In this course students explore the fundamentals of animated movement, timing, and materials through various animation techniques, including working directly on film, drawing on paper, pixilation, cut-out animation, and modified-base processes. Over the course of the semester, students will create six short animations and a wide range of animated films will be studied to augment the student's understanding of the field.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $40.00

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video

This course focuses primarily on hand-drawn character design, development, and movement. Beginning with simple model sheets drawn from different points of view, we explore how action and context can affect the design of characters. The same characters are then taken straight into animation. Students use the characters they created as actors who must perform in a variety of situations, and interact directly with the physical space around them. Exercises include walk cycles, lip-syncing, anticipation and follow-through, weight and resistance, and lessons in narrative, storyboarding, and drawing skills. A longer, three-week final project provides an opportunity for students to show what they have learned, and to create a cohesive story from start to finish. All supporting software is covered in a series of simple workshops. Class time involves critiques of homework assignments, demonstrations of techniques and screenings of a diverse range of films.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

This course is designed to help students find their way to the professional marketplace utilizing the best tool available - the portfolio. Be it the freelance advertising, editorial or children's book markets, an animation or gaming studio, a publishing house, gallery or other venue, this course will introduce the components of the portfolio necessary for success. It includes development of both a traditional and online presence, discussions on specific industries, copyright issues, client contracts and pricing guidelines. Each student will create new work to augment their existing portfolio, as well as business cards, a resume, a contact list, invoice and letterhead. The course will also include visiting guest lecturers from a variety of industries. The focus will be to complete a portfolio that serves as a professional tool most suited to each individual's talent and aspirations.

Enrollment is limited to Senior Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

This course is designed to help students find their way to the professional marketplace utilizing the best tool available - the portfolio. Be it the freelance advertising, editorial or children's book markets, an animation or gaming studio, a publishing house, gallery or other venue, this course will introduce the components of the portfolio necessary for success. It includes development of both a traditional and online presence, discussions on specific industries, copyright issues, client contracts and pricing guidelines. Each student will create new work to augment their existing portfolio, as well as business cards, a resume, a contact list, invoice and letterhead. The course will also include visiting guest lecturers from a variety of industries. The focus will be to complete a portfolio that serves as a professional tool most suited to each individual's talent and aspirations.

Enrollment is limited to Senior Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

This course is designed to help students find their way to the professional marketplace utilizing the best tool available - the portfolio. Be it the freelance advertising, editorial or children's book markets, an animation or gaming studio, a publishing house, gallery or other venue, this course will introduce the components of the portfolio necessary for success. It includes development of both a traditional and online presence, discussions on specific industries, copyright issues, client contracts and pricing guidelines. Each student will create new work to augment their existing portfolio, as well as business cards, a resume, a contact list, invoice and letterhead. The course will also include visiting guest lecturers from a variety of industries. The focus will be to complete a portfolio that serves as a professional tool most suited to each individual's talent and aspirations.

Enrollment is limited to Senior Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

This course is designed to help students find their way to the professional marketplace utilizing the best tool available - the portfolio. Be it the freelance advertising, editorial or children's book markets, an animation or gaming studio, a publishing house, gallery or other venue, this course will introduce the components of the portfolio necessary for success. It includes development of both a traditional and online presence, discussions on specific industries, copyright issues, client contracts and pricing guidelines. Each student will create new work to augment their existing portfolio, as well as business cards, a resume, a contact list, invoice and letterhead. The course will also include visiting guest lecturers from a variety of industries. The focus will be to complete a portfolio that serves as a professional tool most suited to each individual's talent and aspirations.

Enrollment is limited to Senior Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

This course is designed to help students find their way to the professional marketplace utilizing the best tool available - the portfolio. Be it the freelance advertising, editorial or children's book markets, an animation or gaming studio, a publishing house, gallery or other venue, this course will introduce the components of the portfolio necessary for success. It includes development of both a traditional and online presence, discussions on specific industries, copyright issues, client contracts and pricing guidelines. Each student will create new work to augment their existing portfolio, as well as business cards, a resume, a contact list, invoice and letterhead. The course will also include visiting guest lecturers from a variety of industries. The focus will be to complete a portfolio that serves as a professional tool most suited to each individual's talent and aspirations.

