Studio in Digital Media I or II N215, N330, S215, S330 Summer II 2010 Section Number(s): 13965-8 Class Time: Tuesdays

and Thursdays - 6:009:15pm Classroom: 082 Credit Hours: 3 Instructor: Eric Esterline Phone: (317) 331-8662 Office Hours: By appointment only Email: via Oncourse Messages Indiana University-Kokomo School of Arts and Sciences Department of Humanities IU-Kokomo Mission Statement The mission of Indiana University Kokomo, a regional campus of Indiana University, is to enhance the educational and professional attainment of the residents of north central Indiana by providing a wide range of bachelor's degrees, and a limited number of master's and associate degrees. Indiana University Kokomo is further dedicated to enhancing research, creative work, and other scholarly activity, promoting diversity, and strengthening the economic and cultural vitality of the region and the state through a variety of partnerships and programs. Course Description An introduction to the contemporary practices using digital media, this transmedia approach will explore digital imaging & illustration, animation, video, sound and the boundaries and cross functions of each. New media working systems have become commonplace in a variety of areas and with a variety of approaches. These technologies and this cross-disciplinary nature of new media deserve a complementary curricular response and learning opportunities for students. This course fulfills this growing need in the educational systems and in the working world. This course offers students the opportunity to learn or catch up with technological skills or to step into uncharted waters so that the students will have the confidence and capability to produce a meaningful project on the professional level both independently and collaboratively. On the other hand, the training of conceptualization ability is equally emphasized in this course. Students will learn how to justify their decisions on the storyline, story details and technological implementation details, use of software, and so on.

In a nutshell, students will learn storytelling through the production of a short feature film or a 1-minute-long commercial video that involves:

sound design and processing, video production and editing, 2-D and 3-D animations, graphic design, and so on.

The course combines the following learning approaches: individual hands-on production. Through such activities, you will enhance the learned skills but more importantly learn new skills. peer learning through group activities. You will probably pick up most technological skills through this approach. The group project is not for someone who is good at Web design to do the while Web design while those who don't know Web design still end up with knowing nothing about Web design. Rather, the ones who know about Web design need to teach the other ones who are not good at it yet and trade technological skills. group teaching in a two-person team on a technology that many other students want to learn. Through such teaching, you will help students outside of your own group; you will also learn how to teach. lecturing. I will offer two my cents all through the semester. production peer evaluation. All groups will present their assignments. All students will offer technical help to other groups' production. Instead of being courteous cheerleaders, students will be brutally honest to offer constructive comments and suggestions. referencing professional works. Students will learn from model works from the industry to draw inspiration and to garner ideas. The three short-term goals are: to learn how to tell a compelling story in new media, to master or at least have a fundamental understanding of all the technologies involved in the production, and to produce a portfolio project. The long-term goals are: to be capable of working across technological boundaries, to be adaptive to different technological needs, to be able to conceive a production holistically, and to be able to combine technology with content effectively.

Required Text There is no required textbook for this course. We will take advantage of Lynda.com free to IU students. I will supplement the course with my own reading materials if needed. Equipment/Supplies What equipment or supplies to purchase depends on your project. Please ask me for advice. The school equipment pool has camcorders, lights, microphones for your use. However, everyone needs an external hard drive that is at least 250Gb (500 Gb would be ideal) big to store massive amount of media. Members in a group should share media every week so that everyone can have the same media to work on. Attendance and Class Performance Students are expected to be in class on time and ready to work, failure to attend class will result in your grade being lowered. If you are absent from more than two classes you will be asked to withdraw or you will receive a failing grade in the class. There are no exceptions to this rule and if you have doubts about your ability to fulfill the course requirements you should speak with me directly before we proceed. It is up to you to make up any missed class work and to collect notes from others if you miss important information. All work is due on the due date; no late work is accepted. A great deal of time for this project is done outside class, I will limit lecture time as to allow you more time to work in class but there will still be a block of time needed outside of our regular meetings, please plan accordingly. Do not wait till the last minute, lack of planning and execution are clear sings of a poorly thought out idea and project. The better you plan and organize your project the better the outcome will be, remember that we all have time constraints, no excuses. Teamwork During the class, you are required to form a 2-to-3-person team to work on the new media production assignments to share knowledge of production and to help each other shape and reshape project ideas. You will create the team as you wish. Team members will learn how to manage time, have a clear communication, share comparatively equal amount of responsibility, and learn from one another. If a team member is in charge of certain aspect of an assignment, s/he should be responsible for making the other team members understand how, why and what should be done. The purpose of teamwork is learning together, not skipping learning.

