The SEMAPHORE

ACCAD Alumni Newsletter
Winter 2009
The Ohio State University

Staff/Faculty

Necessary Beauty ~ Dance Performance and Technology

In a promising reprise of their earlier Bessie Award winning collaboration, Landing Place, Vita Berezina-Blackburn of ACCAD and the Bebe Miller Co. mingled their creative energies into a new piece entitled, Necessary Beauty. The dance performance premiered last October 2008.

Vita worked closely with graduate Design students, Iuri Lioi and Stephen Conroy to create the digital imagery. Lane Kuhlman (Design), Ashley Thorndike (Dance) and Amod Damle (Cognitive and Systems Engineering) were also involved at earlier stages of concept development.

In Vita's words, "To simply describe the process of working with Bebe is to compare it to a multimedia jam session that lasts for months and sometimes years. Collaborators, including choreographer, dancers, video artist, writer, dramaturg, musician and myself start by talking about key themes that inspire the piece. In the case of Necessary Beauty it was the concept of dark matter, the idea of its invisible influence and the fleeting clarity of a scientific (or any for that matter) revelation: something that seems clear at one moment can become vague and unconvincing at another point in time. Collaborators develop these themes in their media during months between company residencies and then throw them together to see what shows. The final performance is slowly crafted from patterns that emerge during rehearsals. The logic of this construction is not narrative, but has elements of story that seek to create emotional engagement without representing the literal motives of action.

Conceptually, the visual arc of Necessary Beauty contemplated evolution of art from representational to pastiche to abstract. Trying to blend animation and video we wanted to erase borders between the interior and exterior, landscape and extreme close up thus exploring the notion of fleeting clarity."

see reviews:
New York Times, November 12, 2008
Dance Magazine, November 2008

pizza with ACCAD students	teaching in Brian Stone's class	group photo at ACCAD

ACCAD was extremely pleased to recently host alumnus Steve Martino. Steve, who co-directed Horton Hears a Who (Blue Sky Studios/20th Century Fox) presented a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Horton to a sizeable OSU audience. He also met with senior ACCAD students to explore more complex animation issues.

Steve also visited Design Professor Brian Stone's course and interacted with students on the topic of kinetic typography. Steve received his undergraduate degree from the OSU Design department and his Masters from the department of Art Education. We truly appreciated his multiple contributions of time and energy.

WOSU i-Mix Interview with Steve

The WOSU i-Mix team captured a not to miss interview. Steve explains the early days of computer animation research and education with the Computer Graphics Research Group (CGRG) and how it led to the work he is doing today.

Kalamazoo Animation Festival International (KAFI)
May 14-17, 2009

Maria Palazzi, Vita Berezina-Blackburn and graduate student Iuri Lioi (Design) will travel this May to Kalamazoo, MI to present, Animation at the Center of Interdisciplinary Collaboration, at the Kalamazoo International Educators Conference. Their talk will focus on experience and research outcomes obtained while working on a number of collaborative projects at ACCAD.

During the four days, KAFI will.... "be alive with special guests, panels, workshops, film screenings, educational forums, portfolio reviews, recruiting and networking events that excite the senses for all audiences."

Beth Albright's film Goldilocks Redirected has been accepted as a finalist into the Kalamazoo Animation Festival and is in great company with other animated films from over 42 countries.

RECENT GRADUATES

Beth Albright
MFA, Design, Digital Animation and Visualization, Autumn 2008.
Thesis: 2D Spatial Design Principles Applied to 3D Animation: A Proposed Toolset for Filmmakers

Beth is currently working at PIXAR Animation Studios as a Shading TD on the short story film slated to run before Toy Story 3.

Tyler Ayres
MFA, Design, Digital Animation and Visualization, Summer 2008.
Thesis Project: Red & blue (animation)

Tyler has been working on a full-time, temporary basis at ACCAD as an Interactive Designer. His projects have included concept, animation and artwork for Thurber Dogs and The Bakery Store video game collaboration (see "openings" section in this newsletter).

Matthew Bain
MFA, Design, Digital Animation and Visualization, Spring 2008.
Thesis: Real Time Music Visualization: a Study in the Visual Extension of Music

Matt Bain is a Special Effects Artist at PDI/DreamWorks in Redwood City, CA.

Sucheta Bhatawadekar
MFA, Design: Digital Animation and Visualization, Summer 2008.
Thesis: Digital Lighting Design: Process and Application in Storytelling

Sucheta is a Lighter for PDI/Dreamworks in Redwood City, CA.

Amod Damle
PhD, Cognitive and Systems Engineering, Spring 2008.
Thesis: Influence of Design Tools on Design Problem Solving

Amod is a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, in the Computing and New Media department.

Steven Gutierrez
MFA, Art and Technology, Summer 2008.
Thesis: Symbiotic Relationships with Technology

Steven is an Assistant Professor in Integrated Media & Arts Technology at Lake Erie College near Cleveland, Ohio.

Fran Kalal
MFA, Design: Digital Animation and Visualization, Summer 2008.
Thesis: Combining Performance Animation and Virtual Reality for Early Childhood Education Role-Play

Fran is a technical director at PIXAR. She's focused on tailoring and character effects for Up, to be released May 29th, 2009.

