Green Hippo Week at Backstage Academy
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Therefore, when the Academy decided to hold a dedicated Green Hippo Week recently, in which 10 first year students and six second year students participated, the manufacturer provided maximum support by sending senior product specialist, Lanz Short, along for the duration.
Under the tutelage of him, and Backstage Academy’s course leader in Live Visual Design & Production, Graham Thorne, the students were tasked with producing a project - a show, performance or event - resourced with all the ingredients that they might have expected in a Masterchef kitchen.
These ranged from Notch, Maya and Isadora software platforms, while in the hardware domain Hippotizers, Avo lighting controllers, MIDI controllers, Blackmagic 3-camera set-up (for recording and live streaming) even Kinect sensors were all on offer to enhance the experience.
Explaining the programme, Graham Thorne said the experience was largely classroom based and project focused. “We put the students in Studio C, gave them an overview, along with three options and then just said ‘go’. We wanted to be able to see their process and encouraged them to make mistakes; for instance, some were plugging in lights before creating a mood board.
“At the same time I wanted to invite a rep from Green Hippo for two days but in the end we were privileged to have Lanz for the entire week.”
And the Green Hippo man was certainly impressed, particularly with how adventurous some of the creations were. “It is clear that Backstage Academy is producing pro technicians that will hit the ground running by the time they graduate,” he stated at the end of the experience.
(Jim Evans)
