In Video Practices, students will work with digital video cameras, sound recorders and microphones, and editing and color correction software. Through projects, screenings, in-class assignments, and readings, students will explore key concepts in digital moving-image making to build, expand, and deepen their time-based practice.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $60.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video

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

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 is the second semester of a year-long animation study, in which the student grows from novice to independent director. This studio develops an integrated understanding of the diverse aesthetic tools of animation, and teaches students directing for the animation medium. The course is comprised of four elements. First, weekly in-class structured experiments and homework awaken and refine the student's understanding of movement, timing, writing, editing, sound design, art directing, and use of materials. Second, students receive technical training in 2D animation production. Third, students screen and discuss animated works spanning history, culture, and design approach. Fourth, each student designs, animates, directs, and produces two independent projects, one in the fall and one in the spring.

Estimated Cost of Materials: varies considerably with production design; averages $300.00 to $1,200.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Animation

This is the second semester of a year-long animation study, in which the student grows from novice to independent director. This studio develops an integrated understanding of the diverse aesthetic tools of animation, and teaches students directing for the animation medium. The course is comprised of four elements. First, weekly in-class structured experiments and homework awaken and refine the student's understanding of movement, timing, writing, editing, sound design, art directing, and use of materials. Second, students receive technical training in 2D animation production. Third, students screen and discuss animated works spanning history, culture, and design approach. Fourth, each student designs, animates, directs, and produces two independent projects, one in the fall and one in the spring.

Estimated Cost of Materials: varies considerably with production design; averages $300.00 to $1,200.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Animation

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 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

Students in this course become engaged with sound as a partner in the language of time-based media. Through selected screenings, readings, and concept-driven design projects, the students develop ideas they can use as design principles in planning and working with sound. In addition, students get a hands-on overview of working with sound in a contemporary production environment, focusing on microphones, field recorders, and DAW software. Students learn to be better listeners and to be aware of how sound affects their perception of the world around them, as well as becoming technically competent to execute their creative ideas.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

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

Elective

This is a continuation of a year-long video production studio, focused on the possibilities of the video medium and the development of an individualized practice within it. Students are challenged to put to practice the research and experiments of the fall semester by producing a finished authored work for exhibition. The practical work of production is emphasized, and participation in the critical workshop environment is required. Continued research, development of technical skill, ability to plan and document process are expected.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Open Media

This course identifies core principles of digital production, to enable students to continually adapt to the ever-changing world of software. Students research and produce artworks that demonstrate their understanding of these principles. This primary knowledge includes digital film and video formats, project asset management, compression techniques, understanding program interface design, color spaces, channel mixing and filters, and the creation and use of extra channels (such as alpha and depth).

Estimated Cost of Materials: $30.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video

This course identifies core principles of digital production, to enable students to continually adapt to the ever-changing world of software. Students research and produce artworks that demonstrate their understanding of these principles. This primary knowledge includes digital film and video formats, project asset management, compression techniques, understanding program interface design, color spaces, channel mixing and filters, and the creation and use of extra channels (such as alpha and depth).

Estimated Cost of Materials: $30.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video

The course will teach lighting, modeling and animation, with an emphasis on basic principles as they relate to 3D tools. The overall goal of this course is to generalize the study of the 3D world and to give students basic problem-solving skills needed for continued use of 3D animation software. After a series of lectures covering the basics of navigating the interface, each student produces a short animation. Each student has focused, individual time with the instructor. The class will be taught in Blender, but students who demonstrate a sufficient proficiency in other suitable packages may elect to use them for some assignments. Course may be repeated once for credit.

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

Elective

In the Directing class, the ongoing focus throughout the semester is an exploration of the methods of communication between directors and actors. Students are encouraged to go beyond the first instinct or idea, and to develop a project to its fullest potential, particularly with respect to meaning and to potential modes of execution. Students work on a variety of scenes throughout the semester, complete several short assignments during and outside of class, and read handouts and excerpts from texts. Students direct: (1) each other, (2) young actors from the Carriage House School, (3) professional actors from the community (brought in for two classes), and (4) actors of their choosing for final projects. As they direct rehearsals, students utilize a variety of specific tools that enable them to maximize the creativity and fertility of their relationships with actors, and to make adjustments in performances quickly and effectively. The latter third of the semester also focuses on techniques for script analysis. These are used to discover the range of creative possibilities in a given text, and to thoroughly prepare and organize directors for rehearsals and shoots. An ongoing, general goal of the course is also for each student to reflect upon and identify their personal themes as a director.

