2008 Grant Proposal Details

Film and Music Making Equipment   North Eugene High-Academy of Arts

Total: $2000

Description:  In an increasingly technologically savvy world, it’s crucial for our students to have access to a variety of modern equipment that will aid in their ability to express themselves in a creative way. By having these artistic outlets for their creative energies, there is no doubt in my mind that students will enjoy participating in their academics at a much higher level. Our students in the Academy of Arts here at North Eugene High School have access to some great computers with decent software as well as some basic DV cameras, but with some nice microphones for better sound quality, a dolly and “fig rig” for professional looking shots, and midi keyboards that can communicate with music-making software, our students will be able to experiment with their artistic selves on a grand scale. This new technology will immediately open the doors for our students to create works of art as part of their new project-based curriculum, weaving the arts with social studies, science, and language arts. This proposal will not only increase students’ technological literacy, but their academic as well.

Why is this important?  When sent to Drake High School near San Francisco in May of last year, I had the opportunity to freely observe teachers and students for two days to get ideas for the Academy of Arts here at North Eugene High School. I saw students who spent half of their day studying film production and the other half in academics. Having earned a degree in film production, I knew a lot about the software and equipment needed to make a professional-looking film. The students at Drake had access to equipment that would make most independent filmmakers drool. When I saw some of these same students in their regular classes, they were fully engaged and doing amazing work. Recently here at North, I saw some students in the hallway working with Garage Band to complete a music project. It was a project designed by our teachers to help them with their understanding of science and language arts vocabulary. They were having fun, but when I asked a few of the teams what they thought about having small midi keyboards that could play tracks on Garage Band, every eye lit up.

Who will be served?  All of the Academy of Arts students will be well served by having access to this new equipment. While many students find that their natural artistic abilities lie in sculpture, painting, drawing, acting, or the like, there are still many others with artistic abilities that are better accentuated through technology. In this way, all of our students will feel as though they have an artistic outlet through our small school.

How will this be evaluated?  At the end of the year, our school will have an “art opening” to demonstrate all of the projects that students accomplished throughout the year. We’ll evaluate this proposal by the variety of projects displayed using these new tools as well as with the quality of some live student demonstrations of the new equipment. On a comments card, we’ll ask attendees their opinion on the quality and diversity of the presentations to gage their level of enthusiasm for what our staff and administrators are trying to bring to North through the Academy of Arts. In addition, student film projects will be entered into student competitions and will be evaluated by a panel of judges.

Does this build on existing programs?  This proposal will build upon our entire Academy of Arts interdisciplinary program by providing our students with more avenues towards their artistic selves. We already have 4 DV cameras and 13 seats of film-editing software as well as Garage Band for music making. All of the equipment I’ve mentioned will greatly enhance their current functions and allow students to better articulate their artistic visions.

Budget:  Directional Microphones (3) (Rode VideoMic) $450 -- (3) Hardware to make boom poles for microphones (approx. $30 each) $90 (4) Hardware to make “Fig rigs” for steady hand-held camera moves (approx. $10 each) $40 Dolly track ($50 of PVC pipe) $50 -- M-Audio KeyRig 25 midi keyboards (4) $600 -- "Painted Sheep" Dolly (2) $560-- Audio cables (3) $75 -- Noise-Cancelling Head phones (3) $210 -- Extra $75 to be provided by Site Council

Proposal #:  77