Apple and Adobe to preview latest software at SCAD

By Travis Walters

SCAD will host representatives from Apple and Adobe on April 22 from 6-8 p.m. in the Trustees Theater to demonstrate their latest software.

Apple will show the newest edition of Final Cut Studio, and more than 100 new features and technological innovations that will allow users to work faster and more efficiently. Some of Final Cut Pro 7′s new features and improvements include:

• · An expanded ProRes family
• · Native AVC-Intra support
• · Alpha transitions
• · Global transitions
• · Timeline improvements
• · Media management improvements
• · Faster codec performance

Other components of the studio have their own host of new features. For more information on those visit the Final Cut Web site.

The newest suite from Adobe has its own set of new features and enhancements. It launched April 12, Adobed will streamed the launch event live on their Web site. The event was broken into four sections: design, Web, video and photography.

Adobe will demonstrate this new suite that promises to enhance collaboration and speed up production on April 22.

Faculty will get their own in-depth look at the software on April 23 from 8:30-11:30 a.m. and 1:30-4:30 p.m. at Trustees Theater. The 12-1 p.m. time slot will showcase firsthand examples of Adobe and Apple software used in film production.

Contact Travis Walters.

President confident in SCAD’s future

By Travis Walters

President Wallace took office 10 years ago this month, and in this past decade the university has grown tremendously. Would SCAD approach 10,000 students 31 years after it started? President Wallace couldn’t have imagined it.

“I thought it would be a small, specialized school,” she said.

SCAD Atlanta, Lacoste, Hong Kong and eLearning all came online under her supervision; the Fashion Show, Savannah Film Festival and Sidewalk Arts Festivals are some of the events she’s nurtured. The success comes, she says, from the students. Alumni leave SCAD and tell other people about it.

“I’ve had employers come back to me and say, ‘give me another student just like that one,’” she said.

Before co-founding SCAD she worked in children’s education. She thought the same ideas that existed there would help post-secondary education. SCAD was founded in Poetter Hall, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Her day-to-day activities vary. One day she can be choosing student work for a gallery, working on a speech, preparing for board meetings or the next day can be spent on a single project. Or, as is the case when she’s working on the weekends, she can be a guide when tourists randomly knock on her door.

She also travels to promote SCAD, as she did recently when she visited Hong Kong to open the first permanent art gallery for SCAD Hong Kong.

She is very surprised by the reaction to Hong Kong. “Students who’re graduating have told me they wish they weren’t so they could go, and veteran faculty want to go,” she said. Operating multiple campuses doesn’t worry her so long as SCAD stays true to its mission.

Listening to students and what they want has led SCAD to success.

“The Fashion department started because a student from Miami came to me and said we should start one,” said Wallace. She wasn’t convinced initially, but the student persisted so SCAD offered a class in fashion. It took off and now Fashion is one of the biggest departments at SCAD.

The university continues to grow each year, and with that comes new challenges and opportunities. With the success of past events, SCAD launched many new events over the last year, like deFINE ART. “I wanted to create something to focus on fine arts,” said Wallace.

The event was a great success and will continue in the future. Other events on the horizon that she’s focused on is the NAAB re-accreditation starting April 10, and the launch of the new Collaborative Learning Center, a product of the successful SACS accreditation process that concluded last month. Students in fashion at SCAD-Atlanta will get their own event this year, a Fashion Salon, that will let students present their work in a merchandised environment to designers and other industry professionals. They’ll stand with their work and receive feedback and comment on it.

Financial turmoil gripped the nation at the end of the decade, with education being affected greatly at public and private institutions in every state. SCAD has weathered that crisis fairly well. “We have to anticipate what’s coming. We’ve been awarding more scholarships,” she said.

What will come during the next 10 years can’t be predicted, but we’ll do fine if “we keep focusing on our mission.”

Contact Travis Walters.

President signs sweeping federal student loan overhaul

By Travis Walters

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama signed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act that increases the amount and availability of Pell Grants and overhauls the federal student loan repayment process. The bill removes banks as middlemen who collect fees for distributing government money to students.

“This reform of the federal student loan programs will save taxpayers $68 billion over the next decade. And with this legislation, we’re putting that money to use achieving a goal I set for America: by the end of this decade, we will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world,” said Obama in his weekly address Saturday.

The savings will go back into the program by increasing Pell Grants in keeping with inflation from $5,550 to $5,975 by 2017, and students with a family income up to $50,000 a year will now be eligible. The cap was previously at $20,000. The White House also says that 820,000 more grants will be distributed by 2020.

