Tumo Center for Creative Technologies - WORKSHOPS

Cinematography in Three Takes

2015-02-19T00:24:53+04:00

For two weeks in January, a group of Tumo students jumped in head first into filmmaking, and became completely immersed in the real world challenges and responsibilities of the movie set.

2D Frame-by-Frame Animation

2014-12-06T01:32:33+04:00

Over the course of three weeks, with the assistance of director and animator Arnab Chaudhuri, 13 Tumo students learned the art of hand-drawn animation. During the final week of the workshop each of them produced a 20 second animation.

Waves, a stop motion story

2014-04-11T04:23:33+04:00

Conceptual designer and illustrator Shushan Droshakiryan has worked on numerous Tumo initiatives as a workshop leader. She was the coordinator of the origami workshop which unveiled a giant dancing sculpture made entirely of origami pieces during Tumo's second anniversary celebrations.

Mane Nersesyan and Arpine Baroyan, second place winners of the Converse Bank animation competition, were the stop motion animators for the Waves project.

Tumo students Gohar Droshakiryan and Marta Minasyan worked on the artwork for the project. They had previously collaborated on the game fashion workshop where they designed chess-inspired character costumes for a virtual game concept.

Tumo project leader Shushan Droshakiryan and the four Tumo students on her team have finished a stop motion animation project. They have spent an intensive four weeks working non-stop on the stop motion animation piece, using cutouts and hand-painted backdrops.

The story is narrated by Saro Paparian, a member of the Tumo music team and a native of California, who tells of a summer in Huntington Beach, when he worked odd jobs to save money for a surfboard he desperately wanted so he could surf with his father.

Emotion through animation

2014-03-05T06:09:17+04:00

Atam Rasho, a graduate of the famous Ecole des Métiers du Cinéma d'Animation (EMCA) in France, led a one-month workshop at Tumo on the principles of 2D animation. Using pencil and paper to hand draw each frame of their animations, workshop participants developed practical skills needed to capture movement through drawing.

Another animation project led by French animator Atam Rasho has just been completed at Tumo.

Rasho is an alumnus of the famous EMCA animation school in Angouleme, and this is the second in a series of traditional animation workshops he is leading at Tumo. These workshops complement Tumo's main curriculum, and give members the opportunity to expand their animation skills.

This time, the group was tasked with expressing a character's mood and reactions through movement. Each participant chose a character and situation, and used Adobe Flash to express the character's emotions in that situation.

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Performance Art

2013-12-07T04:14:24+04:00

Ani Nina Oganyan graduated from University of California at Berkeley Department of Theater Arts and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She has been on stage since she was 16 and has depicted a variety of characters. She is currently working at Tumo as a Birthright Armenian volunteer.

Over the span of four weeks, Tumo students were introduced to skills in the art of acting under the leadership of Ani Nina.

During the first two weeks, participants studied different genres of monologues, in order to improve their stage presence and oratory skills. The following two weeks were devoted to selecting scripts from films and staging their own improvisations.

The results were showcased through a presentation of the students' creations, spanning across various genres. The young actors played in shorts from classical as well as Armenian films. The workshop gave the participants fundamental acting skills and the ability to develop believable character performances for both scripted and improvised executions.

The Art of Comics

2013-12-01T00:14:22+04:00

Tigran Mangasarian is an accomplished Yerevan-based cartoonist and illustrator. He is one of the pioneers of comic book art in Armenia, having established the first comics newspaper in the country in 1992. He is the author of six comic books, including Silence: Order from Constantinople a graphic novel about the Armenian Genocide.

He is also one of the co-founders of the Yerevan International Comics Festival, organized for the first time in 2008 with France's Association of Comics Art Promotion in Armenia (APBDA). The third installment of the festival was hosted at Tumo in April 2012. Read more>>

Professional cartoonist Tigran Mangasarian led a group of 13 students in a specialized comic book workshop. Participants combined original drawings with narrative text to produce a collection of illustrated stories centered around the city of Yerevan.

The first step was for students to come up with a narrative—old or new, fictional or real—related to the city, and develop a script around it. Some chose to talk about real-life events, including events from their own personal lives, while others based their storyline on tales from the city's history.

