The 1880

Commencement Info Session

Yes, we have to sing that song, too.

Just got back from the Commencement Information Session thing. If you didn’t make it, or didn’t pick up a program, here are the important bits:

Arrive by 9:30am on Monday, May 19th to your line-up location.
School of the Arts (Performing Arts, VMA, WLP) and Interdisciplinary Studies Arts majors go to the Courtyard Marriott Empire Ballroom, First Floor 275 Tremont Street.
School of Communication (CSD, Journalism, Marketing Communication & OPC) and Interdisciplinary Studies Communication majors Citi Performing Arts Center [formerly Wang] Basement 270 Tremont Street.

Practice your alphabet - it will assist the ushers with a smooth line-up process. [wtf?]

No alcoholic beverages are permitted at the line-up sites or Commencement [so be sure to get them into your system both before and after]

Your attention and cooperation will be most appreciated.

Done. Celebrate. Do something fun.

Sometimes I wish tassels were more fashionable.

We’ve finished. Rather than just getting smashed, take the $20 you were throwing down on your fourth straight night of black-out partying and do something substantial, k?

• Lewis Black will be at the Boston Opera House tonight, May 8th.
• KRS-One at Harper’s Ferry if you would prefer some hip hop.
• The Boston Pops are doing a Bernstein Tribute this weekend.
• You dorks probably want to go to Mac Camp Boston.
• Ozomatli at The Paradise! Badass world fusion stuff.
• Kaiju Big Battel comes to the Roxy.
• Some Blackberry challenge happens at Faneuil Hall Saturday, too.
• Cut Copy, Black Kids and Mobius Band play The Paradise Monday.
• Superman screens as a part of the Coolidge’s Science on Screen series.
• Afrissipi out at Johnny D’s Uptown Tuesday.

Baz Rox

Auteur patty-cake?

Sometimes I feel like I’m too busy with schoolwork to learn. Might sound weird, but there are worlds of stuff that interest me over the course of a day. I would rather be investing my time in any of them rather than waxing pedantic over some who-gives-a-shit essay on the postmodern condition du jour. Luckily, as of 9:45 last night, the semester has come to a close, inspiring that dizzying sense of freedom some call summer.

Earlier this week, in a fit of procrastination, I came across Apple’s new Set to Screen series. The set of podcasts follow Baz Lurhmann and his production team as they work on Australia, his new film starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. The series is exceptionally well produced, providing tons of practical knowledge and insight into the process of creating what appears to be a seriously epic motion picture. If the podcast leaves you salivating, jump over to the curriculum, which integrates lessons and more in-depth exploration of the topics from the podcast.

If somehow, that isn’t enough, there are also contests with some really cool prizes, including a seat on the film’s promotional tour or a trip to Australia to hang out as they work on post for the film. The current contest, at the link above, is a chance to design the movie poster for the film’s Australian release. Apple provides a set of very high resolution images from on-set photographer James Fisher, featured in the photography episode of the series. If you get bored in the next couple days, fire up Photoshop and go nuts, you’ve got nothing to lose.

I hope Apple has wild success with this project, and gets to do it in the future with other productions. Anyone know of any other opportunities like this anywhere on the internet? I’d love to get some links. Post ‘em here if you have any.

Pages x 100

What an internet we have here.

As you famously tech-savvy stoodints know, every Emerson kid gets 250MB of webspace accessible anywhere on their pages folder. What’s that you say? You’re not a New Media major with unlimited web space on the newmedia.emerson server? No problem. File Dropper, a webspace service has apparently completely lost it and is giving a free lifetime account with a whopping 250GB of space to those that sign up before May 15th. Just sign up for the File Dropper special and start dumping files. Keep your giant final projects safe - you’re almost done and we don’t want you to freak out and call the help desk crying. No, we can’t get your footage off of your busted drive or suck your paper on how cool it would be to go drinking with Baudrillard and Jameson out of that damn Porsche LaCie disk. Sorry.

Hype-rdrive

Fact: "I've heard of them" adds nothing to conversation.

I love Pandora. Really. Last.fm is great too. The only beef I have with those types of services is that sometimes I just don’t know what I want to listen to. I’d rather just have someone serve me stuff they really like. I’m a sucker for the curative aspects of music sharing. Mixtapes are laborious, and iTunes playlists aren’t as accessible as I would like them to be. There has to be a better answer somewhere on this big Internet. People all over the wold run music blogs, where they offer up what they like in hopes that you will like it too. The Hype Machine is exactly the type of thing I have been looking for. It aggregates music blogs from all over and presents them in a nifty player using what I can only imagine to be some RSS voodoo.

The search functions are great too. Only want to listen to one band? Search and all of their results pop up. Like a particular blog? Every player links to the relative post on the site that accompanies each piece. The “Most Searched” sections put your finger right on the way- cool pulse of the rest of the music world, positioning your tastes precisely three years ahead of the sad blokes that wait until Pitchfork craps onsomeone’s album before claiming “I heard it wasn’t that great.” Alternately, sometimes people just post old stuff they have just found or feel in the mood to listen to, which oddly enough can be the most refreshing aspect of the whole thing

Hype Machine is a great little Internet tool that just contributes even more to the whole Internet roolz radio droolz ethos. Cept for , WERS and WFMU, ‘acourse.

PS: MGMT is pretty good. Thanks, HypeM

Dammit, Outkast: A Photoshop Tutorial

Fruit of Polaroided labors.