The $68 billion comes from fees the government paid to private lenders to distribute funds to students. In addition to raising the amount of money a student receives from the Pell Grant, the bill also invests $2 billion in community colleges over the next four years to help workers whose industries have been hurt.

“To make sure our students don’t go broke just because they chose to go to college, we’re making it easier for graduates to afford their student loan payments. Today, about 2 in 3 graduates take out loans to pay for college,” said Obama.

For student’s who will start borrowing money in July 2014, their repayments will be capped at 10 percent of their income, instead of the current 15 percent. And their debt will be forgiven after 20 years instead of the present 25 years. The debt could also be forgiven in 10 years if the student is in public service like teaching or the military.

The bill terminates the Federal Family Education Loan which subsidized banks and other institutions to make the loans. The Office of Management and Budget, Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office determined that directly lending money to students provided the same service at a lower cost to taxpayers.

One lender, Sallie Mae, spent over $3 million on lobbying the federal government to prevent these changes. Republicans were resistant to the changes, worrying that ending the subsidy would result in thousands of job losses in the private sector.

“Year after year, we’ve seen billions of taxpayer dollars handed out as subsidies to the bankers and middlemen who handle federal student loans, when that money should have gone to advancing the dreams of our students and working families. And yet attempts to fix this problem and reform this program were thwarted by special interests that fought tooth and nail to preserve their exclusive giveaway,” said Obama.

“To help an additional 5 million Americans earn degrees and certificates over the next decade, we’re revitalizing programming at our community colleges – the career pathways for millions of dislocated workers and working families across this country,” he said.

Contact Travis Walters.

President announces home energy savings plan

 

By Travis Walters

President Obama took the stage before a crowd of some 300 invited guests at Savannah Technical College today to announce his plan for an estimated $6 billion home retrofit program. His HOMESTAR program would give families immediate rebates ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 depending on what type of retrofits are performed.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, Mayor Otis Johnson, and Congressmen Barrow, Kingston, Bishop and Johnson were among the invited guests in Ekburg Auditorium.

Before the president spoke he took a tour of Savannah Tech to see students who were learning about clean energy. “They’re learning about solar cells; they’re learning about efficient heating and cooling systems. You’ve got young people here who, through the YouthBuild program, are gaining job skills that will help them the rest of their lives,” said Obama.

The president talked briefly about jobs and the Recovery Act before outlining his HOMESTAR program. “Unemployment in Georgia is still above 10 percent. That doesn’t include folks who have had to accept part-time jobs or, in some cases, have given up finding a job altogether,” said Obama.

“That’s why we’ve invested in roads and railways so that our economy has room to grow and we’re laying the infrastructure for the future. In fact, because of the Recovery Act, there are more than 300 transportation projects underway in Georgia right now,” said Obama.

The president cited a loan guarantee to begin construction on the first new nuclear power plant in nearly three decades in Georgia. The project is expected to create more than 3,000 construction jobs and 800 permanent jobs when it’s finished.

The Recovery Act provided a grant to YouthBuild to provide training in creating advanced batteries for hybrid cars, modernizing our electric grid, and doubling our capacity to generate clean energy. “Because I’m convinced that the country that leads in clean energy is also going to be the country that leads in the global economy. And I wanted America to be that nation,” said Obama.

The president devoted the second half of his speech to the HOMESTAR program. It takes the concept of the Energy Star program and applies it to the home. Instead of a sticker identifying which appliance uses energy efficiently and would save the buyer money over time, HOMESTAR identifies building supplies and systems that save homeowners energy over time.

Not only will this plan save homeowners money, says the president, but it will also create jobs in the United States because energy-efficient windows or insulation are manufactured in the United States.

A homeowner can go to any store to purchase the windows, heating unit, insulation, roofing, or other energy-saving material and instantly receive a rebate of 50 percent of the cost of the item up to $1,500. And, if the homeowner retrofits their entire home they’re eligible for a rebate up to $3,000.

The entire economy would benefit from this program because the retrofits require materials to be manufactured and many projects will require a contractor. “So the fact is that they’re nearly 25 percent unemployment in the construction industry so far, so construction companies, hardware stores, contractors, manufacturers — they faced a rapid decline in demand in the wake of the mortgage crisis,” said Obama.

Congress must now approve the program, “and working stuff through Congress is more than a notion,” said Obama, “But by taking these steps we’ll help foster the kind of broadly shared growth that will serve us in the years and the decades to come.”

The president ate at Mrs. Wilkes’ Dining Room, and visited Chatham Steel and Meddin Studios before returning to Washington D.C.