After deciding on a story, students worked with Mangasarian to create carefully molded dialogue matched up with comic strip imagery. They kept their stories within nine pages and stylized their graphics using Bamboo pen tablets and Photoshop design software. {phocagallery view=tags|tagsid=55,}

Intro to 3D Modeling

2013-11-19T02:23:13+04:00

3D models represent a 3D object using a collection of points in 3D space, connected by various geometric entities such as triangles, lines, curved surfaces, etc. Being a collection of data, 3D models can be created by hand, algorithmically (procedural modeling), or scanned.

3D models are widely used anywhere in 3D graphics. Actually, their use predates the widespread use of 3D graphics on personal computers. Many computer games used pre-rendered images of 3D models as sprites before computers could render them in real-time .Read more >>

The beginner 3D modeling workshop is part of Tumo's core program. It gives students a first glimpse at creating three-dimensional models using industry standard tools.

Using Autodesk Maya, workshop participants learn about modeling techniques and build their first three-dimensional character or object over the course of four weeks using tool such as extrude, shape editing and polygon.

In the next level of the 3D modeling workshop students will work with more complex models and will learn how to manipulate camera angles, lighting and textures.

The following are some examples of models produced by students during the workshop.

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The Language of Film

2013-11-16T03:29:00+04:00

Shahane Yuzbashyan was born in 1965 in Yerevan and now lives and works in Paris. She has an extensive background as a film and sound editor, assistant director and script editor. From 1985 to 1991 she worked at the Hayfilm studios, working as assistant to directors such as Artavazd Pelechian, Bagrat Hovhannisyan. She holds a masters degree in film theory from Paris Huit University in France, and a degree in film directing from the State Pedagogical Institute of Yerevan.

Vigen Galstyan was born in 1981 in Armenia. He now lives and works in both Sydney, Australia and Yerevan, where he has worked as a filmmaker, film programmer, curator and film historian since 2005. He has a BA degree in Film and Media Production from the University of Technology, Sydney, a Masters of Arts degree in Art Curating and a PhD candidature from the University of Sydney, Australia. He has worked as a curator of photography at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney from 2010-2012, and is an author of over ten exhibitions.

The Language of Film workshop, led by filmmakers Shahane Yuzabashyan and Vigen Galstyan, gave Tumo students and opportunity to develop and produce several short films based on one common script.

Workshop participants started by watching prominent examples from the world of cinema and analyzing them with the help of the workshop leaders. They then split into six groups, each of which developed a distinct screenplay and mise-en-scene, resulting in six different stories with identical dialog.

Over the course of the workshop, students discovered important principles of dialog and editing, which they applied in the creation of their individual narratives. They learned how to support the plot with editing techniques and how film styles and musical scores can assist in character development.

Below are some images from the workshop's final screening.

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The Logic of Platform Games

2013-11-13T01:18:37+04:00

GameMaker is a video game authoring program that allows users to rapidly prototype, design and program cross-platform video games. The program's development interface uses a drag-and-drop system, allowing users to intuitively create games by visually organizing icons on the screen. These icons represent actions that would occur in a game, such as movement, basic drawing, and simple control structures. The GameMaker platform has been used to construct both beginner-level and professional games, including the popular Gunpoint and Hotline Miami. Read more >>

A four-week workshop on game development provided beginner level Tumo students with an understanding of creating and programming video games. Using the GameMaker development program, students were able to conceptualize and produce their very own 2D platform games.

After participants were introduced to GameMaker's graphical tools, they used the software to develop a rudimentary video game prototype based on the platform game genre. The initial exercise gave students insight into programming game logic, level design, object motion, and collision detection.

In a second phase, students used these skills to craft their own individual video games. They brainstormed their overall theme and then proceeded to draw characters, design custom levels, set basic rules, and develop the game's controls.

Below are some of the basic platform games developed by participants in the workshop.

