Saturday, September 21, 2013

Make Your Student Film Shine

Film schools put their student through the student film experience at least once. It's a very valuable project, but it can also be incredibly frustrating. Whether your program was animation or more traditional film, these are often group projects, and as a student you have a limited budget and resources.

Work with what you have and build an idea around that

You will not have the best cameras, audio recording equipment, or lighting. Let's face it, your team will all be at about the skill level expected for a student and learning on the job. You probably won't have professional actors and your access to audio resources will be severely limited. This does not mean you can't make a good movie, but you shouldn't go overboard.

Your best strategy is to take advantage of this and build your film in a way that incorporates what you have. For example with less artists on your project, making the art styles in your animation as simple as possible can facilitate a unique looking style and be easier to create something. Similarly you should focus on topics you know and understand. Save the blockbuster film making for your future career.

Communicate with your team

Unlike a regular film, student projects are much more collaborative. While any artistic endeavour depends, at least in part, on good synergy, in this particular instance everyone has an equal stake in things, and usually in film production programs, no one person is no better than the others enough to take a real leadership role and run the entire show.

Find out what everyone's talents are. A sincere assessment of everyone's skills can be hard to do without hurting anyone's feelings, but if you can delegate accordingly you will get the best possible marks and results.

Combine forces

If your school is a large one, and film production programs are just part of the course offerings, working with someone in audio school for your sound effects can deliver better results. And generally, film schools are located by things like acting colleges, where you can try to create projects that include everyone.

Of course before you do this, speak with your instructors to see if you can get approval so that you can use each other in each other's projects. This is easier in a school that has multiple subjects available for study, but be sure there is approval for inter school collaboration.

Deliver it On Time

Whatever you do, don't get hung up on being perfect at the expense of your deadline. The plummeting grade is unlikely to be made up for by the quality of your work, regardless of how good a masterpiece it is. Do right by your work and deliver it on time. If you feel like there just isn't enough time to get it done, then go into overdrive and do what you can to complete your work.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Should College Student-Athletes Be Paid?

With the ongoing increasing conversations pertaining to college student-athletes, of whether they should be paid as professionals, or remain amateurs, I thought it take a moment to sit down and jot down some of my thoughts.
Here in the northwest, there is recent conversation in regards to a couple of our local universities, University of Washington and Washington State University (my alma mater) as to if their respective star players (UW's Isaiah Thomas and WSU's Klay Thompson) should return for their senior years of go Pro.
I admit to being a little bit "old school" when it comes to implementing success strategies to keep our young people on track for success. As the author of a just completed book "Standing above the Crowd: "Execute Your Game Plan to Become the Best You Can Be", that keeps the focus on the tried-and-true traditions of hard work, goal setting, dedication and positive attitude, I feel that those things along with my own personal life experience of being a collegiate student- athlete help me to have a perspective from the many different points of view pertaining to this conversation.
My Beginning as a Student Athlete:
Athletes are the prized and celebrated few of our society. From the time that most top-level athletes are in the fourth or fifth grade, they have already been identified as those that have a great opportunity in the world of sports. At that point they become coddled, pampered, and "taken care of" in ways that the average individual can only imagine. Many times athletes who are full of athletic potential don't have the same scholastic expectations placed upon them from the time they're in middle school and all the way through college. Is that fair? I guess I'd say it's fair only if it works out well for the athlete, his family and the university of their choice before heading on to the pros. Unfortunately, that is where we as a society place our values, instead of on the student who gets straight "A's". But, many times it doesn't work out that way for the "hot-shot" athlete, and you only hear about the perhaps 10% of athletes who actually ascend to the top of the pyramid of the hundreds of thousands of scholar athletes throughout this country (middle school through collegiate sports). The vast majority of student-athletes will perhaps play on their high school varsity team, their collegiate athletic teams, and far fewer in the professional ranks. It's been said it's easier to become a brain surgeon that it is a professional athlete.
I was a late starter as a student-athlete, so I wasn't one of the pampered ones that were targeted for athletic success from middle school on. Matter of fact I didn't play my first organized basketball game until I was a senior in high school. So, I missed out on all the "wining and dining", "coddling and pampering", and, "wooing and recruitment" that goes on in trying to get the attention of our young athletes. That doesn't mean that I wasn't witness to those kinds of things as they went on around me having watched many of my peers go through all of those dynamics. I do remember even back in high school (mid 70's) in seeing some of the star football, basketball, baseball, track/field athletes being given special treatment as the recruiting wars heated up.
Coming from a family that emphasizes academics over athletics, I had the mindset from the beginning that my first reward from becoming a student-athlete would be my scholarship on to college. I was so excited about receiving my athletic scholarship to Washington State University, because I would be the very first person in my immediate family to be able to attend an institution of higher learning and earn a college degree. I know that my family is probably not "the norm" when it comes to having a student-athlete that is full of potential and can possibly make it onto the pros. Most families "want it" (the athlete to make it to the pros) even more than the athlete him/herself. My family wasn't like that, and I was really blessed in the fact that they did place academics ahead of athletics.

