Red Dog Productions Website – A Work In Progress

To combine the work I’ve been doing with RED Dog Productions (The New School’s in house production company) and my coursework for Media Practices: Interactive, my final project will be RED Dog’s website.

I’ve met with RED Dog’s administrators to identify their goals for the project and what they’re hoping to accomplish, identify key elements the site should feature.

Goals:

• Showcase our work
• Advertise our capabilities/services and appeal to clients outside of The New School
• Demonstrate the professional training and real world opportunities student workers receive, which reinforces or compliments their classroom lessons
• Portfolio for students who have gone through Red Dog’s training program

Important Site Features

• Scrollable text (that doesn’t overlap menu or other text)
• Embedded videos play easily
• Student tags to allow for searchability

Inspiration:
(Sites that have similar purposes and design aspects and functionality we want to emulate.)

• Blonde and Co – Sizzle reel upon opening, simple clean scroll through layout appealing. However text is messy and overlapping in some places. Clean up with div boxes.
• Transient Pictures – Interactive collage for featured work

Navigation Elements and Site Map

Based on the preliminary discussions I have with the team, we identified the functional areas of the site: Projects, Services, Who We Are, and Professional Development. Projects will be a curated selection of our best videos, photos, and event documentation demonstrating to clients what RDP is capable of. Services will communicate to our clients what we’re capable of, how the company works, and will include contact information. Who We Are will be a breakdown of RDP’s faculty advisors from The New School’s media studies department, RDP’s professional staff (who I’ve been meeting with), and the student workers. Professional Development will describe a significant way RED Dog is unique, and that’s in the training program for future media professionals. There’ll be some background pictures of the students in action that can be used on the site. Furthermore, the assets in the Projects section of the site will be tagged with student identifiers, so that anyone visiting the site who wants to see the examples of what a specific student has worked on will be able to do so by clicking on the student’s name. The sitemap is as follows:

Proposed Sitemap for RED Dog Productions website. October 2014

Design

I’ll receive feedback on my project proposal through my Interactive Design class. I had to submit the homepage for viewing, which doesn’t look as impressive as the sizzle reel video is the main component. But below I’ve include a sample of what the Faculty Expert page will look like. The faculty members names will be on a secondary navigation to the left. Selected one of the names will make the page jump directly to that professor’s bio. It’s all Ipsum Lorem text for now.

Notice how I’ve separated the text to make it easier to read. Unlike the Blonde and Co page. This is a work in progress created with Photoshop. I’m sure there will be other iterations before the final product.

Feel free to share any thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Transparent, Soloway & Kohan, October

First things first. If you haven’t watched Transparent yet, you’re doing something wrong. Correction: If you are frustrated by the sensationalism of today’s popular entertainment+, and you appreciate beautifully crafted, subtle storytelling in 30-minute increments, and you haven’t watched Transparent yet, you’re doing something wrong. Open up a new browser tab, head on over to Amazon, and do yourself a favor.

Glad we got that out of the way. In short, I love Transparent. I love that the show depicts a person coming out as her true self later in life. Trans* characters are certainly having their day in the (mainstream) sun, most notably with Laverne Cox’s Sophia on Orange Is The New Black, and Jared Leto’s Oscar-winning turn as Rayon in The Dallas Buyers Club.++ (That both Leto and Transparent‘s Jeffrey Tambor portray these women as cis-gender male actors has raised some valid criticisms. But we’ll have to address them another time.) However, the simple premise that coming out is hard at any age, and that family dynamics are always complicated makes the characters’ struggles relatable and gives the story the universality required of all great storytelling.

(Full disclosure: I’ve only watched the first two episodes, but if the rest of the season follows suit, I’m sure I won’t be disappointed. I’m actually going to write a paper about the show soon, which will necessitate my binge-watching the rest of the season this weekend. So I may have a more nuanced critique [to match the nuance of the show] next week).

Next, here is some non-news: online streaming allows storytellers to depict characters that have beentraditionally marginalized and denied in mainstream media. Go team go. That it’s happening, is great. That we’re recognizing that it’s happening, is crucial. At the recent New Yorker festival, Jill Soloway, and Jenji Kohan, creators of Transparent and Orange Is The New Black, respectively, appeared on a panel discussing LGBTQ depictions in television. It’s been reported that the two clashed over a couple of issues. Flavorwire’s Moze Halperin examines the encounter intelligently.

The piece explains that Kohan takes issue with Soloway running a competition to find a transperson to join the writing staff for the show’s second season. What isn’t articulated is that Soloway is not going to pull a random trans people off the street. The film & television industry is incredibly difficult to break into. But just because someone isn’t a seasoned writer, doesn’t mean that person isn’t talented. And just because certain opportunities haven’t presented themselves, doesn’t mean someone doesn’t deserve to be in that room. For me, that was the disconnect for Kohan’s whole argument. It sounds like a great mentorship opportunity and I applaud Soloway for her efforts.

Finally, it’s October. That time in the semester when instead of updating my blog, I should be doing one of a million homework assignments, readings, papers, or projects. I mentioned tI’ll be writing a paper on Transparent, particularly how Soloway’s team operates creatively within the larger television landscape. I’m also excited to create a design brief and mockups for my design interactive class’s final project. I’m working some exciting events at the Media Center this weekend, and lastly, I’m going to be building/stretching some producer muscles by entering a team in the upcoming Winter Film Awards’ 48-hour short film challenge. It sounds absolutely absurd, and I’m way too busy to do it, but it really feels like something I need to do at this point in my practice, so I’m jumping in. Stay tuned for the end result!

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+ I have and will continue to support Shondaland programs. I took delight in learning that Ali on Pretty Little Liars [spoiler alert] was still alive. I can’t wait for the next season of Game of Thrones. And I too, have been drawn in by the endless stream of overhyped “This will blow your mind/Change your life/Cure cancer”internet headlines. But enough already. Then again, But maybe it’s me. I’ve always had a thing for subtlety.

++ This is not meant to omit the numerous depictions of trans characters that have come before this particular heyday. Boys Don’t Cry and the documentary Paris Is Burning are two noteworthy examples.

Back to school

It’s back to school time. The semester started a few weeks ago and I feel like I’m hitting in full force (in a good way).  I’m taking an interactive design class with David Marcinkowski which I’m really excited about. By the end of the semester I should have a pretty good working knowledge of html, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), animation and interactive design, javascript, jquery and more! I’ve gotten in touch with the Red Dog production company (The New School’s in-house production unit) about building up their website, so that’s also something I’ll be working on. Hopefully it’ll be a chance to utilize some skills learned in the interactive design class.

I’m also continuing with the Media Management track with a class called Managing Creativity in the Media arts with Neyda Martinez. Yesterday, we visited the Made In NY Media Center by IFP in DUMBO. We got to tour the facilities and here about some of the programs and events that go on there. While their memberships are a little pricey for a graduate student trying to survive in NYC, I hope to be able to volunteer there soon and stay up to date with their activities.

At work in the Marketing & Communications office (newly renamed from Communications and External Affairs), I’ve been continuing making press packets which are sent out to the board of trustees, president, and other administrative department heads, and faculty. I’ve also been writing numerous blog posts for the New School News.

Here           are           some           sample           posts.

Also, earlier in the summer, one of my blog posts was included as a feature story in the Newsletter that goes out every other week during the school year(once a month during the summer). We’ve just started using Click-to-tweet software for the posts, so I’ve been implementing that for the team. Our Social Media Director is pretty excited about it.

Lastly, on a completely unrelated note, I’ve started commuting to work/school by bike, which I’m pretty excited about. I’ve been afraid of riding in Manhattan for the longest time, but Monday, I woke up and just decided to do it.  The Manhattan Bridge is a challenge every morning, but I’m feeling great and excited to keep it up! Wish me luck.

And we’re off!

Spring Semester’s begun!  I’m excited about the two classes I’ve had already.  Media Management and Leadership with Paul Hardart (who comes highly recommended), and Storytelling Across Media with Vlad Nikolic.  He seems extremely competent, experienced, organized, and knows what he’s talking about!  The subject matter is very intriguing as well as transmedia storytelling definitely seems to be the way of the future. While Paul’s class is huge, there are some good characters so far and I’m just excited to finally be starting on the Management Certificate! Overall, I’m excited about the assignments, projects, syllabus in both classes.

I will also be auditing a sign language course this semester which starts in a couple of weeks.  From my understanding, we’ll pick a song to learn through the semester and then perform it at the end of the class. (I’m pretty certain that I’ll be doing a Sarah Kay or Taylor Mali poem, but I should probably wait for the class to start). I think the class will be a great way to tie in some of the storytelling elements we’ll be discussing in Vlad’s class, and just overall communication/presentation skills.

Here’s hoping for a great semester!