Hey kids, I’ve got some bad news. I don’t mean to rain on your kitsch parade, but a few months ago Polaroid stated that they would no longer be producing film for Polaroid cameras. A few individuals to whom I explained this decision were totally dumbfounded, until it was explained that when a company produces a product that no longer returns on investment, it is discontinued. In our lifetimes we’ve seen the end of life for a ton of lower profile, but much nicer film stocks. You can’t buy any Agfa, Fuji Velvia, or GAF stuff anywhere anymore. It really isn’t a surprise that Polaroid has kicked it.

But never fear! With a little perseverance you can make your own pictures look just like those instant ones. Almost every machine on campus has Photoshop, and you might too if you’re some kind of unscrupulous piratical mofo. A little computer magic can give you the same wack colors and square framing you expect from your terminally ill instant camera.

I’m fairly certain this will work in every version after Photoshop 6 or so. I’m going to err on the side of over explanation, so if your experience in Photoshop is limited, you should be able to follow along with great results. Even if you think you’re a Photoshop god, stick around and I swear I’ll teach you at least one new thing.

Load up your image…

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Lessons from The Magic Kingdom, Part II

You sound like one of the guys on that commentary I watch all the time.

Storytelling Through Animation
2/28, 12:00PM, Max Mutchnick Campus Center Multipurpose Room

Making his directorial debut with 1994’s The Lion King, Roger Allers expanded upon a career as an animator, writer, story supervisor, and storyboard artist. He spoke to an attentive crowd of Emerson students and faculty as a part of the Professional Development Conference.

Allers opened his talk with us urging us to follow that which excites us. Allers had been fascinated with art and animation his entire life. After graduating with a degree in fine art, he decided to travel, notably living in a cave for some time. Always fascinated with animation, he purchased a do-it-yourself animation kit, produced a small bit of work, and came to work at an animation studio in Boston in 1974. Hearing of a professor at Harvard teaching animation, armed with his portfolio and what he called a “mix of determinism and naiveté,” convinced the professor to let him audit the class. This experience sparked an interest in more narrative work.

Leaving Boston behind, he fell into a storyboard position at Disney, where he helped develop ideas for the film Tron. Considering video games barely existed at this point in development for the film, there was a considerable amount of creative elbow room. Storyboard artists would be given script pages, audio samples, artistic renderings, and be required to dissect a scene. “What is interesting or unique here? How are these characters special?” Boarding scenes allows for the first step towards visualizing a story. The actions, the pacing, and the rhythm of a scene can now be extrapolated and understood by other members of the project.

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Lessons from The Magic Kingdom, Part I

Chris Montan wears expensive jeans and wants you to be successful.

Beyond Networking
2/28, 11:00AM, Max Mutchnick Campus Center Multipurpose Room

Chris Montan is currently the president of Walt Disney Music. He’s acted as the Executive Music Producer on just about every significant Disney feature, stage production, or animated release of the last twelve years. His son happens to go to our school, and he was so kind as to bestow some of his most insightful precious stones of knowledge upon us as a part of the very valuable “Professional Development Conference.” What follows is what he had to say.

Entertainment is a hard business to get into, and hard to stay in.

There’s is always some day, some event, some serendipitous moment that acts as your big break. You need to work to improve chances and prepare for that luck. Be ready when your door opens. He was lucky enough to make a huge lateral shift through corporate trees of Disney when Eisner and Katzenberg were reorganizing the company.

Only do things you are perpetually passionate and excited about. Noting the clichés of the statement, he refers to passion as what your friends can see really excites you. For example, Bette Midler has been a long time buddy of his, and as long as he has known her, she approaches every new project with the same excitement as she ever has.

Continually educate yourself in fields that really fascinate you. Give yourself as much information as possible. In college, Montan read all he could about successful singer-songwriters, because that was what he wanted to do with himself. Don’t be the disengaged student that drops out of school their sophomore year when you get bored or realize you’re not doing what you want to do.

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Soapboxery

Photo by Steve Rhodes">

Get on the box and VOTE! Photo by Steve Rhodes

This is the first year of my life I have been eligible to vote in a national presidential election. If you’re under 21, odds are your situation is similar. I’m not trying to pull the MAKES AMERICA GREAT soapboxery — hundreds of millions of people all over this planet have the right to vote. But it is still a right, and more people our age should take advantage of it. I only recently registered, missing out on a few years worth of local and congressional elections. I don’t really have an excuse. It was plenty important, but my flawed rationalizations led me to think that there were better things I could be doing with my time.

Regret sucks! Whoever you end up voting for will be helping to shape legislation that will directly effect your life once you get out of college. That’s some important shit right there. And if that isn’t reason enough, even if your candidate doesn’t win and the country goes to hell, you can declare “Well I voted for [blank]!” and sport the newest NOT MY PRESIDENT t-shirt.

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You’re Up

Hey! Castle-goers! Listen up! I know there are a great many things to do in preparation for your semester-long romp amongst the old countries, but please, humor me a moment. As you gather your things, don’t forget to pack your photographic sensibilities. For the last couple years I have had many a friend and acquaintance hop over to Europa and make sweet love to most of the EU. More often than not, these individuals have wielded shiny, new digital cameras with which to capture the action. These shots would be eagerly siphoned off on to their laptops and repatriated via Facebook. Let’s take a step back and think about these pictures.

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