
The University of New Mexico
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Carolyn Gonzales 277-5920; cgonzal@unm.edu
Nov. 8, 2006
Architecture, Film + Digital Media Focus of UNM SymposiumThe University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning presents a symposium, “Architecture, Film + Digital Media,” Friday, Nov. 10, in Student Union Building Ballroom A. The event kicks off with a 5 p.m. reception. The symposium starts at 5:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
The ARTS Lab, an interdisciplinary center for developing creative relationships connecting art, science, business and technology in New Mexico, is co-sponsor of the symposium.
The idea for the symposium grew out of an observation Geraldine Isais Forbes, director of UNM's architecture program, had while working at Woodbury University in California. She saw many architecture students either working full time or part time in the film industry as art directors, set designers, animators or screenwriters.
Forbes said that efforts in New Mexico and Albuquerque to develop film industries are the impetus behind the symposium, which will expose architects and architecture students to these career possibilities. The symposium brings in five national experts - individuals trained as architects - who work in the film industry.
Forbes said that architects are trained to design both internal and external environments. “Architects develop visualization skills and are trained to understand the digital environment. They know the software and can visualize digitally for animation. Studios identify the best and brightest students to work for them and they make perfect transplants into the film industry,” she said.
Architects also use narrative to understand and design a project, the same storyboard technique used in film, she said.
An interdisciplinary degree in film and digital media is being developed at UNM in the College of Fine Arts with many other UNM schools and colleges included. In the spring, a course in architecture and film will be taught.
“Additionally, we will start a film series to look at how film as a medium uses architecture to create an environment,” Forbes said.
The symposium is part of the school's John Gaw Meem Lecture Series and was subsidized by the Ron Hutchinson Memorial Lecture Fund. For more information on the symposium, call Tim Castillo, 277-1063 or email timc@unm.edu .
The symposium features the following individuals:
Michael Selditch, producer, writer, director, creator and/or showrunner on numerous documentary, talk and reality television shows for MTV, FX, Bravo, Logo, Lifetime, MSNBC, Discovery and TLC. As producer, he was nominated for a primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Reality Programming in 2001 for Trauma: Life in the ER. Selditch recently directed and produced the documentary, Project Jay, on fashion designer Jay McCarroll, winner of Project Runway, for Bravo. He is also a recurring director on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. His award-winning feature film directorial debut, Fixing Frank, has enjoyed a successful theatrical run in selected cities, and has aired internationally on television in 2005.
Carlos Barbosa is a graduate of the Tulane School of Architecture. His career as a production designer for film and television was preceded by his practice as an architect for the firms of August Perez and Associates in New Orleans, Moore Ruble Yudell in Los Angeles as well as his own projects in New York, Connecticut and Los Angeles. His career in film includes his work in the television series 24, for which he won an Emmy nomination, CSI Miami, Lost, Coach Carter and many others. He is currently designing Studio 60, a new television series by the producers of West Wing.
Stan Bertheaud is a working architect who teaches at Mississippi State, Tulane, Woodbury University and Auburn University . He also writes for screen. He designed buildings in and around New Orleans, earning commendations for contemporary work within historic settings. His current architectural work is residential and reflects his upbringing in rural America. He is credited with writing theatrically released screenplays, including Tilt-a-World. He also co-wrote with Dwight Yoakam the surrealistic western, South of Heaven, West of Hell, which became Yoakam's directorial debut. South of Heaven, West of Hell premiered at and closed the 2000 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City , Utah . Berthoud has amassed numerous awards and honors throughout his career as an architect, educator and screenwriter.
Liz Martin, assistant professor at Southern Polytechnic State University in Atlanta , has taught at Auburn University in Alabama, and Art Center and SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. She is trained as an architect and violinist/composer. Martin has always seen the creative process through the eyes of a musician. Her multidisciplinary firm ALLOY PROJECTS opened its doors in 2002 with offices in Atlanta and Los Angeles. Her portfolio of work is attempting to integrate building, new technology, and craftsmanship with time, sound and texture. In addition to practice, Martin is the founding curatorial-director of the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles and the overseas editor for Monument, an Australian design magazine.
David Rogers manages the Data Analysis and Visualization Group at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. The group does R&D into visualization applications and techniques for massive datasets generated by a variety of groups at Sandia. Currently focusing on advanced Information Visualization techniques, the group is building an open source toolkit that leverages their expertise in parallel processing of massive data. Rogers earned his bachelor's in architecture with honors from Princeton University. After moving to New Mexico, Rogers worked at Greg Hicks and Associates on a variety of projects and earned a master's in computer science from UNM. While a UNM student, Rogers researched in Virtual Reality at Sandia. DreamWorks Feature Animation called him, so he packed up his family and moved to Los Angeles . At DreamWorks, he wrote production software tools used on several features, eventually becoming production software supervisor for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.
###
www.unm.edu