Cogswell College, a leading educational institution offering a unique curriculum fusing Digital Art, Engineering and Entrepreneurship, is marking the one-year anniversary of its highly successful MediaWorks initiative. MediaWorks is a project-based learning course in Cogswell's Digital Audio Technology (DAT) program. MediaWorks produces short audiovisual pieces in collaboration with students of the Digital Art & Animation (DAA) program, for various real-world businesses and organizations based in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Since its launch in Summer 2013, MediaWorks students have developed nine audiovisual pieces, including logo animations, branding pieces, promotional videos, PSAs, and other corporate communications media for a number of companies and organizations. Completed projects to date include: a product presentation film for Panasonic; original sound design for a Panasonic product; a PR/communication film for ALearn, a nonprofit organization committed to helping underrepresented students succeed in college; a corporate logo film for Argus Insights, a company that collects consumer data to reveal consumer trends for corporate decision makers, and a promotional video for Redux Labs of Great Britain, a company that develops cutting edge technology that enables high-resolution speaker-less audio in flat surfaces. MediaWorks students have also created a logo film for Cogswell College, and in-house agency logo animations for the MediaWorks program itself.
To view some of the MediaWorks films, please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63-PF8_ATVE&list=PLhlhi9QR57AOj19spHyAW-cjpg8n51uvG
"Cogswell's MediaWorks students created a very powerful minute," says Kathryn Hanson, CEO and co-founder of ALearn. "With only 46 percent of California students qualified to enter the university system, this production dramatically illustrated the problem we have with education in California, and how ALearn works to address the challenges that minority youth face."
Celebrating the first anniversary of this initiative, Julius Dobos, Distinguished Lecturer and Audio & Music Director for Cogswell MediaWorks, said: "We are very proud of our MediaWorks program, which provides a 'real-life client' working experience to a diverse group of students. These students take part in the entire process, from the first client meeting, through formulating a creative brief and concepts, pitching, production and revisions, to the final delivery – all under tight deadlines. The concept is really the best of both worlds: students with advanced skills gain experience by creating original music & original sound design for visuals made from scratch to satisfy established businesses' actual needs in highly creative ways at, or above, industry-standard quality. It's a unique, 21st Century educational experience. It's also a professional service MediaWorks provides at a fraction of the cost that a real-world business would pay to any full-service production company."
Dobos is a composer, music, and audio production professional, with 20 years of industry experience. He injects his knowledge and passion into every project by working closely with his MediaWorks students.
Anthony Dias, Instructor of Digital Audio Technology and Visual Director for Cogswell MediaWorks, adds: "The production quality that the MediaWorks visual team has achieved is staggering- especially when you consider the time constraints. Our students have already completed nine portfolio-ready pieces. These are available for them to showcase their areas of skill – from Storyboarding to Animation, Live Action, VFX, Compositing, and all other areas of CGI. On each of these projects, the MediaWorks visual team has delivered a final product in a professional manner, time and time again. One of my biggest challenges has been to rein in the intense creativity of my students in order to maintain an appropriate scope relative to our deadlines. We have benefited tremendously from interacting with real clients and collaborating with our Audio counterparts. These are real-world activities that most other students never have a chance to experience until after they have graduated. The MediaWorks program gives our students a real leg-up in this competitive and dynamic industry."
Dias is a Cogswell alumnus himself, with professional experience in music & audio production, team building, multicultural markets, broadcast advertising, video production and video post-production.
Completed films produced by MediaWorks are available to students for immediate use in their portfolios – content that gives Cogswell graduates an enormous advantage in their employment search. Currently, MediaWorks is producing audiovisual pieces for a Prairie Rainbow Company / Cogswell Game Studio joint venture, and for Bookshare, a Benetech Global Literacy initiative, the world's largest online accessible library of copyrighted content for people with print disabilities. The initiative includes over 300,000 members worldwide.
Cogswell College is open to inquiries from corporations with a need for audiovisual media, and the desire to support education in mutually beneficial ways.
About THE COGSWELL COLLEGE MEDIAWORKS INITIATIVE
The project-based, collaborative environment of MediaWorks offers its students a production experience that mirrors the pipelines of the film and advertising industries, and includes industry related decision-making, challenges and problem solving scenarios. Producing audiovisual media for real-life clients, MediaWorks students complete a full production cycle, from concept to delivery, in a deadline-driven production environment, under the guidance of industry professionals. The professional quality logo, promotional or corporate communication pieces which are produced by these students include custom sound design, original music, animation and/or live action footage. MediaWorks clients to date have included Panasonic, Redux (GB), Argus Insights, ALearn, Benetech, and others. For more information, please visit: http://www.cogswell.edu/student-work/mediaworks.php.
About COGSWELL COLLEGE
Designed as a "fiercely collaborative, living laboratory," Cogswell College is located in the heart of the legendary Silicon Valley in Sunnyvale, California. The school is a WASC accredited, four-year institution of higher education with a specialized curriculum that fuses digital arts, audio technology, game design, engineering and entrepreneurship.
With a distinguished history of more than 125 years, Cogswell's unique academic approach prepares students to move quickly into the converging global digital media industries, as well as into professions that are changing almost daily. Cogswell students are exposed to a collaborative, project-based, learning experience which integrates multi-disciplinary teams to take original projects from concept to production to implementation.
Numerous alumni of Cogswell College have secured prominent positions within the entertainment, videogame, technology, computer, animation, and motion graphics industries throughout California and beyond. Several of these alumni have established careers with such high profile companies as Activision, DreamWorks Animation, Disney, Electronic Arts, Pixar, and Microsoft Game Studio. Many other alumni have launched their own creative ventures.
Recent Cogswell alumi were members of the Academy Award®-winning production teams which worked on the blockbuster films "Frozen" and "Life of Pi." Some of the other well-known consumer projects to which Cogswell alumni have contributed include the feature films "Madagascar," and "The Avengers," and the popular videogames "Modern Warfare 3," "Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" and," Gears of War 3." Additionally, animated short films conceived and produced by Cogswell students have gone on to win prestigious awards, including those presented by the California International Animation Festival, the Colorado Film Festival, the Oregon Film Festival, the Miami Film Festival, the Philadelphia Film & Animation Festival, the San Jose Short Film Festival, and Canada's International Film Festival.
Cogswell College is located at 1175 Bordeaux Drive, Sunnyvale, California, 94089. For more information, please call 1-800-264-7955 or visit: http://www.cogswell.edu/
