In the Summer of 2010 I led fourth semester motion design students at the Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule in an Analog Motion Graphics assignment to visualize a series of haiku poems.
The 21 poems were written and recited by Branden Dashiell – a wonderful poet and old friend from college – who put a contemporary twist on traditional themes of seasons and days of the week. The students were challenged to find different techniques to interpret the poems. Approaches included the capillary action of coffee spreading through a paper towel, elaborate paper cut-outs, plexiglas manipulation of raw meat, as well as capturing the reflections from various different shiny surfaces. The final results are a colorful mixture of very abstract and more illustrative work.

The poet Brandon Dashiell.

During the Winter semester 2009/2010 I led a class of 23 fourth semester motion design students at the Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule in an Analog Motion Graphics assignment to collaboratively re-create a vintage drive-in movie theater intermission film. The original intermission film was obtained from the Internet Archive. I transcribed the audio track into an eleven page screenplay which, together with the audio, was used as the basis of the assignment. Students were not shown the original film until the end of the semester at the final presentation.

Using the audio and text as a guide, each group of students pitched concepts for their favorite of the 25 different clips in the film and created approximately 60 seconds of material using Analog Motion techniques. Students often spoofed the informational/commercial messages in the film, offering a critical and at times farcical update to the dated language and cultural assumptions from the 1960s-era film.