All creative and personal differences must be worked out amicably outside of class. Problems and conflict between team partners have no place in the classroom. Your ability to deal positively with problems is a measure of your maturity and professionalism. You are allowed to regroup during the semester, but regrouping must occur between assignments, not in the middle of an assignment. Assignments Some are individual assignments while some are group assignments. All assignments are building blocks that will serve the purpose of completing the course project. Each assignment can be part of the course project or can be an exercise piece for you to learn how to achieve a desired effect in your course project. The assignments must be completed in a professional manner and submitted by the deadlines.

The assignments will be critiqued and receive a PASS or FAIL grade so that you will have room for making mistakes in your experiment. I expect to pass all your assignments. Those assignments that will fail are: not completed or not done in a professional manner not submitted by the deadline. Remember, all your assignments will be part of the course project grading. I will grade both your quality and your efforts. No projects produced fully or partially for another class should be submitted for grading in this course. Critique, Self-critique and Peer Review In-class critiques will be a routine. All critiques should be constructive rather than destructive. "If you add a line above the text, the text will stand out more" is constructive, for instance. "The design sucks" is destructive, for instance. All students should be open-minded for critiques. All critiques will target your products, not you the person. When your production quality is worse than that of a high schoolers production, I will warn you. A self-critique plus peer review is expected of you for every assignment. In the selfcritique and peer review, state: what new things or lessons you have learned (If you have learned nothing new, something is wrong with your engagement in the assignment.), what frustrations you experienced (Frustration is a necessary part of constructive learning and should not be taken negatively.), what improvement you think you can make,

how you contributed to the assignment, and how your peers contributed to the assignment. Give a grade to each of your peers with 100 as the highest score.

Team Teaching (for 300 level students only) This course will provide rich opportunities for students to learn how to teach so that each student can take advantage of his/her expertise to enrich other students' learning. At the first class, students will identify their own expertise areas, the areas that they feel comfortable with teaching, and the areas that they really need to enhance in this course.

Based on this matrix, two students will work as a team to teach in the areas identified by all the students. In other words, you will teach something other students want to learn. Sometimes, students will also be allowed to teach individually when no perfect matching student can be found. A student-teaching session can be as short as 20 minutes, but should not exceed 60 minutes. Each teaching group should prepare a tutorial if possible, exercise files and other teaching materials (provide them before your session and I will put them in Oncourse), at least three pieces of model work from the industry, and at least three pieces of very useful readings for further exploration.

When some of these requirements cannot be followed exactly in your case, please try to follow the requirements as closely as you can at least. The team teaching will be graded both by fellow students (contributing 80%) and by me (contributing 20%). Here are the grading criteria: -Have the student teachers prepared well based on the guideline in the syllabus? (30%) -Have they given an informative and helpful presentation? (30%) -Have I learned something very useful from their teaching and from the resources they have prepared (40%) Participation You will not get any participation credit for simply being present. You are expected to: actively participate in discussions, contribute your ideas and answer questions in class and online, and help other students both in your group and outside of your group.

I would like to create a friendly eco-system in terms of technical assistance. From time to time, students may come across technical difficulties and need help. In such occasions, you can post your question either to your group or to the whole class in Oncourse

Messages. All students will try to help by replying to ALL, not just to that student so that all students can benefit from your answer. If another student has something to add, please do so. The more you help others, the more points you will earn for your Participation grade. I will count your helping efforts. At the end of the semester, each student's participation grade will be determined 50% by student grading and 50% by me. The grading scale is as follows: 5 points Highly actively participating 4 points Actively participating 3 points Participating at least once a week 2 points Rarely participating 1 point almost never participating 0 point not participating Grading I do not believe in punishing students for making mistakes during the learning process. Therefore, all assignments will be critiqued in class but not graded so that you will be given room for improving your work over the weeks. Distribution of grades: Team teaching 10% Participation 30% Course Project Total 100%

