Digital Adventures New State-of-the-Art Summer Programs in Palo Alto

• Summer program begins June 22
• Fabulous early bird discounts — register now!
• For every friend or sibling (no more than 3 at a time) you save $25/week course

Download the Summer Program 2009 brochure
Download the Registration Form (in MS Word)
Download the Summer Program 2009 terms and conditions

This summer at the Synapse Institute, students will develop useful new skills through meaningful, fun, and hands-on projects. Learn from professionals in the field: filmmakers, animators, chefs, art directors, and musical composers!

$250 per course

All courses for students ages 7-17

To register or if you have questions, contact marsha@6seconds.org or call 650 685 9885.

The summer program offers four different courses – here is the schedule – and here are the descriptions:

Produce Your Cooking Show: Be a Healthy Chef

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between: Come learn to be a healthy chef. Learn how to use both still and video cameras; lighting and stage design, audio, and edit works in i-Movie/Final Cut.

An integrated health and lifestyle, and video production program where you will learn about cooking, video production, and media communications skills. Learn healthy alternatives to preparing your favorite recipes. Experience cooking tools, techniques, healthy principles, and the whole food concept.

Course 1
Explore recipes that children like to cook. Participants will share their favorite recipes from home. Compare different cooking strategies and experiment with different ingredients for the same dish. Gain confidence in how to break an egg, how to measure ingredients, how to add a dash of this and a dollop of that.

Introduction to camera work and editing. Participants will produce video presentations using stills and the digital video camera. They will learn cut-to-cut editing, as well as create a video episode with beginning, middle, and end. Students will produce part 1 of individual health and lifestyle books using Photoshop.

Course 2
Eating for health, strength, and happiness. Eating for health is what nurtures and feeds the body, gives mental clarity, makes you feel good, gives you energy and no tummy aches. We will Introduce new and different ingredients and expand our idea of what we can eat and what is possible. We’ll explore alternatives to white sugar, alternatives to milk, animal protein. We’ll ‘google’ foods of different cultures and explore them in our cooking.

Advanced training in lighting design, camera, and audio, video special effects. Participants will experience advance shooting, lighting, and audio techniques as well as apply video effects tools to their video episodes. Students will produce part 2 of individual health and lifestyle books using Photoshop.

Course 3
Integrate recipes for all that we’ve learned. We’ll play with favorite foods and healthy principles to come up with new and delicious menus. Our greatest asset is an open mind.

Green screen technology will be integrated with real video. Participants will learn more editing tools and incorporate images outside the camera takes. Students will produce part 3 of individual health and lifestyle books using Photoshop.

At the end of the each weekly program you will complete video productions of your favorite recipe.

Lyrics, Music Composition, Perform & Orchestrate and Record with Garage Band

Express your ideas and feelings in lyrics writing and learn about rhyme and meter. Explore the elements of sound and music, including timing, pitch, and timbre and apply the elements to group & individual musical composition projects. Learn to sing the songs you compose by practicing correct breathing, tonality, and rhythm in a group performance. Then record your performance with garage band. You will also learn to orchestrate your songs in garage band.

Course 1
Lyrics, music composition, sing as a group, & orchestrate and record with Garage Band
Express your ideas and feelings in lyrics writing and learn about rhyme and meter. Explore the elements of sound and music, including timing, pitch, and timbre and apply the elements to group musical composition projects. Students will learn to sing the songs they compose by practicing correct breathing, tonality, and rhythm in a group performance. Then they will record their performance with garage band. Each student will orchestrate his/her songs in garage band and burn a copy in CD format. Open to students with musical inclinations ages 7-17.

Course 2
Lyrics, music composition, sing as individual & duet singers, & orchestrate & record with Garage Band
Express your ideas and feelings in lyrics writing and learn about rhyme and meter. Explore the elements of sound and music, including timing, pitch, and timbre and apply what the elements to individual and duet musical composition projects. Students will learn to sing the songs they compose by practicing correct breathing, tonality, and rhythm in as solo and duet singers. Then they will record their performance with garage band. Each student will orchestrate his/her songs in garage band and burn a copy in CD format. Open to students with musical inclinations ages 7-17.

Comic Book Mania: Comic Books with Photography & Photoshop

Course 1
Introduction to writing, illustration, digital coloring and image manipulation
Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, your will learn how to create a compelling comic book story in a fun and creative step-by-step guided process. The stories begin with identifying ingredients that make a super hero and an antagonist. Students create characters through illustration and/or digital photographs and Photoshop. They learn to use the digital tools of color, cut and paste, and image manipulation to design the characters and backgrounds. At the end of the program each student will produce at least two pages of a graphic story. Open to students interested in learning digital graphic, design, Photoshop, and photography, ages 7-17.

Course 2
Advanced writing, illustration, digital coloring and image manipulation
Students will learn how to create a compelling comic book story in a fun and creative step-by-step guided process. The stories begin with identifying ingredients that make a super hero and an antagonist. Students create characters through illustration and/or digital photographs and Photoshop. They learn to use the digital tools of color, cut and paste, and image manipulation to design the characters and backgrounds. At the end of the program each student will produce at least eight pages of a graphic story. Open to students who know the basics of Photoshop and interested in learning digital graphic, design, and photography, ages 7-17.

Introduction to Digital Animation using Anime Software

Create your characters and animate with Anime software. Providing easy-to-use tools and intuitive interface for beginning-to-end character animation makers, you can use the characters to create animation stories, graphic novels, or for games. You will learn how to animate your characters using the skeleton tool to any image by point-and-click to bring it to life.