syllabus
info
title Digital Multimedia
number NSC551
term Fall 2008
credits 2
time Thu 3:30 - 4:50pm
place Sci 117 (physics lab)
level intro
faculty Jim Mahoney
repeat no
prereq none
description
An introduction to computer manipulation of images,
sound, animation, and video, with some background
topics in optics, acoustics, and the Internet.
This course is aimed at anyone who wants do art
with a computer. No prior experience is required.
The equipment and software will be flexible, but will emphasize
exploration of open source systems such as Audacity (sound),
the Gimp (images), and Blender (animation). Where
schedules allow we will connect with the various art labs
(photo, music, video), but much of the work won't
require specialized equipment.
Grading will be based on a final project of your choice
and a number of assignments. As a 2 credit class,
you should expect to spend about 6 hours per week,
including our once weekly class.
Class time will be spent both discussing the underlying
ideas and technology, as well as collaborating with
classmates while working on various media projects.
This is more of a chance to explore different media
applications than it is technical training on every
menu option in PhotoShop.
Depending on student interests and background,
the list of topics and applications will among
* images: Gimp (raster graphics), Inkscape (vector graphics)
* sound: audacity (edit, mix), pure data (composition)
* 3D and animation: sketchup (buildings), blender (everything else)
* video: Final Cut Pro (library lab), avidemux (formats, splicing), ?
* ? other ?
as well as discussions of bits, bytes, bandwidth, compression,
codecs, copyright, and all that.
schedule
As of Sep 11, this is still tentative;
we'll see how this feels.
You should complete at least 3 of the 4 tasks,
and a final project of your choice.
Expect to share at least one of your tasks
and your project (as it develops) with the class.
Sep 4 intro class
11 gimp 1
18 gimp 2
25 audacity image task
Oct 2 pure data
9 sketchup sound task
16 blender
23 video1 3D task
30 video2 -- prelim proposal --
Nov 6 open video task
13 open -- final proposal --
20 open
Dec 4 sharing -- final project --
