand. Below I'll be posting some of the pictures from the night (but they because of the specialized black and strobe lighting they don't do the haunted house justice). Thanks to Jess, Gabby, Clay spent most of the day organizing club members to pull it together along with Sarah who also brought pizza and Alli who did an amazing job with makeup! We had over 50 club members working to the event, bringing in supplies, and handing out candy along with a handful of extremely younger siblings who really did a great job so thanks to everyone for all the hard work!
In honor of our test today on the art history unit here's one of our artists, Chinese dissident activist Ai Weiwei, showing off a specialincarnation of Gangnam style.
This week we will conclude our Welcome to My Life project on Going Global with the final four images. Logon and post them by Friday and don't forget to comment on at least one other person from another school!
WEEK ONE – Create a photo collage of the most important places in your community. Comment on other students’ pictures.
WEEK TWO – Create your own photo collage of your personality. Comment on other students’ pictures.
WEEK THREE – Create a photo collage of where you spend your free time. Students will comment on collages.
WEEK FOUR – Students create a collage of their futures using your own photos or internet pictures. Students will comment on collages
This year's 'Spooky Hallways' is this Friday October 26 from 3:30-6:30pm and the Art & Media Honor Society has been assembling our annual Haunted House. Elementary students grades K-5 have been invited to
participate in fun activities including Halloween themed crafts, spooky
storytelling, an obstacle course in addition to our haunted house and this year we ask that you bring 3 non perishable food items
(i.e.: corn, peas, gravy, corn muffin mix, stuffing, cranberries, cake mix, or
canned fruit) to support the Thanksgiving Food Drive.
Hope to see you there!
Before we begin writing our screenplays in class it's important to write an outline of what is going to happen and in the film world that's called a script breakdown. The breakdown should include five plotpoints or major things that happen, below is an example of the five plotpoints for the film Pirates Of The Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl:
Elizabeth Swann (Keria Knightly) is in love with an orphan named Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) since she rescued him on her father’s ship as a child. She is captured by pirates looking for a magic coin to break an ancient curse. Will sets off with the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) to save her from the evil Captain Barabossa. Will and Jack chase her across the sea, and when they finally rescue her, the evil Pirates have set new sights on Will. Once they return him to the original island of the curse, it’s up to Jack to rescue Will and save his own skin.
So use this method of organising the story and combine it with the screenplay cheatsheet that we used in class and type both up for Wednesday so that we can begin writing our screenplays.
Our first college visit of the year is this week with the Savannah College of Art & Design aka SCAD and they will be here in artroom 161 on Tuesday from 11:45am-2:00pm talking to students and reviewing work. I myself have visited and taken classes at SCAD a number of times and I really love the creativity and energy there as well as the design which seems to be present in everything from the school buildings which are often renovated from historic building to the classes.
This week in AP Art we will continue to review the artists each student researched and Friday we have the first part of the test on all of them. While we are going over the artists in class there will be a concurrent art assignment which is to take a specific piece from any of the artists that we are covering and to remake the work but to make it more interesting photography students will remake a painting and fine art students will remake a photograph. The piece will be due on Monday so choose wisely and have fun!
This week's theme for both the fine and media art students is pink in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month so create a work incorporating the color and well collage the works together in a large mural.
We are beginning our screenwriting unit in media arts class and here's a short interview with Oscar winner Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash, Letters from Iwo Jima) that gives some perspective on the process and the realities of screenwriting. We are also going to take a look at the SKYPE in the Classroom talk that our media arts students had with screenwriter and Smithtown East alumni Kevin Bisch earlier this year, below is a short clip from the talk.
We are continuing our work with the Going Global project today and before we begin we are going to learn a little bit about the vocabulary and how the Japanese school system works in the video above.
Today we also have a special opportunity to virtually attend an education event at the Japan Society which features a talk between two survivors of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Ms. Setsuko Thurlow and Mr. Yasuaki Yamashita, who will share their reflections, remembrances and personal testimonies with President Harry Truman’s grandson, Mr. Clifton Truman Daniel on Ustream.
This month I have an ongoing extra credit assignment to photograph school events and sports for our Smithtown East MSG Varsity Page and I've been recieving some terrific images so far such as these photographs from the Pep Rally and Homecoming Football Game from Kevin in AP Art. Remember the extra credit is open until the end of the quarter so submit 10 good shots from any event before November 9 for the extra credit!
Also take a moment to vote for Smithtown East in the Homefield Advantage contest while you are checking out the MSG page!