Domin Lee
MS, Computer Science and Engineering, Winter 2008.
Thesis: Using Global Objectives to Control Behaviors in Crowds

Domin is working for PDI/Dreamworks in Redwood City, CA.

Madhavi Muppala
MS, Computer Science and Engineering, Summer 2008.
Thesis: Personality and Posture

Madhavi is working for PDI/Dreamworks in Redwood City, CA.

Melissa Quintanilha
MFA, Design Development, Spring 2008
Thesis: BuddyWall - A Tangible User Interface for Wireless Remote Communication

Melissa is a User Experience Designer with Microsoft in Redmond, WA.

Mike Altman (Design, 2004) wrote to say, "I'm currently a Modeling and Articulation Technical Director at PIXAR Animation Studios. I joined the team in December of 2008 and am very excited to be working on Toy Story 3."

Steve Anderson (Computer Science, 1987) is now working for Immersion on medical simulation devices (aka flight simulators for doctors).

Bradd Birmingham (Design, 2003) is working as the Senior Multimedia Designer at Franklin University. Bradd adds, "I am working with faculty to integrate 3D animation into their online classes. Through my design work, students in the military overseas are able to log into a virtual manufacturing plant and interact with the virtual workers. With the latest technology my team is constantly challenging the expectations of online education. On a personal note, my wife and I spent two weeks in Ireland last fall. We created and followed our own itinerary and had a great time researching our genealogy. Our greatest feat was making it back alive after trying to get used to driving on the opposite side of the road!"

Tim Glenn (Dance, 1999) ....."Spent the summer of 2008 directing and producing his first dance film, Embodiments of Silence. His film was screened at the Freida and Roy Furman Gallery at Lincoln Plaza in conjunction with the 2009 Dance on Camera Festival and will be featured in Tokyo's 2009 International Video Dance Festival hosted by Dance Media Japan. Tim recently returned from the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, where he presented his online resource for teaching video and dance, choreovideo.com. At the mid point of a 1-year sabbatical, Glenn continues to work as Director of Live Performance Technology and Choreography, in collaboration with New Zealand director Clinton Bradley, for the forthcoming production called Orga-Mecha. Tim is looking forward to future Internet2 collaborations with the Donald Travel Arts and Technology Research Center directed by Scott Deal at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis (IUPUI). He will be visiting IUPUI in February to plan telematic contact sessions with Florida State University. Most importantly, Tim is in the midst of a major home renovation and feels like he has stepped into an episode of HGTV!" web site: www.timglenn.us

"MoCap for Artists" by Midori Kitagawa and Brian Windsor Midori and Brian (Faculty/Staff alums) collaborated on a new book entitled MoCap for Artists: Workflow and Techniques for Motion Capture (Focal Press). It's been getting good reviews! You can find it via amazon.com.

Michael Miller (Staff Alum) continues to work at NCSA at the University of Illinois. He wrote, "one unique project is using a solar-powered cellular-networked high-resolution camera to capture still images of the construction of the NCSA Petascale Computing Facility which will house one of the fastest supercomputer in the world when it goes online in 2011. Everyone is invited to view the current up to the minute progress and Quicktime lapse movies of recent days at: http://timelapse.ncsa.uiuc.edu. If anyone has questions, feel free to contact me at mimiller@ncsa.uiuc.edu"

	Marla Schweppe (Art Ed, 1984) developed a new BFA at RIT called 3D Digital Graphics (starts fall 2009). Marla added, "It's everything but animation including game graphics, simulations, motion graphics, visualization, medical illustration. etc."
Marla (r) at Sake	Devon is in his 2nd year at Dartmouth.	Marla's son Devin

Andrew Scott (Art, 1988) was the artist/sculptor who designed Gavel for the Ohio (Supreme Court) Judicial Center, South Pool in downtown Columbus. The work was unveiled in June 2008. For more information see the "Ohio Channel" interview (sound bites). Andrew is currently living in Georgia and is Professor of foundation studies at Savannah College of Art and Design.

Stephen Spencer (Computer Science, 1988) was recipient of the ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Service Award last summer. Stephen wrote, "it was a humbling moment, but gratifying, all the same to receive this recognition from my colleagues in the field." Steve added that he is indebted to his OSU colleagues. Chuck and Wayne were especially instrumental for encouraging his early involvement with ACM/ SIGGRAPH. On the family side, Stephen added, "All is well here. Nathan (who'll be 11 in June) starts middle school in the fall and Sophie is loving third grade, having finally started to learn cursive handwriting."

Brock Stearn (Design, 2003) is now a Senior Lighting and Compositing Technical Director at Sony Pictures Imageworks. Brock says, "I'm currently working on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs which is slated for a September release".

Don Stredney (Art Ed, 1982) Director of the Interface Lab at The Ohio Supercomputer Center was recently recognized for his work on the Virtual Temporal Bone Project. See press release for more detail here.

Melissa Quintanilha (Design, 2008) wrote, "This is me with Daniel Alenquer, also a graduate from OSU Design. Daniel is a User Experience Design Lead at ASUS technology in Singapore. He agreed to come here and talk to my group and then give a public talk to Microsoft employees." Melissa adds, "Things are going well here. I work as a User Experience Designer for a version 1 product for IT Professionals that will be launched early next year.

ACCAD is an academic research center in computer visualization
and digital animation at The Ohio State University