Infographics and Data Visualization

2013-11-10T07:10:06+04:00

Studio Safar is a Beirut-based design and art direction studio working in the kind of dynamic and exploratory environment evoked by the its name, which is Arabic for travel. Their projects span different media and formats such as publications, visual identities, display and set design, packaging, album artwork, and websites. The studio's members have been trained internationally in the visual arts, cultural management, graphic design, product design, marketing, and business development.
Read more>>

Hatem Imam, Maya Moumne and Maral Mikirditsian of the Beirut-based design and art direction house Studio Safar led a one-week, intensive infographics workshop at Tumo. The workshop focused on the after-school lives of Yerevan teenagers based on a hourly diary of their daily activities.

Prior to the workshop leaders' arrival, students spent one week documenting their movement around the city, their activities, and their interactions with peers, family members and strangers. They then filtered this information as part of the initial data processing phase of the workshop.

Once the statistics were mapped, participants were ready to begin visualizing the data. They split up into four thematic groups: Time, People, Activity, and Location. Each group pulled patterns and trends from their respective category and translated them into infographic posters.

The resulting visual displays gave a colorful and insightful into the daily life of young people in the city, showing the type of activities they are engaged in arranged by time, geographic location, and demographics.

Workshop participants included Tumo members with previous experience in graphic design, as well as students from the Yerevan Academy of Fine Arts.

Technical Photography Basics

2013-11-08T05:05:03+04:00

Tumo regularly hosts specialized workshops on photography featuring prominent professionals from around the world. Award-winning photographers such as Scout Tufankjian, Eric Grigoryan, Ara Oshagan and Jordi Adria are a few of many that have led sessions at the center and directed exhibitions of students’ work.

Topics covered in the past include product photography, photojournalism, portrait photography, and the creative potential of color in photos. Students from advanced to beginner levels take part in the workshops and learn the latest techniques in capturing images of the world around them.

A Fall 2013 workshop on the technical fundamentals of photography introduced Tumo students to the mechanics of DSLR cameras and functional techniques for enhancing photos.

Topics covered in the workshop aimed to understand exposure by learning to use aperture, shutter speed and ISO. After learning the basic principles of such settings, students worked in pairs to take photographs in the field and experiment with different techniques for governing light in images. They went on to evaluate their work as a group and selected their best shots for final submission.

A total of nearly 200 students participated in two separate monthly sessions of the workshop. In addition to learning how to use professional cameras, they gained insight into key principles for capturing well crafted photos.

Below is a sampling of student photos from the workshop.

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Essentials of Paper-and-Pencil Animation

2013-10-30T00:50:32+04:00

Interactive Performance Workshop

2013-10-27T02:03:13+04:00

Waraq is a community of curious individuals who aim to create and showcase multidisciplinary artistic projects combining illustration, animation, art direction and performing arts. The four-person collective resides and works in an old yellow house in Beirut called Beit Waraq (paper house) and travels the world giving workshops, doing residencies, and engaging in all things curious. Read more>>

Tumo students were involved in a two-week, multidisciplinary workshop led by the Beirut-based art collective Waraq. Participants combined storytelling techniques together with performing arts and mixed media to create an interactive installation space at the center.

Once the story concept was developed around the biblical figure of Noah, workshop participants divided up into five groups, focusing on dramaturgy, mask and puppet making, pixelated body movement, mixed media illustration, and interactive video installations. Each technique was taught to a different group of students who used what they learned to produce a section of the overall narrative.

Each group then chose a location at Tumo to house their installation and began rehearsing for the final performance.

In the end, a series of interactive spaces featuring sound, video, and live performance were linked together into a narrative environment. Audience members were guided through the spaces by workshop participants, who served as both creators and actors in the final performance.

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Game Mechanics and Level Design

2013-10-16T21:27:08+04:00

An educational, professional training and research institute located in the South-West of France, ENJMIN provides an international environment stimulating creativity and technological innovation. The institute's mission is to provide the digital industries with trained professionals, researchers and artists, and to create an international hub for an industry learning and exchange network open to students, active game professionals and researchers. Read more >>

Thomas Laurent and Vladimir Nachbaur of France's Graduate School of Games and Interactive Media (ENJMIN) traveled to Tumo in September for a month-long workshop on the fundamentals of game development.

