‘MTSU On the Record’ presents an ‘animated’ conversation

An opportunity for MTSU students to learn the art of stop-motion animation was the topic of a recent “MTSU On the Record” radio program.

Host Gina Logue’s interview with professors Erin Anfinson and Marc Barr first aired Nov. 17 on WMOT-FM (89.5 and www.wmot.org ). You can listen to their conversation here.

Marc Barr

Erin Anfinson

Anfinson, an associate professor in the Department of Art, and Barr, a professor in the Department of Electronic Media Communication, will facilitate the 2015 Visiting Artists Seminar at MTSU Feb. 23-27, 2015.

The spring semester course is an intensive, interdisciplinary weeklong pass/fail course conducted under the auspices of the University Honors College. It is open to all students with a minimum 3.25 GPA.

For the course, MTSU will partner with Tiny Circus, “a community-based organization that uses the medium of stop-motion animation to create and tell stories,” according to www.tinycircus.org.

“They let the students collaborate together developing the story and developing the images,” Barr explained.

By week’s end, the students will have created a short film by painstakingly shooting one frame at a time, moving the props gradually in setting up for each individual shot.

“It’s a really great introduction for anybody who’s interested in collaborative work, collaborative creative work or in learning the stop-motion animation process,” Anfinson said.

The Visiting Artists Seminar has been offered 11 times at MTSU and has encompassed a variety of topics, including songwriting, filmmaking, poetry writing and performance art.

To learn more about the course, contact Dr. Claudia Barnett at 615-898-2287 or claudia.barnett@mtsu.edu, or visit www.mtsu.edu/honors/visitingartist.php.

You can watch view a film created by MTSU students with Tiny Circus during the April 2012 seminar below.