Enrollment is limited to Senior Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

This course is designed to help students find their way to the professional marketplace utilizing the best tool available - the portfolio. Be it the freelance advertising, editorial or children's book markets, an animation or gaming studio, a publishing house, gallery or other venue, this course will introduce the components of the portfolio necessary for success. It includes development of both a traditional and online presence, discussions on specific industries, copyright issues, client contracts and pricing guidelines. Each student will create new work to augment their existing portfolio, as well as business cards, a resume, a contact list, invoice and letterhead. The course will also include visiting guest lecturers from a variety of industries. The focus will be to complete a portfolio that serves as a professional tool most suited to each individual's talent and aspirations.

Enrollment is limited to Senior Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

This course is designed to help students find their way to the professional marketplace utilizing the best tool available - the portfolio. Be it the freelance advertising, editorial or children's book markets, an animation or gaming studio, a publishing house, gallery or other venue, this course will introduce the components of the portfolio necessary for success. It includes development of both a traditional and online presence, discussions on specific industries, copyright issues, client contracts and pricing guidelines. Each student will create new work to augment their existing portfolio, as well as business cards, a resume, a contact list, invoice and letterhead. The course will also include visiting guest lecturers from a variety of industries. The focus will be to complete a portfolio that serves as a professional tool most suited to each individual's talent and aspirations.

Enrollment is limited to Senior Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

This course is designed to help students find their way to the professional marketplace utilizing the best tool available - the portfolio. Be it the freelance advertising, editorial or children's book markets, an animation or gaming studio, a publishing house, gallery or other venue, this course will introduce the components of the portfolio necessary for success. It includes development of both a traditional and online presence, discussions on specific industries, copyright issues, client contracts and pricing guidelines. Each student will create new work to augment their existing portfolio, as well as business cards, a resume, a contact list, invoice and letterhead. The course will also include visiting guest lecturers from a variety of industries. The focus will be to complete a portfolio that serves as a professional tool most suited to each individual's talent and aspirations.

Enrollment is limited to Senior Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

This is a course demonstrating and exploring the basic techniques of Stop-Motion Puppet Animation, with the intent to provide students with hands-on creative experience in learning the potentials of the medium, and an introduction to filmic language. Studio exercises strengthen individual technical skills in basic armature construction and model making, animating pose-to-pose movement, the basic walk, expressions and gestures, clay animation with lip-sync, set construction and lighting for three-dimensional animation. Basic sound recording, mixing and editing are also covered. Conceptual skills are exercised through exploring intent, storytelling, storyboarding, editorial concepts, character performance, art direction, and basic sound design. This class is based on process and experimentation. It is meant to provide a strong foundation in the basics of stop-motion animation filmmaking, as well as the confidence to experiment further in one's future work. The idea is to enjoy the process by understanding it; control is born of experimentation and experience. This is a one semester class repeated in the spring.

Estimated Cost of Materials Cost: $40.00

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

J+M Senior Seminar serves as a continuum to J+M Junior Seminar. This course focuses on ideas and theories that relate to a professional studio practice in a craft based media or methodology. The information presented in the course will reflect the historical and contemporary development specific to Jewelry + Metalsmithing and its relationship to the field of crafts at large as well as contemporary visual culture. Readings and class discussion will explore critical issues such as the role and responsibility of the artist in today's society, artistic authorship, context and representation, the relationship between the wearer and the audience experience, the body as content and site, etc.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

The second semester is a continuation of the senior degree project begun in the Fall. The work and ideas are further developed and refined for final presentation at the Woods-Gerry Gallery.