I attended my first Edscape conference yesterday which was put together by "the twitter principal" Eric Sheninger at New Milford High School in New Jersey and it was really a pleasure to be part of a conference that was focused specifically on innovation and creativity which incorporated so much classroom technology in meaningful ways.
The keynote speaker was Vicki Davis, the co-founder of Flat Classrooms, and I only managed to catch the end of her talk thanks to the nightmare that is the Cross-Bronx Expressway (even though I did leave at 6:20am) but luckily the talk was streamed on Ustream so I had a chance to see it thanks to technology. I did attend a number of sessions which were both informative and intimate including a session on Digital Storytelling by a Teq, a classroom technology support provider that ironically is a few towns over in Huntington Station, which was really right up my alley as a media arts teacher. I was also really impressed with Inanimate Alice which I learned about in Laura Fleming's session on Transmedia LearningWorlds, something I had never heard of previously but which relates directly to the classroom. I also had a chance to participate in a fun and educational Mystery Skype with Bill Krakower (along with Jerry Blumgarten and Paul Nagle virtually).
I ended the day by presenting my own workshop on global education and technology along with Robert Fish from the Japan Society in NY and we spoke about the Going Global project that we've been working on with students from Japan, Pakistan, and the US along with a few other global resources such as Skype in the Classroom and some of my other favorite classroom technology tools. I've been to a good deal of professional development conferences in my years so my goal is to come away with at least one real thing that I can actually put to use in class in each workshop and happily this conference exceeded expectations.
This week we begin the famed art history unit so I've assigned each of the AP Art students two artists to research and put together a presentation on and they are listed below. The presentation should include a powerpoint with at least 10 large images from each artist as well as a biography including notes about the artists style and process. In addition you should create a new work that pulls from some way from what you learned from the two artists. The presentations and the pieces are due on Wednesday!
•Ali- Edvard Munch & Tara McPherson
•Alli- Alfred Stieglitz & Andrew Wyeth
•Alejandro- Dave McKean & Marjane Satrapi
•Brianne- Starn Brothers & Jasper Johns
•Carissa- Donald Baechler & Yaeko Abe
•Clay- Annie Leibovitz & William Eggleston
•Devon- Richard Hamilton & David Salle
•Gabby- Duane Michals & Ai Weiwei
•Jenna- Chaz Addams & Aubrey Beardsley
•Jess- Henri Cartier-Bresson & Laura DeAngelis
•Kerin- Erwin Wurm & Bex Finch
•Kevin M- Arnold Newman & Richard Avedon
•Kevin P- Barry McGee & George Condo
•Lindsay- Marilyn Minter & Jenny Saville
•Meagan- Alphonse Mucha & Heinrich Kley
•Melissa- Os Gêmeos & Maurice Sendak
•Sabrina- Larry Rivers & Francis Bacon
•Samantha- Käthe Kollwitz & Henri Matisse
•Saylor- Carroll Dunham & Autumn DeWilde
Edscape Conference 2012- How to Go Global: Connecting and Motivating American, Japanese, & Pakistani Students OnlineTim NeedlesOctober 13, 2012- New Milford High School
Since Fall 2011, my students and I have been participating in the Going Global Social Network run by the Japan Society which has connected my students to classrooms throughout the United States, Japan, and Pakistan. It has been particularly successful in creating connections across disciplines, sparking interest in world affairs, and engaging all students.
Going Global Projects:
What's My Sentence: An idea taken from Dan Pink's terrific book Drive modified for the classroom which asks students to write in one sentence what they accomplished 30 years from now.
It works both as a motivational tool and as an icebreaker in the Going Global project plus it's interesting to see the similarities and differences in students goals across cultures.
Favorite Foods: An icebreaker which asks students to share their favorite foods, recipes for those dishes, and expands to ask their favorite foods around holidays.
Everyone loves food so it's an easy introduction that can be approached from different angles depending on the class subject. I did it with my photography class as you can see above (most delicious project ever), the cultural differences are evident immediately as you can see in the comparison with the photo below.
What is Beauty: A project that asks students to think about what beauty means to them and create an image in any media then share it explaining what makes it beautiful.
The project was a success in that the work the class did was strong and they had a virtual audience to share and discuss it with which helped them understand what they were doing a bit better. It also gave a glimpse into some of the different values of the cultures as a whole as well as the individual students as you can see from the comparison with the photo below from a Japanese student.
AbrahamsSacrifice1655HaarlemBijbelsMuseum.jpg)
