Avid Technology Inc. announced that Chapman University, which offers a variety of undergraduate and graduate liberal arts degrees, has made a significant investment in Avid solutions for its new state-of-the-art film and media arts center in southern California. The new $41million, 76,000-square-foot facility, Marion Knott Studios, will serve as the home of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University.
The center will include approximately 130 Avid video and audio post-production systems for training more than 1,000 students who enroll in programs in the School of Film and Television as well as the Conservatory of Motion Pictures. Opening in the fall of 2006, Marion Knott Studios will offer a broad range of Avid systems, including Avid DS Nitris, Symphony Nitris, Media Composer, Media Composer Adrenaline, Avid Mojo, Avid Xpress Studio, Avid AirSpeed, Avid AirSpeed CountDown and Digidesign D-Command consoles with Pro Tools software.
"We're building this new facility with two goals in mind to offer film and media students the best preparation for real-world experiences as professionals, and to create one of the finest educational environments in the country for learning the art and craft of media production. Accomplishing these goals would be impossible without Avid as a part of our facility," said Bob Bassett, Dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University. "With Avid's academic pricing program, we were able to invest in a wide array of video and audio systems. This will enable us to truly prepare students for the very competitive job market because, by learning to use the latest digital content creation tools, Dodge College students will be among the best prepared graduates anywhere."
Chapman's investment also includes an Avid Unity ISIS media network, which will offer support for 150 realtime clients and deliver a storage capacity of 128 terabytes. With its open storage architecture that supports both Avid and non-Avid clients, the Avid Unity ISIS system will offer students, faculty and staff simultaneous access to media and a broad range of third-party applications from any workstation on the network. In addition, the combination of various Avid tools will allow Chapman students to work with 2K, HD and SD media. All of Chapman's HD work will be done using Avid DNxHD, a mastering quality-encoding format that delivers the pristine quality of 10-bit uncompressed HD media, but at the bandwidth of SD files. Further, Chapman students will have the luxury of screening content directly from the Avid Unity ISIS system, without having to first output to tape, in the University's newly constructed 500-seat digital cinema.
"Chapman University offers one of the premier film and media arts programs in the country. With its new state-of-the-art facility, which will include the best post-production tools on the market for DV, SD, HD and film projects, Chapman will become one of the most desired schools for aspiring media professionals to attend," said Chas Smith vp/gm of Avid's Video division. "We look forward to working with Chapman for years to come as the university grows and fosters the budding careers of the next-generation of media professionals."
Avid Technology Inc. (www.avid.com) is a world leader in digital nonlinear media creation, management and distribution solutions, enabling film, video, audio, animation, games and broadcast professionals to work more efficiently, productively and creatively.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