Major Requirement | BFA Ceramics

This is a course demonstrating and exploring the basic techniques of Stop-Motion Puppet Animation, with the intent to provide students with hands-on creative experience in learning the potentials of the medium, and an introduction to filmic language. Studio exercises strengthen individual technical skills in basic armature construction and model making, animating pose-to-pose movement, the basic walk, expressions and gestures, clay animation with lip-sync, set construction and lighting for three-dimensional animation. Basic sound recording, mixing and editing are also covered. Conceptual skills are exercised through exploring intent, storytelling, storyboarding, editorial concepts, character performance, art direction, and basic sound design. This class is based on process and experimentation. It is meant to provide a strong foundation in the basics of stop-motion animation filmmaking, as well as the confidence to experiment further in one's future work. The idea is to enjoy the process by understanding it; control is born of experimentation and experience. This is a one semester class repeated in the spring.

Estimated Cost of Materials Cost: $40.00

Elective

An advanced studio course, students propose and develop individual research surrounding their interests in jewelry and metalsmithing. In support of the Degree Project year, conceptual development and critical thinking are highly emphasized, and students are encouraged to explore materials and processes that best serve their ideas. As the structure of this term allows for more individual freedom, it is necessary that students maintain a high level of self-initiative, curiosity, work ethic, and time management to be successful in their independent degree project.

Major Requirement | BFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

This course examines pre-production methods for animation, including storytelling and cinematic language particular to the animation medium. Emphasizing practical approaches to research and concept development, the course will introduce structural tools including storyboards, writing, color scripts, animatics, and preliminary soundtracks. We will ask the central question "Why Animation?" as we cover topics such as point-of-view, expressive scale, use of metaphor, and transformation.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

Building on skills learned in the Intro Stop-motion Animation class, students will develop and produce one short stop-motion animation for professional portfolio and public screening. This course will provide students the opportunity to focus on particular issues of stop-motion animation and explore more advanced production techniques and processes. The course emphasizes art direction and project development. Students are encouraged to experiment with individual style and techniques of armature and set building, lighting, special effects and camera techniques. Weekly exercises are designed to strengthen students' conceptual and animation skills. In addition, a wide range of short films are screened to provide creative stimulus and demonstrate a variety of aesthetic and technical approaches.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

This course explores the use of the computer to create animation and motion graphics. Emphasis is placed on producing dynamic movement using keyframe interpolation and vector graphics. In addition, students will work with sound and motion data, coded expressions and effects generators to expand the range of animation possibilities. Through a series of individual and group projects, students will explore and experiment with computer animation techniques and gain experience with digital tools. A range of films will be screened complementing each week's focus. Knowledge of Adobe After Effects and Illustrator is helpful but not required. In addition to project work, students will reinforce software concepts by viewing weekly video tutorials outside class.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $40.00

Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

This is a course in which first-semester seniors who have already demonstrated unusual commitment, ambition and initiative within their majors will pursue and discuss independent work in a setting that reflects, as closely as possible, the interdisciplinary conversation that actually takes place around advanced art practice today. The course is intended to allow those working within medium-specific vocabularies to test how their work will make meaning in an art world in which a variety of disciplinary histories and conventions coexist, clash, and inform one another, as well as to provide an opportunity for students whose work bridges two or more disciplines (or involves performance/new genres/post-studio approaches) to learn from one another and from faculty capable of addressing all of these sorts of practices. This is a demanding critique course with additional seminar components (readings, screenings, discussions, slide presentations, etc.), and as such students can expect a workload equivalent to a core studio requirement within their major.

Acceptance into the course will be based on a GPA of 3.25 or greater as well as the recommendation of faculty and department heads from the student's major and on review of previous work. Candidates will be identified in discussions between the instructor and department heads during the preceding spring semester. Successful completion of THAD-H490/PAINT-4507 (Contemporary Art & its Discourses) or equivalent coursework is a prerequisite, ensuring students have a shared understanding of the art historical context for interdisciplinary. The maximum enrollment is limited to seminar-size (c. 15 students) in order to provide sufficient attention to each student's work in group and individual critiques while still allowing for seminar-style discussions.

Elective

Seniors will complete their final portfolio works in this studio. Seniors will design and execute a final degree project. The degree project will be individualized according to student interest.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Furniture Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design