Contact Travis Walters.

Masters program prepares next generation of Mad Men

By Travis Walters

Last fall SCAD introduced a new component to their master program in advertising. The previous MA program focused solely on art direction. The new program, which is available at the Savannah and Atlanta campuses, allows students to take an initial set of courses, then concentrate in either design or copywriting.

“The program is for people with undergraduate degrees in journalism, creative writing, literature and philosophy. [It's for] people who are already skilled writers. This is a one-year program to help them think like an advertising writer,” said Advertising professor Sean Trapani.

Trapani is teaching a course now called the Great Copywriters. “These were the people who were the original Mad Men,” Trapani said.

The new program is set up to mimic the way an advertising agency any SCAD graduate would enter. “In the advertising business, people work in teams. Since the 1960′s, art directors and copywriters have worked together as creative teams,” said Stephen Hall, chair of advertising.

The program is set up in a way that allows for students in either concentration to work together as a team, like they would in an agency.

“The copywriting program is an experiment. What we learn from it will influence the future offering of additional advertising copywriting programs at the undergraduate level,” said Hall.

Fifth-year advertising major Burton Runyan said, “working with art directors is one of my favorite experiences I have had at SCAD. Advertising is naturally a collaborative process. Working in teams lets us discover ideas that we can’t see because of our own perspectives and life experiences clouding us. Partners help push ideas further. When we collaborate in class, it makes for concepting sessions that develop incredible strategies, and the final work is always impacted because each partner can focus on their strengths to make a sharp communication rather than worrying about being a designer trying to correctly format copy or being a writer learning complicated design software.”

Runyan completed his undergraduate degree at SCAD before entering the masters program. “I wanted to go into copywriting since my first ad class at SCAD, which was Advertising Copywriting 204. I think that I was always a writer and advertising appealed to my nature as a problem-solver. I love finding the solution after working so hard to dig up what consumers will find relevant. That ‘Aha!’ moment is what I live for,” Runyan
said.

“I would like all of our Advertising majors to work in teams while they are at SCAD, and enter their professional careers with superior experience and portfolios as a result. That’s the goal,” said Hall.

QEP leads collaborative effort

By Travis Walters

“SCAD’s Quality Enhancement Plan is a triptych for collaboration. Why is the QEP a triptych?” said Peter Fossick in the video on scadqep.com. But, what is a QEP?

“The QEP is part of SCAD’s re-accreditation process with SACS,” said Fossick. Every ten years the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, SCAD’s accrediting agency, re-accredits its members. The QEP is a mandated part of this process, and every school they accredit has to come up with one. You can find more information about SACS and their accreditation standards on their Web site, or by reading this PDF.

After SACS reviews and approves SCAD’s QEP plan at the end of this month they’ll move forward with plans to open a Collaborative Learning Center, which Fossick will direct. “We hope to have a facility that will give students and faculty from different disciplines the resources to come together and co-create using learning resources such as traditional classroom and lecture based delivery, supported with e-learning courseware. The Collaborative Learning Center will be a place for external agencies and entities to interact with students and faculty throughout the whole creative process,” said Fossick.

The courses students take will be developed after SCAD’s plan is approved. They’ll be just like special topics courses students are already familiar with, except QEP courses will have curricula that specifically focuses on collaboration and team work. “The courses will enable faculty and third parties to explore turn-key and unique issues depending on the theme of the project,” said Fossick.

The center will also use various tools to measure the outcomes of these collaborative projects and then share these best teaching practices with the rest of the university.

“Our aim is to support our students and faculty to create authentic learning opportunities that challenge the students in a rigorous and demanding way. We gain early insights into the way the creative and cultural sectors are shifting. This helps us develop new courses, identify new technologies and learn about the latest thinking in a wide range of fields. We can then embrace and adopt the best and most fitting professional practices to benefit our students in their careers,” said Fossick.

The QEP allows SCAD to reflect on teaching and learning strategies and adjust the courses they offer. “Through the QEP we’ve been able to reflect upon, and formalize processes and taxonomies relating to, collaboration and professional practice. In today’s commoditized world of education, students have choice,” said Fossick, “And, SCAD is developing strategies that give its students the very best learning opportunities that nurture and empower today’s and tomorrow’s art and design leadership and supports a new generation of visionaries that will have a positive impact on the world. Students will work on real-life problems to develop real tangible outcomes, be it a piece of art, an installation, a script or short story, a garment, a product, or a building. This is what we mean by making it real!”

Contact Travis Walters.

