Tell engaging stories by creating 2D and 3D animation, VR videos, digital music, video games, and professional-quality movies. (See BOLDC for more information).All courses that count for this module are typically offered at Behrend every semester unless specified.
Here are a few of minors that relate to sound and motion:
Communications,Arts and Mass Media
Media Production
Marketing
Basic Video/Filmmaking (3) COMM 242 is an introductory course that emphasizes the development of creative expression and technical skills in digital film production. Students will explore modes of moving image representation through screenings, lectures, discussions, and especially through hands-on digital filmmaking. Students are required to construct projects that have both clear intentions and technically competent execution.
The work of the course will facilitate the development of basic skills in image design, editing, and writing as they apply to single camera techniques for documentary, narrative, and experimental film modes. The course will also provide a basic cultural and historical context for the various production modes, and students will be encouraged to consider their own projects in relation to the work of other video and film artists.
Creative collaboration and group critique are essential elements of the course. Students will be required to produce some collaborative projects, and to respond critically to the work of the other students in the course. Students will make projects using digital film cameras, microphones, portable lighting, and nonlinear editing stations.
*Course offered in Fa. semesters
Prerequisite:COMM 150
COMM 481 Advanced Multimedia Production (3) focuses on advanced work in multimedia production using web authoring, video editing, audio editing, image editing and animation software. This course builds on the foundations of multimedia production developed in COMM 270 giving students the opportunities to create multimedia website projects.
Students will apply advanced multimedia concepts and techniques to website production and demonstrate versatility in multimedia software. Working individually and in teams, students will develop projects for clients using multimedia software, including web authoring, video editing, audio editing, image editing and animation software. These projects will be uploaded to the World Wide Web, and will serve as portfolio materials for the students. This course emphasizes skills development in multimedia and visual media in
support of program objective to help students develop cross-media skills and versatility in media.
*Consult with your advisor about when this course is offered
Select one of the following prerequisites:
COMM 270(Course typically offered in the Sp. semesters)
COMM 242
This course teaches procedural animation, applying algorithms within animation software to
simulate physics realistically and control how polygonal forms are animated over factors of time.
*Course counts towards GN and GA
*Will be offered starting Sp. 2025.
*Previously taught as Digit 297 Special Topics:Animation
Students will develop 3d digital creation skills in relation to their field(s) of study. DIGIT 409: Advanced Digital Creations is a problem-based learning class that uses the digital media concepts and tools introduced in Art 168 to develop an in-depth understanding of 3d digital art. They will enhance their creative and philosophical sensibilities in the technology, software, and media relevant to the field(s) of study they are pursuing. Through a series of learning problems, students will synthesize advanced skills and knowledge needed to accomplish techniques used in the creation of digital 3d imagery.
They will integrate 3d sculpting, modeling, animation, and/or painting practices with computer-based image processing for creative, and professionally oriented results. They will develop critical and conceptual sensibilities needed to discuss and
evaluate their work and the work of others using these methods. Students will identify, research, and analyze effective professional and creative practices in the field of digital creativity with emphasis on developing skillful digital processing techniques. These practices include creating mockups of concepts, art-making practices for enhanced digital workflow, and choosing the 3d processing techniques most appropriate for the end-use of the work.
The digital medium has a relatively short history, however, as the advancement of digital technology continues these techniques have entered the popular mainstream. This shift has raised challenges in graphic-reliant fields such as the arts, engineering, advertising, simulation, and gaming. This course will give students of these fields the opportunity to develop their artistic skills further than possible in Art 168. Students will analyze and assess the factors related to their fields in in order to make sound design
decisions.
*Counts toward supporting 400-level requirement
*Course offered during Sp. semesters
Prerequisite:Art 168(Course offered during Fa. and Sp. semesters)
GD 100 Introduction to Graphic Design (3) (GA) is a beginning level graphic design course. Instruction touches on the practice, history, theories, and analysis of the design industry. This course places emphasis on problem solving and observing design, while developing intuition and creativity.
Projects focus on the process of defining the parameters of a design problem, observing examples within the design industry, and critically evaluating examples of effective and ineffective design.The course will help students to: 1. Understand the graphic design industry and the responsibilities of the profession. 2. Develop an appreciation for the practice of design. 3.
Begin to develop the ability to define and solve problems. 4. Increase their knowledge of the history of graphic design and typography. 5. Refine their conceptual skills. 6. Learn and understand the vernacular of the industry.
Students will be quizzed on terminology and important facts provided in the readings.