60%

Grading scale is as follows: 96.5-100 92.5-96.49 89.5-92.49 86.5-89.49 82.5-86.49 79.5-82.49 76.5-79.49 72.5-76.49 69.5-72.49 66.5-69.49 62.5-66.49 59.5-62.49 59.49-down A+ A AB+ B BC+ C CD+ D DF

Late Work All assignments, the paper and the course project are all due on the dates and times specified. You are always welcome to show me your work before you submit so that problems can be solved before they go into my grading. Incomplete A grade of Incomplete (I) will only be given if you have extenuating circumstances that prevent you from completing the class. This includes severe illness/hospitalization. That's about it. If you simply "get behind" in the class, you will not be given an "I." If you get behind, you should drop the class if it is still possible for you to drop. If, for example, you get busy with work and don't have time to devote to the class, you should drop. That is not an extenuating circumstance. Academic Misconduct All students should aspire to high standards of academic honesty. This class encourages cooperation and the exchange of ideas. However, students are expected to do their own work. If you are found to have cheated or plagiarized in any assignment, quiz, or final exam, you will get an F for the course grade. If you help another student cheat or plagiarize, your course grade will be F, too. If you are not sure whether what you are going to do will be regarded as academic dishonesty, youd better ask me first. All cheating and plagiarism cases will be reported to the Dean of Students. All students are responsible for reading the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities and Conduct of IU Kokomo. http://www.iuk.edu/index/services/student_services/code_rights_responsibilities_conduc t.asp Flexibility I believe the class plan/schedule is realistic and the objectives are attainable. Nonetheless, I reserve the right to adjust the course content, assignments, etc., based on the classs needs or ability to maintain pace. Special Needs If you have a learning disability, physical disadvantages, or other special needs, please talk to me about it during the first week. I want to work with you to accommodate your situation and help you succeed in this course.

About your instructor I earned my Masters degree in Informatics from Indiana University in 2010 and BS degree in Telecommunications from Butler University 1998. I have taught media convergence, media literacy, video production and editing, audio production and editing, Web publishing, graphic and layout design, research methods, reporting and news writing courses at the high school level and other various technical colleges. I started my teaching career in 2003. I recently just published a thesis on social networking in higher education through the Indiana University Library. I worked as a sports radio producer, show host and reporter for 4 years in Indianapolis, IN (WNDE); Jacksonville, FL (WXLW); and Washington D.C (XM Satellite Radio). I have also written for various newspaper publications and worked as a production assistant for the Indianapolis NBC affiliate.

Class Schedule >Date Week 1

June 29 July 1

>Class Contents
Introduction to the course Introduction to the course project Pre-course survey Grouping students for course project Grouping students for team teaching Starting Assignment 1 Concept and scriptwriting Storyboarding Drawing inspiration from professional works Enhancing your plan (You will orally report on your ideas. If I don't believe it will work, I will let you know immediately so that you can move on to a different idea.)

>Homework
Course Project Assignment 1: Planning

Week 2 July 6 July 8 Week 3 July 13

Video Professional editing Color correction Special effects Video Green screen production and processing

Assignment 1: Due by 6pm

Assignment 2: Green Screen and Motion Graphics

Work time in class Anything urgent about your project that needs to be addressed Anything from the earlier sessions that need to be further addressed Catching up with the project Sound Surround sound production Generating customized sound effects Effective noise reduction Composing music from loops Assignment 2: Due by 6pm Assignment 3: Sound and Looping

July 15

Week 4 July 20

Work time in class

 July 22 Week 5 July 27

Anything urgent about your project that needs to be addressed Anything from the earlier sessions that need to be further addressed Catching up with the project 2-D animation Stop motion animation Kinetic typography Assignment 3: Due by 6pm Assignment 4: 2-D Animation

Work time in class Anything urgent about your project that needs to be addressed Anything from the earlier sessions that need to be further addressed Catching up with the project 3-D animation 3-D modeling and animation in Maya Assignment 4: Due by 6pm Assignment 5: 3-D Animation

July 29

Week 6 August 3

Work time in class Anything urgent about your project that needs to be addressed Anything from the earlier sessions that need to be further addressed Catching up with the project DVD Professional DVD production Finalizing your Course Project Course Project presentations Course evaluation Assignment 5: Due by 6pm

August 5

Week 7 August 10

Course Project Due