College and the Autistic Student

Autism, a neurological-based developmental disability, affects an estimated one in 166 people, according to a 2004 study by the Centers for Disease Control Prevention. Both children and adults with Autism typically show difficulties in verbal and nonverbal communication, social interactions and leisure or play activities, according to the Autism Society of America. Autism affects individuals differently and to varying degrees.
Experts agree on the following advice upon detection of Autism:
1. Seek immediate treatment for your child.
2. If possible, find someone to work with the child at least 20 hours a week, i.e. a therapist, teacher, parent, grandparent or someone from your church or group. Look for progress after one month.
3. Do not allow the child to sit and watch TV all day. Get them engaged and play as many games as possible that require taking turns.
4. New parents learning they have an autistic child must recognize immediately that they cannot do it all by themselves. They should immediately contact Autism societies or chapters to find resources, join support groups and talk with other families about their experiences.
5. Help the child to develop their areas of strength, particularly among high-functioning students with Asperger's Syndrome (a neurobiological condition characterized by normal intelligence and language development with deficiencies in social and communication skills), and get them job experiences during high school.
Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia is one of the few colleges in the US that has a special program in their Autism Training Center, which works with Autism spectrum disorders like Aspergers. Although many colleges have counselors and staff familiar with Autism, only Marshall has a program tailored specifically for autistic students. The program serves three of the university's 16,360 students and may eventually accommodate 10; it will remain small by choice.
"The goal is not for all students with Autism to attend Marshall, but for the program to become a model for other colleges," says Barbara Becker-Cottrill, the Center's director. "The true goal is for students to have the ability to attend the university of their choice. Our work will be working with other universities on how to establish a program such as this on their own campuses."
Kim Ramsey, the Marshall program's director, had this to say, "The problem is, social and daily living issues are interfering."
This is not to be confused with a special education program. Like all students, they must meet and maintain the university's academic standards. The Center offers tutoring, counseling, a quiet space to take exams, and help in the navigation of the bureaucracy and social world of college, i.e. how to schedule classes, join clubs, buy books and replace ATM cards that don't work.
In a recent issue of the bimonthly, Asperger's Digest, Lars Perner, an assistant professor of marketing at San Diego State University who has Asperger's Syndrome, said, "How many college students have forms of Autism is impossible to determine as many go undiagnosed or are simply perceived as a little bit strange. The exact cause is unknown, although both genetics and environmental factors are suspected of playing a role. Some of these students might be able to get into college because of fairly strong academic credentials and a reasonable academic showing. That may not mean they will be able to stay in college." Perner is also the author of a college selection guide.
Sadly, most autistic students either drop out or don't even apply to college because they have difficulty with such tasks as doing all the paperwork, time management, taking notes and sitting for exams. Stephen Shore, who is finishing his doctoral degree in special education at Boston University and has been diagnosed with atypical development with strong autistic tendencies, said, "More programs like Marshall's were needed. I think they would do much better and there would be a much higher rate of success if this type of program were available elsewhere." However, as researchers learn more about Autism and public school services for Autism improve, more autistic students will graduate from high school and be academically, socially and emotionally prepared for college.