You Said It: District Quarterly “Love & Lust”

By Deanne Revel

When I was in the ninth grade, my English class divided into two teams and debated whether or not “Romeo and Juliet” was a love story or a lust story for our final exam. A cynical 14 year old, I argued for lust. My team lost and ever since then I’ve reassessed love.

Amidst the aftermath of Valentine’s Day and the preparations of the “Love and Lust” launch party less than two days away, I asked several Student Media staff members their opinion of love and lust: Love or lust? What is love?

“Lust…at this point in my life,” said Myrriah Gossett, District News Editor. “Love is being able to stay friends even through the worst of things.”

“Love,” said SCAD Radio General Manager Caila Brown. “Love is putting up with all my bad puns.”

“Love,” said Tiffany Cullen, District Outreach Editor. “Love is complete trust in someone.”

“Love,” said Katelan Cunningham, District Arts and Entertainment Editor. “Love is…I haven’t forgotten about love. I’m still thinking on it.”

“Love,” said Jen Sparkman, SCAD Radio Training Assistant. “Love is spontaneous, creative and loyal.”

“A combination of the two,” said Victoria Phetmisy. “Love is a moment of clarity. It’s when you start caring more
about someone else rather than yourself.”

“Lusty love,” said District Copy Editor Ben Wright. “You know love without lust isn’t love at all. Love is an extendable hyperbolic, insane, phatasmagorical, mythical, preposterous, wonderful suspension of disbelief.

“Love,” said Logan Best, Student Media Web Director. “Love is…Can I phone a friend?”

“Love,” said District Quarterly Art Director Gillian Grawey. “Love is trust.”

“Love,” said SCAD Radio DJ Jake Allen. “Love is the person who will erase your hard drive when you die.”

“Love,” said District Editor-in-Chief Travis Walters. “Love is a series of chemical reactions designed to rob you of your common sense in an effort to further the species.”

District Quarterly launches the winter quarter issue, “Love & Lust” Friday from 5-7 p.m. at the Pei Ling Chan Gallery, 324 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Contact Deanne Revel.

Reaching in the dark

By Travis Walters

Rupert Murdoch has recently laid the blame of the failing newspaper industry at the feet of Google. He claims that Google is stealing their content because they index it and send people to it when they’re looking for it. In a breathtaking display of the kind of thinking that’s not going to remedy the situation, he’s decided to remove all News Corp. sites from Google.

I know newspaper men and women are scared of the Internet. Why shouldn’t they be? They dropped the ball, seemingly on purpose, and then beat it mercilessly with sticks hoping it would go away. But, the ball didn’t.

The ball got up, rounded up some friends, and came back.

If our industry is to survive, we must embrace the future and adapt accordingly. Murdoch, for his part, doesn’t think search engines are thieves if they pay for stuff. He’s enlisted Microsoft to de-index News Corp., and Microsoft will likely pay News Corp. untold sums of money to be able to list their content on their latest attempt to beat Google, dubbed Bing. Setting aside the potentially damaging precedent this sets, I don’t think it will work.

Microsoft has tried to compete against Google several times. They had MSN Search, which became Live, and then Live became Bing. Bing isn’t doing well. A search for my name on Bing brings up Travis Walton, a man claimed to have been abducted by a UFO.

Walton and Walters are close, though. Several of the letters are the same.

I’m actually excited about this because when people search for something provided by News Corp. on Bing, they’ll never find it. And, that’s just how it should be.

But the problem for the industry remains. How will they make money? The unquantifiable and anonymous group known as “some” say that my generation expects to get the news for free. Just as we expected to get music for free? The music that we now gladly pay for on iTunes and other digital outlets after the industry caught up?

Even though the newspaper industry should have seen the Internet coming, they didn’t. And, finding a pay model that will work on the Web should be their highest priority or they’ll fail. Having search engines pay to index your content is one way, I suppose, but not a sustainable way.

I might suggest looking at the micro-transactions that have made iTunes so popular. My generation likes those.

Contact Travis Walters.

“Dare” examines who you’re supposed to be

By Travis Walters

“Dare” appears to be a familiar teen movie, but, in the end, offers a lot more. The film follows three high school students going through their final semester. Alexa (Emmy Rossum) is an overachiever who excels at everything, Ben (Ashley Springer) is Alexa’s best friend and Johnny (Zach Gilford) is the cool kid who appears to be tough, but is really a lonely guy.

The film is broken into three parts that focus on each of the characters, without appearing as though you’re watching three separate stories.

