President’s Blog

Brooks Institute’s Professional Photography faculty member Chris Orwig held a cover shoot, along with Triathlete Magazine’s Photo Editor Nils Nilson and a team of Brooks students, featuring Triathlete Chris Lieto at our Mason Street Studios in Santa Barbara. One of these photos will grace the cover of Triathlete Magazine’s 2010 Bike Buyers Guide.

Click HERE to see Tricenter’s coverage of this photo shoot.

News

After seeing images of the devastation in Haiti, and deciding that feeling sad about the situation was not enough, Greg Lawler, Director of Information Technology for Brooks Institute decided to take action and develop a way to raise and donate money to the cause. Greg teamed up with local custom photo lab, Specialty Color Services to create Prints for Haiti, an online photo gallery sale which donates funds to benefit relief efforts in Haiti. The gallery can be found at www.printsforhaiti.com.

This extraordinary collection of images was acquired from a talented group of photographers, many of which are Brooks Institute faculty and alumni.

For each image purchased, and after $10 per print is subtracted toward production and shipping, all remaining funds are split 50/50 with 50% going to the American Red Cross and 50% to Direct Relief International.

Brooks Institute will match each donation made, up to $5000.

News American Red Cross, Charity, Direct Relief International, Haiti, Haiti Relief, Photography, pictures

Brooks Institute faculty members Tracy and Judy Trotter are gearing up for participation in this year’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) with an innovative new offering to the festival line-up. Blue Belle is a web series comprised of 21 3-minute episodes. A single episode will be screened before many of the films at SBIFF.

Blue Belle is the story of a woman living two lives, exclusive of each other. She spends her weeks as a high school teacher in Santa Barbara and her weekends as a prostitute in Las Vegas.

Produced by Judy Trotter, with Tracy Trotter serving as lead cinematographer, this series is sure to lure the audience into Blue’s world.

The crew was made up of Brooks Institute alumni and students with alumnus Brent Sumner, owner of Santa Barbara production house Studio 8, serving as production supervisor and alumni Blair Madigan and Nick Piatnick serving as cinematographers.

Blue Belle will premiere to the world at www.3MinutePictures.com.

News

Go behind the scenes of film production with Brooks Institute students David Graves, Matthew Bobbitt, Robert Woodward, Robert Deltour, and Andrew Hreha. See Huxley Park behind the scenes Episode one: The Beginning.

Visit Huxley Park.com each Wednesday for a new ”behind the scenes” episode and follow the production from beginning to release!

News Brooks Institute, Film Production, Huxley Park, Movies, student films, Thriller, Video Production

Left to right: Jae Soh, President Roger Andersen, Peter Bae, David Litschel Photo Credit: Kelsea Davis

Art & Technology Expression Center Director & Professor of the Film Department Joe Soh and Dean of the Office of External Affairs & Professor of the Broadcasting Department of Seoul Institute of the Arts Peter Bae visited with Vice President of Academic Affairs David Litschel and me on Monday, February 1 to discuss student and faculty exchanges and a school-to-school partnership. We also discused a possible joint student documentary project in South Korea in 2011.

News

Photo Credit: Ana Aguirre, Blake Grimmer, Sara Kirkendoll, Jenn Sakamoto, Nick Trochil

Our students’ creative skills are often put to the test. The “Big Set” assignment in our Commercial Photo 2 class is part of our Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography degree program and is a great “big” example of the sort of challenges our students are presented with. In addition to thinking creatively, assignments like this offer students the opportunity to work as part of a team, set goals, establish timelines and deadlines, and develop a portfolio quality image.

Professional Photography student Blake Grimmer gave us the “what’s what” about the photo that his group created to fulfill the “Big Set” requirements.

What were the requirements for this class assignment? There had to be at least three people in the image, we had to build the entire set ourselves, it had to feature some kind of beverage, and the scene had to appear like it was shot at night.

Who was you instructor?
Mr. Rob Winner. He is the man.

The subject is pretty creative – how did your group come up with this idea?
We just brainstormed as a group and tossed around a bunch of ideas together. We wanted something comical and smart.

How long did it take to build the set?
We spent about a day and a half building and getting everything just right. Putting the walls up and then lighting it all probably took up most of our time. But it was a blast.

How long did it take to coordinate/set up the shot?
Not long, everyone that we asked to model said yes on the first try. It was all pretty easy. Everything just fell into place. I think we got super lucky.

What was it like to work with such a large group of subjects?
Not bad at all! We chose our subjects well, I guess. Also, we were very prepared. We knew what we wanted in the shot and we had everything ready to go once our models arrived, so the actual “shooting” took less than ten minutes.

How long did post-production take?
About four to five hours.

Do you have any advice you can offer to future students who will work on a “big set” project?
Get in a group with people who are team players. I think that was our group’s greatest advantage. We all shared the work and we had fun the entire time.

News Brooks Institute, commercials, High School, Photography Schools, Product Photography, Prom, student photography

Dr. Ron Smith, Mrs. Yoo, Mr. Juk-Hyang Yoo, Dr. Andersen Photo Credit: Shelley Jones

Mr. Duk-Hyung Yoo, President & Artistic Director of Seoul Institute of the Arts, visited Brooks Institute on Thursday, January 21 to discuss developing a school-to-school partnership with President Andersen. Dr. Ron Smith, Brooks Institute Program Director of Arts, Letters and Science (Ventura) and Brooks Institute MFA in Photography graduate Sang Bum Lim (from South Korea) scheduled and hosted this visit.

News Arts, education, Korea, Photography, School

Brooks Institute will offer an 8-month, 24-credit hour certificate program in Digital Cinema starting in March 2010. In this program, students can learn the technical, conceptual, and practical skills essential to the production and postproduction side of the film industry. This certificate program is designed to help students reach industry standards of digital image acquisition during production. They will become skilled in the entire postproduction process from start through final cut to the addition of music, sound design, sounds effects, and dialogue tracks. Students will also have the opportunity to gain an understanding of software and non-linear computer video editing systems and explore emerging digital camera systems and workflows.

Career outcomes for those who graduate include becoming a Director of Photography, Camera Operator, Assistant Camera Operator, Editor, Assistant Editor, and High Definition Specialist. Additional information about this new short-term film program may be obtained by contacting Glynn Beard, Program Director, School of Film, at glynn.beard@brooks.edu

News digital camera, Digital Cinema, digital images, Film, Film School, Film schools, Films, Movies, postproduction, sound design

Photo Credit: Greg Lawler

Long time faculty member Nick Dekker passed away on Monday, Dec. 14, 2009, at age 64. Nick was a well-respected member of the Brooks Institute faculty for over 30 years. In addition to that, he was a noted photographer and a master in the darkroom. Nick also travelled around the globe educating people on photography and his work has appeared in many publications.

To many of our students and alumni, he was more than a teacher, he was a mentor and an inspiration. He spent over 1/3^rd of his life teaching photography to people. Photography and teaching brought him great joy.

During our December 20th commencement ceremony, we held a moment of silence to honor Nick’s memory. Brooks Institute’s student council will be preparing a condolence book for Nick’s family and students, faculty, staff and alumni will be able to participate by writing their memories of Nick and well wishes for his family.

News

Photo Credit: Leslie Boyd

BI student Leslie Boyd was photographing C-Street and Surfer’s Point off the Promenade in Ventura during a beautiful sunset last week and happened across yours truly and my 10-year old Yorkshire Terrier, Czar – who is the #1 member of the Andersen family.  Thank you Leslie for this great silhouette shot.

News