Tag Archives: Chris Gehl

20 Art Center Students Win 2013 ADDY® Awards

Congratulations to the 20 Art Center students and recent alumni who won ADDY® Awards in the 2013 competition! Students received their awards at the ADDY® Gala on March 14 at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.

Art Center student winners from the 2013 ADDY Awards

Many of the Gold and Silver ADDY winners produced their projects in Film/Sell, a 14-week class where Film and Advertising majors collaborate on spec ads for their reels. During the class, students go through tons of ideas before landing a concept they can take into production.

“We help them point out what works and what doesn’t, and how their concept plays into the overall brand identity of the product they’re promoting,” said Chris Gehl, who teaches Film/Sell alongside Clio award-winner Nir Bashan. “Our intention with Film/Sell is to create a class that we would have liked when we were students,” said Gehl. “It’s my favorite class to teach, and it is the first time in 20 years that a class like this has existed.”

Sponsored by the American Advertising Federation, the ADDY® Awards recognize excellence in the art of advertising, graphic design, web design, illustration and photography. The AAF Student ADDY® Awards Competition is designed specifically for college students.

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Lights, Camera, What Now? Meet Saturday High Instructor Chris Gehl

Writer/director/producer, Art Center alumnus and Saturday High instructor Chris Gehl. Photo: Mike Winder

In a recent interview, The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola said, “The cinema language happened by experimentation—by people not knowing what to do.”

For Chris Gehl, an Art Center alumnus and a film instructor in Saturday High—Art Center College of Design’s program for high school students (grades 9–12)—venturing into unknown territory is par for the course. The Los Angeles-based writer/director/producer spends most of his Saturdays at South Campus, teaching Directing for Film and Writing for Film during the Spring and Fall terms and the Writing for Film and the Film Production workshops during the Summer.

With the beginning of the Spring Term less than two weeks away, we caught up with Gehl to ask him more about his Saturday High classes.

How much filmmaking experience do your incoming students have?

The nice thing about Saturday High is that it attracts a great cross section of the universe. Because we’re in Southern California, sometimes you get students who have parents or relatives in the industry. Then there are some students have more sophisticated tastes because they’ve been exposed to more film history. And some students come to class with no experience whatsoever. In fact, for some kids, this might be the only art education that they’re getting. So it’s a really nice mix.

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