The first part focuses on Alexa. She is challenged by Grant Matson (Alan Cumming), a former student at the school, to fail and do something she wouldn’t normally do to become a better actress. This is the turning point for her, and subsequently the rest of the characters build on her willingness to break from her shell. She drops her bookish demeanor and befriends Johnny. Ben is upset by this, but for different reasons.

Ben is gay, but hasn’t told anyone. When Alexa becomes involved with Johnny, Ben gets angry, and, emboldened by Alexa, pursues Johnny as well.

Johnny has the whole school believing in his cool kid image, while he’s secretly lonely and more lost than Alexa or Ben. He has trouble connecting to people, and the heavier moments in the film are centered around him.

The characters break the conventional high school student mold we’re used to seeing. It seems like the movie should be a dark, heavy film, but the hilarious awkward teen moments leave you laughing the whole way through.

It will be released by Image Entertainment in New York City and Los Angeles on Nov. 13.

You can follow the film on twitter, facebook and their Web site for more updates on its nationwide release.

Contact Travis Walters.

Students should evaluate transportation options

By Travis Walters

TRANSPORTATION OPTIONS

“What I tell students is, a car should be among your list of options for transportation, which should include biking, buses, scooters and walking, and you pick from that tool basket based on where you are, where you have to go, and what time you have to be there,” said Sean Brandon, mobility and parking services director for the City of Savannah.

He tells people that finding parking will depend on the area, and that it’s possible to find parking if you’re prepared to give up trying to park directly in front of where you want to go.

“I also tell people to take it as a sign when the person who, among other things, is over parking, bikes to work everyday,” said Brandon.

BIKE RACKS AND PARKING

The carrying capacity on the roads and parking in Savannah is fixed. The city will not be widening any of the roads, “and this is part of what makes Savannah such a special place,” said Brandon.

They’ve been adding bike racks and spaces for scooters around the city to make biking more accessible for citizens.

The first experimental bike rack to go in the street was by Panera Bread. “You need to put bike racks in the street, because that’s the safest place for a bike to be, in the street, not on the sidewalk. That was largely successful,” said Brandon.

Larger versions of those racks were put in Forsyth Park, and then on Barnard Street, in front of Ellis Square, Telfair Square, and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Further bike racks will be added based on the pattern of bike traffic. A survey completed in March showed approximately 700 bikes move through the four largest intersections for bikes per day.

ARNOLD HALL

Occupied parking spaces are a good thing, said Brandon. Parking on the street slows traffic down and generally makes things around the area safer.

“We like to see spaces used. At the same time we generally go with a percentage of about 75 percent, that’s kind of a magic usage percentage. At 75 percent, spaces are being used, but if you go there you’ll probably find a space. Too far above 75 percent you’re never going to find a space. What Arnold Hall has for about a two-block radius is near 100 percent occupancy when SCAD is in session,” said Brandon.

Anyone can use the spaces around Arnold Hall, but the city has had to crack down on students not using them correctly.

“There’s a reason the yellow lines are there. They usually denote something important,” said Brandon.

 

Yellow lines around Arnold denote several things:

• · Line of sight
• · Residential driveways
• · Fire hydrants
• · Bus stops

Parking on a yellow line will usually result in a ticket, unless the yellow line is denoting a driveway, in that case the car is subject to towing. “I know it’s hard to believe, but we actually don’t like giving tickets. Tickets are a hard way to convey behavioral change,” said Brandon.

When Arnold Hall first opened and the cars flooded in, talk of parking meters quickly surfaced and Brandon said that’s still out there.

“I know everyone hates meters but meters do something very effective and important which is, if you’ve got a business and your business depends on people gaining access to it every hour, or two hours, you need something there on street so that you’ll get that turnover,” said Brandon.

Other solutions to parking around Arnold Hall, and elsewhere, are being looked at. The city is experimenting downtown with reverse angle parking.

“It’s at first, a very scary concept. Reverse angle parking goes on the theory that the safer way to [park] would be if someone were to park backing in angled. What that means is, when you leave that space, you’re facing the road, you load from the curb, which is safer, and you’re making essentially a two-point turn, whereas if it was parallel it’d be three points. It’s less complicated,” said Brandon.

They’re experimenting on Johnson Square, and the area of Bull Street by Arnold Hall is a candidate for the experiment. Wherever they do it, it adds anywhere from 20 to 40 percent more spaces per block.

“But, I like to tell people, even if we’re able to do that and squeeze out another 20 spaces from that, there’s always going to be more people wanting to go there than there are spaces,” said Brandon.

ON THE WEB

Bee Line bus system
CAT bus system

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