SF student Muriel Akamatsu said she was intrigued when representatives of the Hippodrome State Theatre and GoGreenNation.org visited her Interactive Media Production class, taught by Wesley Lindberg, requesting promotional assistance for the Gainesville Environmental Film and Arts Festival.
The festival, planned for March 19-28, will celebrate all aspects of environmental preservation efforts through film, art, poetry, workshops and networking.
“As I reviewed the information provided by the organizers, I realized that a 30-second clip was sorely needed-and soon!,” said Akamatsu, a nontraditional student who holds an Ed.D. from West Virginia University, an MA from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and a BA from the University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences.
She drafted a document with a timeline to which the Digital Media faculty and the festival organizers agreed, and within a week she was scripting and shooting video.
“The process was a wonderful learning experience,” Akamatsu said. “I produced several approaches to the promotion, which the class critiqued. Then, as I was working on my farm, a bold robin looked me in the eye before it flew off. I stopped, took a deep breath, and thought how very wonderful nature can be. I drafted a completely new script with nature as the focus.”
Lindberg and Prof. Bonita Dewiliby, along with Jorge Ibanez, Coordinator of the Digital Media Technology program, reviewed the “nature” version. After incorporating their suggestions, Akamatsu loaded her video onto YouTube and the final refinements began.
Since festival organizers decided to honor the memory of the late local nature photographer, Dominick Martino, Akamatsu swapped out some of her video footage for his beautiful nature images.
You can visit the festival’s new website for details at www.GEFAF.org.
You can see some of Akamatsu’s work at www.drAKAMATSU.com.
And, of course, you can learn more about the IMP program online.
“What’s so great about coming back into graphic design after the R&R days — rapidograf pens and rubber cement — is the pure magic of the digital world! ,” enthused Akamatsu. “The entire creative process was digital — the video, the images, the film-editing and rendering, communications by e-mail and final file-transfer of the completed movies.”