Category Archives: General Interest

Writer Seeks Same: Film faculty Douglas J. Eboch and Paul Guay discuss the pitfalls and pleasures of screenwriting partnerships

Spanky and Stymie form a partnership in Paul Guay's The Little Rascals (1994).

Spanky and Stymie, classic partners, pledging “No girls allowed” in Paul Guay’s The Little Rascals (1994).

History is full of partnerships. Some, like Adam and Eve, can be very productive. Others end in ruin, such as Lancelot and King Arthur, when the former’s secret love affair undid the latter’s kingdom. The same is true in Hollywood where screenwriting partners are an integral part of the machinery—and mythology—of the business. Understanding what to look for in a writing partner, and why to work with one in the first place, is crucial to making sure the drama stays on the page.

Film faculty Douglas J. Eboch interviewed fellow Film faculty Paul Guay on his fruitful writing career in, and out of, partnerships.  Continue reading →

You go, grads: Let the Summer Graduation festivities begin!

Graduating students with friends and family following Spring 2015 commencement. Photo: John Dlugolecki

Graduating students with friends and family following Spring 2015 commencement. Photo: John Dlugolecki

“Sun is shining. Weather is sweet. Make you wanna move your dancing feet.” Bob Marley

This Saturday, following a sometimes exhaustive, always intensive, memorably vigorous and astonishingly creative commitment to making and learning, 91 ArtCenter students will receive their diplomas. This will be the second graduation ceremony to be held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, a thankfully climate-controlled venue conveniently located between Hillside and South campuses.

As the day approaches, let’s celebrate these creative and talented individuals who are about to take on the world. Here’s the lowdown for the week:

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View from the Bridge: Reflecting on #ADA25, inclusive design and Ed Roberts’ pivotal role as a pioneer for independent living

Ed Roberts being sworn in by California Governor Jerry Brown as the State Director of Rehabilitation in 1975. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Transportation Committee

Ed Roberts in 1976 being sworn in by California Governor Jerry Brown as the State Director of Rehabilitation. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Transportation Committee

Last month marked the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a groundbreaking piece of civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and guarantees that those individuals are afforded the same opportunities as everyone else. Or, as the Justice Department puts it, the Act guarantees that people with disabilities can “participate in the mainstream of American life.”

This anniversary means a great deal to me. Prior to coming to ArtCenter, I spent five years deeply involved in the development and building of the Ed Roberts Campus. This stunning and groundbreaking facility, situated atop the Ashby BART Station in Berkeley, was created by a number of disability organizations to serve as the global resource for the disability community.

The man whose name graces the campus, Ed Roberts, inspired the independent living movement and is widely considered the father of the Americans with Disabilities Act. His story is both thought provoking and exhilarating.

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Destination Ghana! Art Center students raise funds for ambitious documentary project.

We are The Next Level Brothers, D’Angelo and Martel McCornell, writer/director filmmakers from Cleveland, Ohio, currently studying Film at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. We will travel to Ghana to direct and film a documentary about the grand opening of the first international Gloria Pointer Teen Movement Education Center. We have known Yvonne Pointer, of Cleveland, since childhood. Ms. Pointer became a community activist after her daughter, Gloria, was raped and murdered in December 1984.

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Looking to fire up your Fourth of July? Check out these blast-tacular movie explosions!

Wherever you decide to celebrate the anniversary of our nation’s independence—in a small town watching a patriotic parade or an urban center sampling designer cocktails on a hotel rooftop—we know you are really just passing time until dark, waiting for the fireworks start.

To whet your appetite in anticipation of the pyrotechnic exhibition of your choice, we offer up some dynamite detonation displays from the silver screen.

No 4th of July celebration should go by without a viewing of the spectacular demolition of Paris in Michael Bay’s (BFA 88 Film) Armageddon.

An oldie but goodie, it is always worth watching the final scene of David Lean’s classic, The Bridge on the River Kwai.

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Art Center students pave the road into the future of autonomous cars

First cars to travel The Arroyo Seco Parkway in 1940. Photo (detail): Los Angeles Public Library

First cars to travel The Arroyo Seco Parkway in 1940. Photo (detail): Los Angeles Public Library

In On the Road, Jack Kerouac wrote, “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

But what does it mean when that “next crazy venture” is fueled by a set of algorithms?

As we’ve previously reported, the arrival of autonomous cars could very well usher in a new era of safer roads. But might the public be hesitant to hand over the keys of their vehicle–often seen as a bedrock American symbol of freedom–to Apple, Google or Uber?

