THE DIGITAL ARTS

Learning to Communicate through the Still Image (in Action)

Joe Citta

[Ed: Links to web pages and/or e-mail addresses which have become inactive since the publication of this article have been enclosed in curly brackets { }. Replacement links have been provided where possible.]

Visual Communication in the Image is the name of a pilot course in the Undergraduate Department of Film, Television, and Radio (TSOA) that was first offered in the spring of 1996, the first entry into the digital arts for freshmen in the department. Laura Clemons and I each taught one section.

Judging by the work produced by the students, the course has made a successful start. Since this is a pilot course, student feedback helps the instructors reshape the syllabus. Another section will be added this fall, and follow-up courses are also being considered so that students can continue exploring digital media in their storytelling.

The course will enable beginning film students to delve into communicating ideas, information, and stories through the image, which is basic to all filmmaking. Students in the class use the Macintosh computer and Adobe Photoshop along with other software applications to manipulate images. Macromedia Director is used to present their images. Sound editing software such as Macromedia SoundEdit16 is used as well. Students are encouraged to explore and "play" with their images, using the software. Though this is not a film-making course, some use the assignments to fashion opening credits and other sequences they will use later in films. The students are required to maintain a journal of their work, to use flow charts, and to storyboard their ideas. Using digital technology, students are offered a greater flexibility in image manipulation while learning the traditional framing, sequencing, lighting, and shot-making associated with traditional use of the still camera.

The pictures on this page are a sampling of student work from my section this spring. The class has its own Web page, where you can view contributions from each student: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/citta/tsoa/visual .

The apartment piece is a very ambitious interactive work by Jon Magel and Ravi Nandah, in which the user can explore an apartment by clicking with a mouse on menu items, pictures, or areas on a floor plan, and can view the room's interiors using QuickTime VR -- a technology that allows the user to view the environment in 360 degrees, as if standing in the middle of the room and looking around. (For more about QTVR, see Johannes Lang's article on QTVR.) The long strip below is a "stitched" photograph that is used to create the Quicktime VR movie.

Jon Chin has put together a collage of strongly colored video sequences; the user can create his own computer art by using the mouse to drag the smaller movie screen around the larger monitor screen, leaving a trail of superimposed images behind -- almost like finger-painting with a QuickTime movie.

I am very excited about the use of NYU Web in instruction; this fall I plan to use it even more as a teaching tool. The syllabus, weekly assignments, some tutorials, and other tools will be available on the Web for student use. The class page will also serve as a place where students can display their work to the rest of the world. [ C ]

Joe Citta, a PhD candidate in the Department of Educational Communication and Technology (SEd), teaches in the Undergraduate Department of Film & TV (TSOA), teaches and coordinates in the Multimedia Program (SCE), and works at the ACF as Senior Computer Lab Technician.
{joseph.citta@nyu.edu}

Posted 2 October 1996; last revised 26 January 2004.