IFDM 450 and IFDM 451 constitute a year-long capstone course for students in the Interdisciplinary Film & Digital Media (IFDM) program. For capstone projects, students work in interdisciplinary teams and develop digital media works, with guidance from faculty advisors. Students are required to broaden, to deepen, and to integrate the materials taught in their prior IFDM courses. Successful completion of the capstone I & II will prepare students for the expectations and standards of either the professional workplace or graduate school.

In IFDM 450 (Capstone I), student will complete projects as appropriate for a real world 'client'. Although the project allows for significant creative freedom and development, projects must to meet the needs of the client in addition to the requirements of the faculty advisors.

PROJECT REQUIREMENTS
All projects must consist of both a design production and a written component.

The planning and development of capstone projects must allows students to demonstrate the following skills:
1. The ability to work in teams to complete a real-world design project.
2. The ability to choose an appropriate digital media tool or technique to solve a specific design problem  
3. Understanding of the cycle of design research, design, user testing, revision.
4. The ability to use flow-charting and storyboarding techniques as part of the design process 
5. The ability to translate flow-charts and storyboards into functioning digital media projects
6. The ability to think critically of the history and practice of digital media.
7. The ability to program or modify existing digital media software as appropriate.
3. The ability to use the creative tools of digital media to produce and tell stories.

The written component is a final paper containing the following sections:
1. A project plan and a description of production policies and practices based on ethical and social perspectives.
2. Timelines for the work.
3. A description of lessons learned throughout the process.

Students must display equal care in both the work and the written component to complete each capstone course successfully. The final paper should meet the IFDM program’s high writing standards. Excessively over-written, under-written or poorly written papers will not be accepted.

FINAL PAPER GUIDELINES
The project plan should be based on common production pipelines used in industry. There are many resources that students can refer to for selecting a pipeline, including books and IPAX industry partners. The project plan must specify the major tasks, task contingencies, task owners, task timelines, and milestones. This information should be summarized in a project schedule.

There are numerous books about writing project plans. The project plan should have the following sections (c.f., Levinson, 2007)
1. Executive Summary
2. Team Details
3. Client Analysis
4. Market Analysis
5. Distribution
6. Production
7. Production Plan

GRADING
Students will be assigned a grade at the end of the semester. Part of the grade includes a presentation of work-in-progress and a presentation of the final work. The capstone advisors, in consultation with subject-matter experts in the area(s) of the work, will grade the team’s work-in-progress using the following categories and distribution of points

TASK / POINTS
Project Plan / 10
Design documents / 10
Work-In-Progress (WIP) / 30
Schedule Conformance / 10
Final Paper / 10
Final Presentation / 30
Total = 100

SUGGESTED READINGS

Cantor, J., and Valencia, P. (2004). Inspired 3D Short Film Production. Boston, MA: Thompson Course Technology.

Carter, B. (2004). The Game Asset Pipeline (Game Development Series). Hingham, MA: Charles River Media.

Corsaro, S., and Parrott, C. (2004). Hollywood 2D Animation: The New Flash Production Revolution. Boston, MA: Thompson Course Technology.

Levinson, L. (2007). Filmmakers and Financing: Business Plans for Independents. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Focal Press.

Grades will be awarded using the standard grading scale: 
90-100% A 
80-89% B 
70-79% C 
60-69% D 
below 60% F 

Homework: Since the nature of this class demands that assignments vary between students, students will be responsible for the specific requirements of their assigned part of the project and will be expected to complete necessary content gathering and formatting and design. Unfinished or non-functional final projects will NOT be accepted. ALL work will be expected to be formatted as appropriate inclduing online work and available in the proper location TBA.

• Videotapes, Flash Disks and CDRs as needed
• A notebook to take notes in and reference 
• handouts TBA
• Time outside of class to work! 

• The Invisible Computer Donald Norman
• Life on the Screen Sherry Turkle Touchstone Books, 1997 
• Being Digital Nicholas Negreponte New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
• Envisioning Cyberspace Peter Anders, McGraw-Hill, 1999 
• Computers as Theater Brenda Laurel, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1993 
• Hyper/Text/Theory. Landow, George P (ed.)  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994
• The Cyborg Handbook Chris Hables Gray (ed.) London: Routledge, 1996.
• Digital Delirium. Kroker, Arthur and Kroker, Marilouise, (eds.).  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Levy, Steven.  New York: Anchor Press/ Doubleday, 1984
• The Network Nation: Human Communication Via Computer. Hiltz, Starr Roxanne and Murray Turoff.  Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993
• The Archeology of a Computer Screen Lev Manovich. published in Kunstforum International, Germany 1995
• Envisioning Information Edward Tufte Graphics Press 1990
• Understanding Media. McLuhan,Marshall .  Cambridge:The MIT Press, 1994
• The New World Border : Prophecies, Poems & Loqueras for the End of the Century Guillermo Gomez-Pena

Web Resources:

Web Resources: find this page:http://www.andreapolli.com follow the 'teaching ' links on the left

Course Outline  This schedule is subject to change!! Please feel that you have a say in the tempo and the extent to which material is covered.

Link to student forum http://ifdm.co.cc