An exciting collaboration is underway this semester between students from Honolulu Community College’s Music & Entertainment Learning Experience (MELE) and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Academy for Creative Media (ACM) programs.
ACM animation students in the ACM 420 Animation Production II course are working in two groups to create two separate short, animated films that will be completed by the end of the fall semester. The students plan to submit their films to festivals including the spring ACM showcase and the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival. The films will also be useful material for the students’ demo reels, which is a necessary component for future employment and/or graduate school applications.
The first film, Poked, is about a pokey aloe plant displayed at a flower shop that struggles between keeping himself unblemished and befriending his neighbor, an extra spiky cactus, only to discover that there is more than one way to get sold.
The second film, Midnight Showing, is a wacky animated horror film about Angel, an utterly exhausted movie theater usher eager to close up early, when a spooky, movie-loving phantom arrives to torment him.
MELE students in the MELE 211 Audio Engineering 1 course recorded the actors’ voice over dialog for both animation projects in MELE‘s state-of-the-art recording studio facilities.
Students are contributing their areas of expertise to the projects, which gives them the experience of working with others in a professional setting. The MELE program is the only one in the state that offers associate of science degrees in music business or audio engineering technology.
“This was an amazing opportunity to experience a legit sound booth with sound engineers and gave me a chance to direct an actor,” said ACM animation student Tiffany Ganti.
“Having a session that closely mimics a real one with a client made me realize I am not just learning to be in the audio recording business but the people business too,” said MELE audio engineering student Timothy Manamtam.
