Documentary!

Though the grant has officially been over for almost a month now, Jaclyn and I have still been hard at work getting everything ready for our conference presentation on the project this coming winter. Among other things we hope to share at the conference, we've produced a brief documentary on the course!



- Cassie

Group Projects

CONFIDENCE | Sophia Atik, Cinthia Chen, Aaron Idelson, & Anais Jurado


FIX | Jane Acker, Gregory Chin, Jenny Zhixin Fang, Josh Eun Youb Lee, & Peter Lee

Independent Projects

OVERTHOUGHT | Jane Acker


SOMEWHERE | Sophia Atik


BUILD A HOME | Aaron Idelson


UNBOUND | Anais Jurado


INCHING CLOSER | Josh Eun Youb Lee


LOOP | Josh Eun Youb Lee


MOSAIC | Peter Lee

Day 14: Last Class

Much of our last class was spent on organizational matters (course evaluations, equipment returns, etc.), but we did make time to hold an informal public screening of the students' final projects. All of the projects were fun to watch yet really different from one another—it was definitely interesting to see just how far everyone had come over the course of just one semester. The audience seemed to really enjoy the films as well, not minding that we went a fair amount over our anticipated run-time.

The goal is to have all the finished projects posted here on the blog, so check back soon to see the results of all the students' hard work this semester!

- Cassie

Day 13: Editing

Our second-to-last class was spent in the editing lab, giving the students time to organize and log all their footage and begin the process of piecing it all together. Collaborative editing has the potential to lead to conflict and disagreement, but both groups were incredibly receptive of all of their members' ideas and did a great job of working together to put together something they could all be excited about.

Though it was an extremely productive class, neither group quite finished, meaning we're in for a bit of a surprise this coming Friday when we watch the final products in class. This screening (which should include the "premiere" of the two group projects as well as some independent projects) is open to anyone in the Tufts community—not just members of the class—so feel free to stop by the dance studio in Jackson at 1:00pm on Friday, April 24, if you want to see what the students have been working on.

More photos of the students hard at work can be found after the jump:

Spring Dance Concert Live Stream

Not able to make it to Tufts for tonight's final performance of the Dance Program's end-of-semester concert but still want to see some student dance films? Well, you're in luck! As part of the Spring Arts Festival at Tufts, tonight's concert will be live streamed—a first for the Dance Program! The show starts at 7:00 (with the live stream becoming available 5-15 minutes beforehand), and the films are the first thing in the program after a brief introduction by Daniel McCusker and Renata Celichowska. (However, the remainder of the concert, which showcases the work of a lot of talented student dancers and choreographers, is definitely worth sticking around for.)

For more information on how to tune into tonight's live stream, click here! Or better yet, come see it in person tonight at 7:00pm in the Jackson Dance Lab at 50 Talbot Ave, Medford, MA—tickets are only $5.

- Cassie

Student Films at the Spring Dance Concert

The Tufts University Department of Drama & Dance's Spring Dance Concert is this weekend! In addition to showcasing work from the department's Dance Repertory & Performance class (which, this semester, was led by Dance on Camera instructor Jaclyn Waguespack) and graduating dance minors, there will also be a showing of some of the Dance on Camera students' independent projects:

• Overthought by Jane Acker
• Somewhere by Sophia Atik
• Wrecked, Solitary, Here by Cassie Burns
• Build a Home by Aaron Idelson
• Unbound by Anais Jurado
• Inching Closer by Josh Lee

Tickets are on sale now for $5 each in the Balch Arena Box Office at Tufts. For more information, check out the Facebook event page.

- Cassie

Day 12: On Location

Our most recent class was yet another work day for the students' final group projects. This time, I followed the other group to the Mystic River Reservation, where they were filming their project. The location was beautiful and the group worked wonderfully together, getting most (if not all) of the footage they needed in just one day. This means that next week, it's off to the editing lab!

In order to avoid spoiling their project too much, I'm only including two short clips from their shoot, both of which can be found after the jump:

Day 11: On Location

Now that the screening is over and independent projects have been submitted, the students have been able to focus all of their energy into creating their final group projects. This meant that all of last Friday was once again spent on location. While one group headed off campus to do some filming by the Mystic River, the other group stayed here at Tufts to explore some of the possibilities offered by using the library roof as their primary location in preparation for working with their dancers next week.

Some pictures and footage of their exploration can be found after the jump:

Augmented Reality at the Screening

Augmented reality was practically unavoidable at the dance on camera screening we hosted. In addition to hanging up some of the promotional materials we made which doubled as AR triggers, we also set up an exhibit entirely dedicated to showcasing student work through AR. Plus, every image in our program was an AR trigger. We made sure to have our students bring their iPads so that they could show people how it worked as they were arriving before directing them to our exhibit up on the balcony for more.

If you haven't already, be sure to download the dancetechAR app on your smart device so that you can scan all of our trigger images (program included) after the jump!

Dance on Camera Tour Film Screening at Tufts

The dance on camera screening we hosted was a huge success! We had a great turnout and everything went off without a hitch. In addition to the screening itself, we had an augmented reality exhibit, a video booth (like a photo booth but videodance-ified), a display of projects done by former Dance on Camera students, and a table full of homemade Korean food. It was a lot of hard work to pull off but totally worth every second of it, and we hope everyone who came had as much fun as we did.

Some of the students documented the event on their cameras, so hopefully we'll have some of their pictures and videos to share here soon. Until then, you can check out some of the pictures I took on my cellphone after the jump:

Day 10: Creating & Filming Site-Specific Dances with Rachel Boggia

On Friday, we were visited by guest artist and screening panelist Rachel Boggia, who took us back to the squash courts for a lesson on creating and filming site-specific dances. As I spent the entirety of the class throwing myself against a wall dancing for the student filmmakers, I unfortunately don't have any videos from this awesome class yet. The students, however, ended up with some really great footage that hopefully they'll be willing to share here in the near future. (Their first independent projects are due this week, so I don't want to bug them for their footage, but trust me—the stuff they got is amazing!)

- Cassie

Screening Promo

Check out this promo video for our screening on the 27th—aka, A WEEK FROM TOMORROW! We've been working crazy-hard to make this event as awesome as possible, so get excited!



- Cassie

Day 9: On Location

The students spent their last class before spring break scouting out locations for their final projects. Despite originally setting off in groups to different places around campus, everyone eventually made their way to the squash courts, where they spent the rest of the class experimenting with how they could create interesting shots in that particular space.

Check out some videos of what the class did after the jump:

Day 8: Planning, Planning, Planning!

This past Friday was a big-time planning day: planning for the screening we're hosting in a few weeks, planning for the final collaborative group projects they'll be working on, planning out the remainder of our classes for the semester—two and a half hours of brainstorming, organizing, list-making, and calendar-syncing. It may not be that interesting to an outsider (not that that stopped me from taking a few pictures...), but we've got a lot of exciting stuff in the works that we can't wait to share!

A few more pictures of everyone hard at work can be found after the jump:

The Dance on Camera Tour is Coming to Tufts!

We're hosting a screening! On March 27, 2015, we will be hosting our very own dance on camera screening on the Tufts campus. Most of what we will be showing will be shorts from the Dance on Camera Film Festival we attended in NYC as part of the Dance Films Association's Dance on Camera Tour; however, we will also be showing a few additional works by our guest artist-panelists Rachel Boggia, Ana Isabel Keilson, Daphna Mero, Paul Sarvis, and Marlon Barrios Solano. We hope to be able to showcase some student work as well. Additionally, all of our promotional materials double as AR trigger images! That means that if you scan any of our postcards or fliers with the dancetechAR app, you'll be able to watch a short dance video made by someone in the class. (More detailed instructions on that can be found here.)

More information on the screening, more images to scan with the dancetechAR app, and a video demo of the AR functionalities of our promotional materials can all be found after the jump:

Day 7: Introduction to Adobe Premiere Pro

After weeks of dancing and filming, we took to the computer lab to start learning about how to edit some of the footage we'd gathered so far. The students were instructed to come to class with five clips of anything they'd shot so far already picked out ahead of time so that they could practice composing them in Premiere. What happens when you order them A B C D E? What about A B A C A D A E A? A B C D E E E E E? And so on. From there they were free to do whatever they wanted with their footage.

Check out what some of the students put together after the jump!

Day 6: Augmented Reality with Marlon Barrios Solano

This past Friday, we were visited by guest artist Marlon Barrios Solano of dance-tech.tv who taught a class on augmented reality and how it can be applied to dance, giving us an opportunity to look at something within the intersection of dance and technology besides screen dance. After a group discussion, some improvisation exercises, and watching a few examples of dance-related AR (found here, here, and here), we got to create our own little AR project, which can be seen by scanning the image below with a smart phone or tablet using dance-tech.tv's AR app.

More detailed instructions for viewing our "project" can be found after the jump:

Days 3-5: Equipment Experimentation

Thanks to the Tufts Innovates! grant we received, we've been able to purchase some really cool film-making equipment: a Cinetics CineMoco Slider System, a Cinetics CineSkate System, 3 GlideCam XR-2000's, and a Lowel DV Creator Lighting Kit. We've spent the past three weeks learning how these things work and exploring ways in which they can be used to create interesting shots for our video dance projects.

We especially enjoyed playing with the lighting kit this past Friday. (And then when two out of the three bulbs burned out, we made do with iPhone flashlights and the projector built into the classroom we had taken over.)




Check out some pictures as well as the mini-project that evolved over the course of the class after the break:

NYC Part 2

In addition to watching the work of the professionals at the 2015 Dance on Camera Film Festival in NYC, we also made some time to create some dance videos of our own while in the city. Sunday morning, index cards with "assignments" such as filming a duet with a street sign or finding pigeons and letting them be your dancers were randomly passed out to members of the class (as well as some Dance on Camera alumni who joined us on our trip); we then set off to explore the city and complete everyone's projects.

Though not required, some students even went so far as to edit the footage they gathered:




Check out some of the unedited footage captured by the class after the jump:

New York City!

Last weekend, we were fortunate enough to be able to travel to New York City for the 2015 Dance on Camera Film Festival at Lincoln Center! The festival itself was amazing; we were able to attend three screenings—The Shorts Program, Dancing is Living: Benjamin Millepied with Little Opera, and Capturing Grace with Renewal—as well as meet some of the filmmakers such as Danielle Kipnis ("Tagged") and Daphna Mero ("Washed"). It was a busy weekend, but we did find some time to explore the city and do some filming of our own. A second post with some of the footage the students captured after being inspired by work shown at the festival is forthcoming; until then, check out some of the pictures from our trip after the jump!

Get to Know Your TA

Hi all, Cassie here! I just finished up undergrad at Tufts this past semester, set to officially graduate in February with a major in mathematics and a minor in dance. Right now, I'm applying to MFA programs in dance, where I hope to keep making work in the field of dance on camera.

I was in the first Dance on Camera class last spring with Jaclyn and am so excited to be helping out with this year's class! This past Friday, some people mentioned that they were interested in seeing some of the projects made by last year's class, so I promised I'd post some of my work here. A lot of my work is posted on my personal YouTube channel, which can be found here. However, some of my favorite projects can be found after the jump:

Day 2: Camera Distribution

 
Thanks to the Tufts Innovates! grant we were awarded, each of the students in the class get a Canon Rebel EOS T5i DSLR camera to use for the semester. This past Friday, Marc Raila and Michael Callahan of the Tufts Digital Design Studio & Media Center came to class to teach us how to use these new cameras.

Check out some pictures of everyone as they learn how to use their new cameras after the jump:

Day 1: Welcome to DNC92.03!

Hi all, and welcome to the blog for Tufts University's spring 2015 Dance on Camera class! We're incredibly fortunate to have been awarded a Tufts Innovates! grant to aid in our work in the course this semester, and as a result, we have a lot of fun stuff in store for the coming weeks. We'll be using this space to post updates on our progress with the course, student work, and finished projects.

After going over the syllabus, watching some examples of video dance, and playing a game to get everyone thinking about framing and composition, we spent the rest of class dancing and experimenting with our new cameras. After learning a short phrase from yours truly, the class was split into two groups to take turns dancing and filming:



Check out footage captured by the students after the jump: