Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/150396
Cross-program Collaboration Professors at Pratt Institute encourage collaboration among students enrolled in various, and even seemingly unrelated, programs. "Digital Arts students work with sculpture students to create investment castings of digitally created artwork," Patchen describes. "In addition to traditional professor-student instruction, this collaboration allows knowledge exchange to occur between students of different disciplines, thereby reinforcing their own learning." live performance, and physical computing projects that are not part of a commercial artist's daily life." Simulated Studio Most education facilities serving the digital content creation industry recognize the importance of a comprehensive, well-rounded education. Some, however, take it to a whole other level, providing an environment that closely resembles a production studio. In Vancouver Film School's Animation & Visual Effects department, all programs are delivered within "immersive and intensive learning environments," says Macleod. A professor in the Classical Animation program at Vancouver Film School demonstrates storyboarding. For the past three years, the staff at SCAD has been making a concerted effort to increase interdepartmental collaboration, through formal, curricular efforts as well as informal, peer-to-peer initiatives. "We have been very successful coordinating our classes so that Performing Arts students are available to voice animations; Sound Design students can design sound for animated senior and thesis projects; and Visual Effects students can work with Film for things such as matchmove and practical effects," recognizes Weishar. "We are creating the same kind of collaborative environment most students will experience when they enter the industry. In addition, because we are a school, we push creative limits and work on digital installations, 6 In the VFS 3D Animation & Visual Effects program, as an example, students learn a variety of subjects through traditional teaching techniques for the first six months. Once the fundamental principles have been introduced, Macleod explains, students select a stream, each of which has a Stream Mentor who teaches the stream topic (animation, modeling, or visual effects) at an advanced level, and a final project is completed using a simulated production environment. "The benefit to this approach is that the student gets a combination of classroom and project-based learning in a simulated production environment, giving them a range of understanding and relevant experience," Macleod adds. "I think the main strengths of the programs at VFS are the components that simulate the production environment and form a large portion of the student experience." Comprehensive Curriculum Computer animation students at Ringling College of Art + Design gain a similar advantage: "[They] learn all phases of the production process because our goal is to teach them to become