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

Elective

Experimental Filmmaking has as much in common with song and sculpture as it does with cinema, and stresses process over script. The course is designed as a hands-on production experience where visual and audial ideas can be tested, combined, discarded, manipulated, investigated. Emphasis is placed on the unique properties of 16mm film as aesthetic material, as well as on the time-based conceptual potential of digital media. The course includes a brief overview of the techniques, theory, language, and history of Experimental Cinema.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

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

Elective

This course is a study of the theories and methods of character design as applied to narrative forms. This class asks students to push beyond stereotypical designs to develop two-dimensional characters that are both personally and culturally resonant and imaginative. Particular emphasis is placed on the expressive power of abstract forms and color. Through exploring individual perceptions of good and evil, success and failure, as well as beauty and ugliness, students create characters that are highly original. Research, thorough craftsmanship, and sophisticated design are stressed.

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

Elective

This class uses Adobe After Effects as a tool to achieve the students' individual goals as artists. Starting with the basics of creating imagery in After Effects, the course moves through compositing, special effects, puppet animation and time manipulation. There is an overarching focus on core concepts such as quality of motion, layout and composition, color and form that surpass this single class. The first 6 weeks contain homework assignments that allow the students to grasp individual components of this highly technical toolset, while during the second 6 weeks the students concentrate on a final project. This project stresses the students' knowledge and forces them to grow as a digital animator as they find unique problems and solve them with instructor supervision.

Elective

This path, within the senior studio options, allows for the exploration of a broad range of hybrid practices. Through the structural support of this year-long studio, students will produce a project that synthesizes their understanding of and aspirations for media art practice. Works produced use media as their point of departure, but may take a variety of forms including performance, installation, public art, intervention, networked/collaborative production, print publication, activism, etc. The course prepares students to work with depth in their use of media and as contemporary artists in a complex art world, in which media is often only one component in a larger project. Students receive weekly individual guidance from the instructor and peers, as well as two critiques by prominent working artists or related practitioners. Class meetings are devoted to presentations of related artists works, individual meetings and group critique. During the spring semester, each student explores the notion of distribution intensively, resulting in the crafting of individualized forms of presentation. Each student also develops a portfolio of their work, focused on communicating their core interests to a defined group. Spring Semester features speakers, working with related practices, who meet with students to prepare them for their professional future.

Estimated Cost of Materials: (varies considerably with production design) average $1,000.00 to $3,000.00.

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Open Media

During the senior year, students synthesize and apply what they have learned in their previous studies to the creation of a year-long project. Students develop, design, animate, direct, and produce these projects independently. Students receive weekly individual guidance from instructors and two critiques by established professionals from the world animation community. Class meetings are devoted to film screenings, group critique, and specialized technical workshops. Spring Semester features speakers from different sectors of the animation field who meet with students to prepare them for professional practice. During the spring semester each student also prepares a professional reel and portfolio. The year culminates with the RISD Senior Festival, a public showcase.

Estimated Cost of Materials: varies considerably with production design; average $1,000.00 to $3,000.00.

Deposit: $150.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Animation

This is a year-long course of study, for which the student will complete a 10-20 minute live action work to final professional screening format. Students are free to choose genres and formats in which they want to work. Students have weekly meetings for screenings, guests, and technical workshops, and weekly small-group meetings to discuss their works-in-progress. Spring semester covers post-production, editing, sound mixing, color correction, outputting, and a series of professional practice workshops. A guest critic reviews work in early April. Final projects are screened at a public film festival in May, which is reviewed by the local media.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $2,000.00.

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Live Action

This is a course demonstrating and exploring the basic techniques of Stop-Motion 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. Conceptual skills are exercised through exploring intent, storytelling, storyboarding, editorial concepts, material manipulation, character performance, art direction, lighting 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.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $40.00

Elective