*Course offered during Fa. and Sp. semesters
INART 050 The Science of Music (3) (GN)(BA) teaches: waves, physics of sound, hearing, musical scales, musical instruments, and room acoustics. This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course explores the physical and acoustical bases of sound and music.The physics include a study of vibrating systems and simple harmonic motion, wave propagation, reflection and refraction, superposition, resonant frequencies, harmonics, phase, the relationship of speed and velocity, and spectra. The acoustics portion applies these physical properties to hearing, sound and music, covering the nature of the human auditory system, and correlations of pitch to frequency, loudness to amplitude/power/intensity, timbre to spectra and envelope. An overview of perceptual psychological studies of Gestalt organizational principles and auditory streaming explores how the auditory
system organizes sound on a primitive, unlearned level.
NOTE: there is no math prerequisite for the course. Although high school algebra and trigonometry will be recommended, these topics will be integrated with the rest of the course material. With physical and physiological groundwork laid, the subject matter movea to purely musical areas: the construction of musical scales, the nature of consonance, dissonance, and harmony. Twelve-tone equal temperament, the basis of Western common practice music, is not an absolute, but a decision made to facilitate certain musical choices, and a compromise in terms of optimal consonance.
The nature of the different instruments is then discussed - strings, winds, brass, percussion, and voice. Different instruments naturally produce different scale types and different types of spectra. Students will learn to appreciate the inherent differences in different instrument types. The course then returns to acoustics,
exploring the role that performance spaces play in the propagation and reception of sound. The shape and materials of a room determine its characteristic sound.
Students learn about how sound in large auditoriums is characterized by the balance of direct and reflected sound, the distinction between specular and diffuse reflections, the absorptive properties of different building materials, and the nature of reverberation. Smaller performance spaces are subject to standing waves, flutter echo, and comb filtering.
Taking steps to avoid undesirable characteristics is often an easy matter once the nature of these characteristics is understood. The final weeks cover audio technology and the distinctions between analog and digital formats.
*Course counts toward GN requirement
*Course offered in the Fa. semesters
An introduction to the theory, design and creation of musical animations.
*Course offered in the Sp. semesters
INART 258A Fundamentals of Digital Audio (3) (GA)(BA) provides thorough introduction to digital music production technologies, covering fundamentals of how digital musical information is stored, processed and transmitted.
A thorough introduction to digital music production technologies, covering the fundamentals of how musical information is stored and transmitted in digital devices. This course is meant for people who are passionate about working with sound, and who are willing to take on new technical and creative challenges in audio production.
It is the pre-requisite for many more advanced courses in music technology and audio production. Students complete a series of low-stakes audio exercises on fundamental operations, a series of written responses to questions on the underlying theory of digital audio, and a small number of extended creative projects. The software used is at the level of professional audio production workstations. Students complete the course with a set of vocational skills in computer music and audio.
*Course offered in the Fa. and Sp. semesters
MUSIC 8 Rudiments of Music (3) (GA)(BA) is an introduction to the elements of music such as:notation,scales,meter,rhythm,intervals;basic chord structure and cadences. Learning the rudiments of music can be compared to the learning of a language. Students must learn to hear melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic patterns (audiation) before they sing, play or write in notation.
In this introductory class, students are introduced to melodic, harmonic and rhythmic patterns by imitating the instructor who establishes these patterns at the piano, or by singing or as in the case of rhythm by striking a drum head. Eventually students will take turns "tossing" these patterns to teach other. Basic skills of improvisation can also be taught at this level of audiation by having students expand upon the basic patterns.
As a result of these creative and aesthetic experiences, students will be able to translate the audiation of patterns into musical notation - moving from the smallest unit of a rhythmic motive towards the creation of a coherent rhythmic phrase. Similarly, at the melodic level, the student will begin with intervallic patterns and move towards the creation of a coherent melodic phrase. Intervals are then combined vertically to form harmonies.
At the next stage of learning, students will learn to identify and to write that which they are hearing in dictation. This course in "musical literacy" enables students: (1) to deepen their appreciation of music (2) to begin studying a musical instrument and (3) to enter the rigorous study of music theory required of music majors.
*Course offered in the Fa. and Sp. semesters
MUSIC 458 Electronic Music Composition (3)(BA) provides an introduction to the art of composition in the electronic audio medium. This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements.
Music 458 will focus on the creative craft of musical composition in the medium of electronic audio. Topics covered will include but not be limited to: recording, MIDI and digital audio techniques, study of literature and the investigation of the creative process in musical composition.
Students are expected to enter the class with strong fundamentals in both music theory and MIDI and digital audio. The student will be expected to complete several projects that demonstrate both their creativity and their technical competence in the medium.
*Counts toward supporting 400-level requirement
*Consult with your advisor about when this course is offered
Prerequisite:INART 258A