Currently I serve as Adjunct Faculty for California Institute of the Arts’ School of Film/Video’s Experimental Animation Program and Adjunct Faculty at Woodbury University’s Media Technology Program. As CalArts Adjunct Faculty I primarily teach graduate students and oversee portions of the undergraduate technical curriculum. In addition I have also been involved with the renewal of CalArts’ WASC accreditation. At Woodbury University I am currently building first and second year level curriculum in addition to my teaching duties. Below is a listing of the courses I teach or have taught along with short descriptions of the courses.
CalArts: School of Film/Video
FE302A: The Digital Path for Animation I (2009-Present)
This class is the first part of a required year-long course for all first year Experimental Animation MFA candidates. The class introduces students to methods of production and post production for animation within a digital environment; with an emphasis on equipping students with the skills needed to produce technically proficient work. Topics include: acquisition tools (i.e. cameras, etc), camera stands/shooting spaces, digital asset/file management, low resolution testing, high-resolution image acquisition, image acquisition software, digital video formats/standards/workflows, and basic outputs for viewing work in class. The final assignment is a presentation of the production/post-production plans for their first year projects and an animation test demonstrating the process/es they plan to use to create their project
FE302B: The Digital Path for Animation II (2009-Present)
This class is the second part of a required year-long course for all first year Experimental Animation MFA candidates. This class introduce students to the post production skills needed to complete animated work within a digital post environment, for final viewing within numerous viewing contexts. This course focuses on color spaces, media management, offline and online paradigms, uncompressed output, distribution formats, and authoring BluRay/DVD media. In addition we will touch on live action acquisition with HDDSLRs and sound for film/video. The final assignment is the completion of a first year project in an uncompressed (online) format along with an offline distribution format.
FE900: Graduate Independent Project: Experimental Animation (2009-2011)
FE900 is a project based or inquiry based course that allows students to work with a specific faculty member in a teaching or supervisory role. I have taught a number of students in areas such as programming (Arduino/Processing/openFrameworks), games, network aware software, physical computing, and video processing. Some projects that have precipitated are Scott Peter’s, The Apestronauts of WoWoW, an interactive network aware installation built in Unity 3D and Nick Rodrigues’, Email Garden, which visualizes unread email as unruly synthetic grass.
Woodbury University: Media Technology Program
Tech 1703: Introduction to Programming I
Introduction to Programming I teaches students with no programming experience the fundamental basics of computer programming and object oriented programming. Processing and Java are the languages used within the course. Additional topics covered throughout the course include 2D and 3D graphics, computer vision, audio synthesis, and data mining.
Tech 1704: Introduction to Programming II
Introduction to Programming II focuses on programming for microcontrollers and introducing students to the field of physical computing. Arduino is the primary microcontroller used throughout the course in conjunction with Processing. Basic electrical concepts are covered during the course as well as an array of both digital and analog sensors.