“The promise of the automobile 100 years ago was being able to go anywhere, anytime,” says alumnus Stewart Reed (69), chair of Art Center’s transportation design programs. “This idea freed people from structuring their lives around stagecoach or train schedules and opened up a world of new experiences.”

What wasn’t the promise 100 years ago? Moving 11,700 vehicles an hour at peak times through the Sepulveda Pass. Continue reading →

Move over, Siri, and let Nan Wang’s Cartner do the driving

Still from graduate Media Design Practices student Nan Wang's Cartner project.

Still from graduate Media Design Practices student Nan Wang’s Cartner project.

Earlier this week at its WWDC 2015 developer’s conference, Apple announced that iOS 9–the next iteration of its operating system for its iPhone and iPad devices–will include a beefed-up “proactive” version of its voice-driven Siri software that will anticipate user’s needs and deliver relevant information in a timely manner.

Cool stuff, right? Now imagine how such a human-computer interface might evolve. And imagine it in your car.

That’s precisely what graduate Media Design Practices (MDP) student Nan Wang envisioned last fall in a course entitled New Car Experiences.

In that studio course led by Associate Professor Ben Hooker, MDP students spent the entire 14-week term creating “video sketches”–polished visualizations intended to spark discussion–based on student research conducted during the previous term in a class also led by Hooker and his MDP colleague Professor Tim Durfee.

“We immersed ourselves in the current visions of the automotive future to find out how different industries think things are going to play out,” says Hooker, whose expertise lies in collaborations within the field of human-computer interaction, of the research that led to the video sketches. “It soon became apparent there wasn’t one clear view, and that there was space for fresh thinking in this arena.”

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Illuminating Lumi: charting a startup’s path from Shark Tank to Y Combinator to VC funding

Jesse Genet with Inkodye display

Jesse Genet with Inkodye display

When 16-year old Jesse Genet began printing tee shirts in her parents’ basement, the enterprising teen could have scarcely fathomed a future in which her bright idea would morph into Lumi, a company with $2.5 million in sales, which appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank, earned a coveted spot in Silicon Valley’s hottest startup incubator Y Combinator (think Airbnb, reddit, Dropbox) and has just closed on a seed venture round of financing.

Jesse and Lumi business partner Stephan Ango met as Product Design students at Art Center. Before starting college, however, Jesse was a natural-born entrepreneur who sought out a better way to print photography on textiles. A ton of research led her to a reference about a dye process that intrigued her and eventually led her to the man who owned the rights to the dye and the last inventory of the substance. She first contacted him while still in high school. “He didn’t take me seriously at first,” Jesse recalls. “After all I was just a high school kid. It wasn’t until Stephan and I joined forces and we made several trips to Northern California to meet with him that he finally began to negotiate with us seriously.” Continue reading →

Autonomous for the people: cars of the future will need to balance new features with safety

 

Still from Media Design Practices students Elaine Cheung’s Connected Mobility “video sketch.”

Still from Media Design Practices students Elaine Cheung’s and Shan Shen’s Connected Mobility.

Last week, Chevrolet announced that more than a dozen of its 2016 cars and trucks would be compatible with Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto, the tech giants’ competing in-dash interfaces for vehicles that connect to the driver’s smartphone.

Considering both CarPlay and Android Auto were only publicly announced last year, the speed of Chevrolet’s adoption of these interfaces could signal a sea change in how quickly automakers respond to consumers’ demands.

Geoff Wardle, executive director of Art Center’s graduate Transportation Systems and Design program, says Silicon Valley’s forays into the transportation arena have lit the proverbial fire under Detroit.

“Traditionally the car industry has designed vehicles over a three- to four-year time period,” says Wardle. “But people want the same features in their cars that they have on their smartphones, which change every few months.”

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Doing the unimaginable: Alum Dan Santat’s Caldecott-winning book to become animated feature

Detail of an illustration from Beekle by Dan Santat. Courtesy Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Detail of an illustration from Beekle by Dan Santat. Courtesy Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

It’s been quite a year for Illustration alumnus Dan Santat (BFA 01).

Back in February, he was awoken at 4:30 a.m. by a call from the American Library Association (ALA) with the news that his childrens’ book The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend had won the Caldecott, the nation’s most prestigious award for childrens’ literature.

And this Wednesday it was announced that Jason Reitman, the Oscar-nominated director of Thank You for Smoking, Juno and Up in the Air, would be writing and directing an animated film based on Beekle for Dreamworks Animation.

“I was book shopping with my daughter, when a little tooth-shaped character wearing a paper crown stole our hearts,” said Reitman in a press release announcing the deal. “His name was Beekle, and I’m now honored to be adapting Santat’s charming story into a feature film.”

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