The intermediate year of animation study witnesses a significant transformation, in which the student grows from novice to independent director. This year-long 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: $300.00

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

Major Requirement | BFA Film/Animation/Video | Animation

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

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 year-long video production studio focuses on the possibilities of the video medium and the development of an individualized practice within it. Students will be exposed to a wide range of forms including but not limited to single-channel production, installation, performance, documentary, and digital cinema.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $125.00

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

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 studio investigates monitor and projector based installation through critical readings and studio practice. Emphasis is placed on concerns of material, site, space and interactivity. The course revisits the television monitor and television viewing context as the original video installation site. Students also explore the projector and projection beam, including its shape and volume, capacity to serve as a pure light source and as a means of resurfacing three-dimensional objects. Active installation artists visit the class for lectures and critiques.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

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 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.

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

Elective

In this studio course, students will engage in a thorough technical and conceptual walkthrough of post-production techniques, with an emphasis on editing and sound design, managing projects, color grading, and deliverable design. By reflecting on the possibilities embedded in the filmed material, we will explore editing as a generative process that can clarify themes within a piece and shape or even reimagine its structure. We will explore editing strategies that focus on the visual and conceptual forces at play when shots come together, transform each other and create new meanings. Students should be familiar with production terminology and methods, cameras, and digital video and audio.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $280.00

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 will focus on animation and rendering using a combination of 2D, 3D and compositing software. It covers detailed 3D modeling, rigging, and texturing.

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

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. 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. Class meetings are devoted to presentations of related artists works, individual meetings and group critique. Fall semester includes field trips to events in the NY/New England area.

Estimated Materials Cost: Varies considerably with production design.

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.

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

Fall semester includes a one-week field trip to the Ottawa International Animation Festival in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Majors are pre-registered by the Department Coordinator during the pre-registration period in the Spring semester preceding the senior year. Students make full payment via Slate. Payments can be made at any time once registration begins in May. Payment must be completed by September 1.

Estimated Cost to Travel: $700.00 - $1,000.00

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. Fall semester covers pre-production work on narrative projects: developing of scenarios, location scouting, budgets, initial camera tests or initial shooting of non-fiction projects. Visiting consultants come in to instruct in sound recording and cinematography, and guest critics come in November to review project proposals and/or footage.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $2,000.

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

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

In this interdisciplinary critique-based class, advanced students take a rigorous look at the various ways time-based imagery functions in their work. With an emphasis on post-cinema, research- based, site-dependent, and performative practices, students in Meeting Points: Open Media examine their studio projects in-depth, through group critiques, a close analysis of critical concepts, and working with focus and discipline in their medium of choice.

This course is required for FAV seniors in Open Media and is well-positioned to be a critical support for senior and graduate students looking for additional insight into the development and refinement of their work in the area of cross-disciplinary media art practice. Course work includes research, readings, critique sessions, group discussions, and visiting artist lectures.

Fall semester includes a recommended field trip to a relevant exhibition or performance, and visits by related working artists and curators.

Spring semester includes an emphasis on curatorial exhibition strategies, a recommended field trip to a relevant exhibition or performance, and visits by related working artists and curators.

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

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

This advanced studio is a collaborative partnership with the furniture brand Blu Dot. Drawing from Blu Dot’s archives, the course invites students to engage deeply with the brand’s design ethos–clarity, accessibility, and formal innovation–while proposing new work that extends or challenges these principles. Using Blu Dot’s iconic 2D3D Collection as precedent and prompt, students will examine the translation between two-dimensional form and three-dimensional object, exploring structure and fabrication as generative design strategies. Investigations into flatness, line, volume, the history of DIY furniture, and the expressive potential of minimal means will be integral to course content.

Over the course of the semester, students will work with Blu Dot’s senior creative team through critiques, presentations, and a visit to their NYC showroom, receiving direct feedback throughout the design process from the company’s Creative Director. Emphasizing rigor, experimentation, and professional-level output, the studio requires iterative prototyping, material testing, research, and critical reflection. 

This course will be of particular relevance to students interested in design for industry. Students should be prepared for a high level of intensity and independence, producing refined, exhibition-ready work that bridges conceptual inquiry with manufacturable design.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

This course will focus on the art of upholstery design. It will teach the basics of traditional techniques and materials; cover historic influences; and explore methods used in mass production. The course will survey nontraditional materials and review unconventional methods. There will be an emphasis on ergonomics including shaping, angles, and scale and how upholstery impacts comfort. This is a hands-on class where students will gain experience applying the techniques of upholstery.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective