News

A lot has changed in the decade since The Cleveland Institute of Art first established its digital arts major, T.I.M.E.-Digital Arts (for technology and integrated media environment).

Among the most compelling developments has been the extraordinary growth in career opportunities in animation, game design, and video. In response, CIA’s Integrated Media faculty spent more than two years developing a detailed plan to create new majors in each of these areas.

In May the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, one of the Institute’s key accrediting bodies, approved this plan for the three new majors. The first students will enter these majors in fall 2011.

“These new majors draw on the current strengths of our faculty and our facilities to offer students new options in the areas of animation, game design, and video which are in line with contemporary developments in digital arts,” said Associate Professor Kristen Baumlier, chair of Integrated Media at CIA.

Highlights of the new majors

The animation BFA will focus on areas such as character design, the study of 2D/3D computer animation, stop-motion animation, acting, choreography, motion-capture mechanics, lighting, texture mapping, background plate and set creation, rendering methodologies, voice recording, and video and sound design. Students will also be able to work with CIA’s new motion capture system, which will be accessible this fall.

Students majoring in game design will work with innovative production processes including 3D modeling, animation, programming, visual design, audio, interactive storytelling, and game production while exploring theory, criticism, and contexts of videogame culture and digital media.

Video majors will focus on using the entire linear media production pipeline, including using digitally-based art and design strategies, storyboarding, sequencing, concept mapping, acting, pre-production, and post-production. The curriculum will provide historical context to film and will explore the cultural and social effects of video and digital media. In addition, video majors will enjoy using CIA’s new 40-seat, HD, surround-sound screening room, which will be named in honor of Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel.

The T.I.M.E.-Digital Arts major will remain an option for students, as a more interdisciplinary and less specialized approach to time-based media.

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Image: Teresa Crockett ’10 and Technical Assistant Jeff Mancinetti ’09 test the green screen setup for a video shoot for her T.I.M.E.-Digital Arts BFA project, “Medianoia.”