Nich Perez CSC - students' creative projects

Selected Student In-class Projects

Students, in groups or individually, were required to design, shoot, and edit a short film using only the music provided as the basis of its narrative. They are required to prepare a preproduction outline that forms the concept and the production plan to execute the idea before principal photography. Using a camera that is available to them (smartphone, GoPro, DSLR, etc.), students are tasked to create the narrative of their piece basing on the tone, beat, and emotion of the music. All elements of cinematography, including movement and mise en scéne, and post-production elements, such as sound design and editing, must be considered to achieve its desired meaning and story.

Sound Film: Felix Culpa

Madison Tomblin and Karen Eckrich

Film as Art and Communication, Fall 2016

“Felix Culpa or Happy Fault is borrowed from early Christianity, and has deep roots in the philosophy of religion, in the understanding that the divine allows evil for greater good to happen. The somber score balances the beauty and ugliness of the Fall in preparation for the winter. The edits and movements counterbalance with the changes of nature, movements of the insects and the upcoming winter. The transformations begin.”

Sound Film: The Boxer

Natalie Treadwell

Film as Art and Communication, Fall 2015

“This short film was composed in the Fall of 2015 while I trained for the Baraka Bouts Women's Boxing tournament at Notre Dame. I wrote the monologue and filmed myself practicing before the fight, which I lost by split decision. The score in this piece sets the tone for the intensity of the process, and the closeups were meant to create how trapped one can be inside the boxing ring. It was meant to make the audiences feel that I was fighting them. In retrospect, however, I am boxing against my ego.”

Sound/Mise En Scène Film: The Dream

Hailey Craig, Iain McTurk, Emily Newcomer, Mai Nguyen and , Mike Price.

Film as Art and Communication, Fall 2014

“The juxtaposition of emotions is what we were trying to achieve in this film. The sorrowful piano score turns into comedy as the story unfolds. Realities divided by color, setting the present in color and the dream in black and white. The film language is spoken through movements and believable performances allow us to communicate complicated realities without the use of words.

Graduate Internship Portfolio: HC CRIBS

Hadiyyah Blake

Graduate Intern from Valparaiso University

Spring of 2015

Hadiyyah was doing her Masters of Science in Communications and Multimedia at Valparaiso University when she interned at my studio. Her task as a production manager at the Studio was to create multimedia projects for the marketing department at Holy Cross College. HC Cribs was one of these projects.

“MTV popularized the idea of showing celebrity houses, exploring the beauty and uniqueness of their homes. This is what we need as we highlight the campus life at a small liberal arts college.”

Graduate Internship Portfolio: The Class of 2015 Tribute

Hadiyyah Blake

Graduate Intern from Valparaiso University

Spring of 2015

“One of my biggest learning experiences with filmmaking and marketing is to be able to create content that is straight from the heart.”

HC Media Studio Internship Project

The primary function of the HC Media Studio was to create media projects for the digital identity of the college, by creating effective short media projects to still photography.

Students are immersed in various media programs and equipment as they apply these skills in the projects that they create during the semester. From cinematography and digital still photography, interns chose which specific craft they wanted to immerse themselves, letting them tell the best stories that they are interested in.

At the end of the semester, a digital portfolio is turned in with a line up of short films and photographs created.

These are a few of the projects done in the studio:

Undergraduate Internship Project: Holy Cross is __________

Maureen McDonald

Studio Intern, Spring 2013

“ Capturing the whole experience is somewhat impossible, it is as if looking through glass. But moments can be written and remembered, so why not capture it through the lens? Shake it out!”

Undergraduate Internship Project: “The Professor of Rock”

Audrey Lee

Studio Intern, Spring 2013

“Professor Don Savoie is one of my favorite professors at Holy Cross. He is known in South Bend as ‘the Professor of Rock.’ This short documentary about his music is a wonderful exploration of why he continues to live with the strings and be invigorated by his students. This was a fun internship project.”

Undergraduate Internship Project:

“HoCro’s 6 Reasons Why It is Cool to Live in South Bend”

Emily Wack

Studio Intern, Spring 2014

Collaborative Projects

Creative Projects done in collaboration of students from music videos to short films.

Collaborative Projects: “Reflections From India”

Audrey Lee and Laszlo Hunyadi

Studio Interns, Spring 2013

December of 2012, Holy Cross students went to the southern part of India for their Global Experience Program. They were asked to write about their epiphanies on this trip, on divine moments they have experienced, and the relationships they have built.

"India" Written and performed by Khiry Hollowell and Katherine Howard.

Strings: Shawn Tallet and Nich CSC

Color and Motion Graphics by Jeff Kyle

OUT THE WINDOW

A song written by Jacob Mendoza of Gypsy Cab

ROCKS ROCK (Dub Step Style)

Edited by Jeff Kyle and Filmed by Maureen McDonald

A project by Jeff Kyle turned practical. Modeling, lighting, texturing, and animation completed in Cinema 4D with Illustrator and After Effects for texture creation and depth of field / compositing respectively.

LIFE WORTHWHILE

A short film reflection on Albert Einstein's insight on happiness: "Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile." These snippets are filmed from the south and northeast India, in the Cape Coast in Ghana, around the United States from New York, Detroit, Chicago to Austin, Texas, from the north and south of Brazil, and the Philippines.
Camera: Isamar Sorcia / Kiefer Szumlas Producer: Dr. Dianne Barlas, D.Min. Music: Matt Slomski

HOLY CROSS COLLEGE MUSIC VIDEO

"HC is the Place to Be" is the first Official Music Video of the college - written, recorded, produced, filmed and edited by students.

The first official music video of the college done in collaboration with students.

Cinematography / Sound / Production:

Jeffrey Kyle and Paul O'Hannigan

Music Written by Khiry-Jurell Hollowell, Rodrigue Patrick Owona, and Dia Blake.

Vocals: Khiry Hollowell, Patrick Owona, Dia Blake

Trumpet: Khiry Hollowell

Piano: Karam Salem

Guitar: Nich Perez, CSC

Lead Guitar: Shawn Tallet

Music Editor and Arrangement: Jeff Kyle

MIXED MEDIA | FILM-THEATER PRODUCTION:

REINTERPRETING PABLO NERUDA

(2014)

Five intersecting stories based on the poetry of Pablo Neruda are creatively tied together in an experimental mixed format of projected film and live theater.

As the final output of the Film and Theater Practicum course, the screenplays were written by Media Scriptwriting students the prior semester, and filmed during the Spring semester in preparation for the final performance.

This creative production was done in collaboration with students, staff, and faculty.

And two of the short films from the line up were also selected in film festivals.

Trailer

WHERE THE HECK IS DICKY?

(2016)

A film and a theatrical spectacle combined into one Shakespearean - Tarantinoesque production. In collaboration with the Pickapart Improv Group. A Final Class Project for the Film and Theater Practicum.

At the beginning of the semester, students were asked to audition, and specific roles were given during improv exercises. As the student actors play out scenes, they were recorded to be written as a stage play and screenplay, and ultimately rehearsed, filmed and performed live with projected short films as flashbacks and scenes in between acts. The outcome was a hilarious and fun dark comedy and a love story.

Trailer