Creative Arts & Technology Courses
Techniques derived both from traditional illustrations, comic books, and the latest computer graphics software to create visual representations of characters, environments, props, and textures.
This course focuses on the core processes for making a game as a collaborative group. Learn valuable preproduction and documentation skills that go beyond the initial Game Design Document. Manage the project with schedules, milestones, and an iterative development process that includes intensive testing, version control, and effective communication strategies.
Learn about the methodologies and tools that are used to program games. Topics include: Repositories/Revision Control, Paired/Extreme Programming, SCRUM/Agile Development, Rapid Prototyping, Multiple Processors/ Threads, Client/Server Basics, Debugging, and Remote Programming. You will also learn how to evaluate and choose the proper game engine for a project.
The basic concepts and techniques of storyboard and layout including visualization and scriptwriting are important to the pre-production process of animation and are emphasized in this course. The student will learn continuity and basic story structure in a storyboard form, from rough sketches to a finished presentation.
This course explores the history, theory and practice of collaborations between music and moving image artists. The major focus is on the works of the 20th century up to the present. Topics include music and film, video, and performance arts, exploring image-driven as well as music-driven works.
Understanding the ways in which visual ideas function and what they represent in our media landscape of advertising, news and popular culture requires important navigational tools and critical thinking skills. This class will explore a range of concepts and theories used to acquire analytical approaches towards the achievement of visual literacy.
Students will collaborate across disciplines to identify a project, topic, or design idea of social significance they explore, question, research, and analyze leading to resolution. They will extend their learning experience through trips and virtual worlds to help them design and communicate their work with a public they identify. Discussing, collaboration, innovative research and varied technologies that accompany design practice will be tools for learning and expression in this course.
A number of different course offerings that concentrate on specific genres, directors, periods, movements, or themes, such as "Contemporary Independent Cinema", "Developments in Black Film from WWII to the Present", "British and American Cinema in the 1960s", "International Political Cinema", "Three Directors: Welles, Hitchcock, Bergman." Emphasis is on film analysis.
Student team work on collaborative projects using the latest technology, software and social media.
Please contact your instructor for specific topic.
An in-depth study of the elements of the various styles of American music that were to become hip-hop. Includes examination of how to formulate hip-hop lyrics and beats. Hands-on experience with sequencing software, computers and samplers and opportunities to rhyme and free-style to beats made by class members will also be provided.
Game design is an interdisciplinary process of rapid prototyping and interactive design, and develop a practice for conductive playtests, critiquing design, and presenting work to others.
(Also WRT 256) Writing in 21st century workplaces does not only involve typing emails and documents. In this class you will learn to compose in a variety of digital platforms by drawing upon both technical and rhetorical skills that you will develop over the course of the semester. You will deploy design processes with purpose, audience input, and revision in mind, building on your previous writing courses while composing for real audiences.
An introduction to video as a creative visual, auditory, and spatial medium. Students learn the fundamentals of video production with the goal of making original work in a the genres of single-channel, performance, and installation. Works by filmmakers and video artists are viewed and discussed. It is highly recommended that students take CAT 126 Digital Photography prior to enrolling in this class.
Students expand their video production skills while increasing their knowledge of the history and theory of video. The course focuses on advanced camera techniques, video installation and alternative video practices. The grammar and aesthetics of editing in the visual storytelling process will also be emphasized.
This course examines the evolution of mechanically reproduced media and its inevitable application by the aesthetic community, beginning with the invention of the film camera (1800s) to digital technology (1940s), through to contemporary field of interactivity, sound and image. This course discusses the convergence of the scientific, military, and political environments that spawned the employment of technology
The division between the physical and the digital is becoming increasingly blurred. This course will investigate the concept and design of interactive objects. Using an open-source platform such as Arduino, a series of hand-on exercises will expose the students to various techniques and encourage them for further inquiry. The basics of electricity and electronics, hardware hacking and prototyping will be explored.
The foundation course for the study of graphic design. Students conceptualize visual solutions to communications problems by conducting research and creating preliminary sketches. Students participate in peer/instructor project review sessions.
Students will use the latest version of Adobe PhotoShop, an essential tool for any visual artist working with computers-animators, graphic designers, web makers, special effects artists, multimedia and design professionals. This course teaches the advance principles of digital imaging and manipulation, including digitizing, editing, color correction, special effects and transformation techniques used by PhotoShop Pros. It will emphasize the methods used to scan and collage images from photographs, to retouch and alter these images and to create complex design solutions and illustrations.
Explore games as systems to learn to solve increasingly difficult problems that require exploratory design and extensive testing to find a combination of mechanics that effectively solves each problem. Work individually and in groups to design, test, and build tabletop games.
(Also AFS 266) An overview of the contributions African-Americans have made to American performance culture. Exploration of black performance traditions and the social contexts in which they were developed. A useful sampling of information for students interested in American Studies, African-American Studies, Theatre, Dance, Drama, History, Music, Popular Culture and related areas.
The foundation course for the study of graphic design for the World Wide Web. This course teaches the student the language of the WWW (XHTML), its visual presentation (CSS), and how to communicate with one’s audience. Focus is placed on including multimedia information in an interactive environment.
In this advanced studio course, students improve their creative and technical skills while exploring questions related to the status of the photographic medium and the art of photography through reading, discussion and assignments. Presentations on historical and contemporary artwork introduce various photographic genres and emerging technologies. Using Adobe Lightroom, students develop effective workflows for sorting and editing images, refine image adjustment
skills, and perfect printing ability. As they work toward developing a personal visual language, participants experiment with new approaches to visual storytelling, sometimes pushing their projects beyond the still image.
This course provides students with the opportunity to learn the basics of layout design, typesetting, printing and binding a booklet, and how to create a webpage from an InDesign file with ease. Students choose their own research theme for the booklet.
Students will explore the potential of traditional sculptural media and new digital media to create three-dimensionally. They will work to develop a technical skill base, a critical sense, and a personal creative vision.
Through project-based work, students will learn the process of creating audio for multimedia productions including film television, games, and the web. Topics include recording, mixing, editing, foley, worldizing, and dialogue replacement. The class will also examine the interplay between sound design and music and how to successfully create scores and ambiences. Aesthetics as well as technology will be discussed throughout the semester, and at the end, students will compile a reel of their work.