They introduced students to Construct 2, a user-friendly authoring platform that allows users to create 2D games without needing complex code.

After becoming familiar with the program, students used it to recreate their own version of a beginner-level video game called Sokoban. The exercise gave students insight into not only programming and design, but also how to link together graphics with sound and build up difficulty as players advance.

Students then worked in small groups of 2-3 to make their own video game from scratch. Working closely with workshop leaders, they developed their own concepts, levels and characters into a final multi-platform 2D game.

Below is an example of student work from the workshop.

Pinhole Photography and 3D Printing

2013-09-23T19:25:43+04:00

Nacho Marti is a designer from Barcelona based in London, creating contemporary interiors and exhibitions. He held a teaching position for eight years at his alma mater, the Elisava School of Design in Barcelona, from which he graduated with a degree in interior design. He also obtained a Master's in Science in Emergent Technologies and Design from the Architectural Association in London. He is currently working on various commissions from his London-based design studio while teaching at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and the KLC School of Design, both in London. Read more>>

During two weeks in July and August 2013, designer Nacho Martí worked with Tumo students to create a series of very special photographs at the intersection of digital technology and manual craftsmanship. Students built three pinhole cameras of different shapes and captured images of the Tumo surroundings projected on the interior walls of the camera enclosures. These images, transformed by the individual shape of each enclosure, were captured using digital cameras integrated into the design of the pinholes as a digital-analog hybrid.

The workshop started with a design phase during which students used the 3D modeling application Rhino to create the particular shapes of each camera’s enclosure. This included using parametric modeling to develop the complex 3D corner joints of the cameras, which they produced using 3D printers. Students then began the process of assembly, using wood, fabric and vinyl sheets to produce the lightproof boxes of each pinhole camera.

By the time the cameras were deployed and the images captured, student had learned fundamental concepts in 3D modeling, optics and photography, as well as basic skills in manual production and assembly. Just as importantly, the workshop taught participants the art of planning and teamwork in a creative technology project with multiple components and challenging deadlines.

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The Color in Your Photos

2013-09-17T21:18:29+04:00

Tumo hosted a two-month workshop focused on the creative potential of color in photography. Students took photos in diverse settings and experimented with various techniques to enhance colors in their images.

Origami and 3D Design

2013-09-11T02:27:06+04:00

Tumo’s second year anniversary celebration included a spectacular figure flying over the partying crowd in the Tumo plaza – a giant paper sculpture, called the Goddess of Game, created by participants in Tumo’s Origami and 3D Design workshop.

Telling Stories Through Photography

2013-09-07T01:38:53+04:00

For four intensive weeks, students worked with world-renowned photojournalists Scout Tufankjian and Eric Grigorian on the depiction of stories through photography.

Product Photography

2013-09-06T01:20:10+04:00

Tumo members learned the latest techniques in lighting and composition used in the world of product photography.

Interaction Design

2013-08-16T01:12:25+04:00

Over a two-week period, participants in Susanna Tesconi’s workshop developed innovative ways of applying computer programming to the physical world.

Exploratory Form

2013-08-14T02:07:11+04:00

This workshop offered new ways of thinking about form and geometry, helping students develop techniques that can be used in a broad range of design work.

Portrait Photography

2013-08-10T02:09:38+04:00

During two weeks advertising and editorial photographer, Jordi Adria, led a workshop based on the different ways of exposing and lighting a portrait.

Houshamadyan: Objects That Tell Stories

2013-08-02T01:47:58+04:00

Working with historian Vahe Tachjian, director of the web based project Houshamadyan, a project to reconstruct Ottoman Armenian town and village life, students developed different skills in the field of investigation, reconstructing memory, storytelling and story writing.

Design with Textures

2013-07-10T23:51:24+04:00

The workshop, led by artist Vasken Brudian, began with a series of lectures introducing students to design theory and compositional principles. The group then went on photography excursions throughout Yerevan to take photos that would serve as the foundation for personal collages. They modified and refined their images using in professional design applications.

Digital Art Practices

2013-06-14T21:56:27+04:00

Game Fashion Design

2013-06-07T22:38:00+04:00

The aim of the workshop is to enable students to create thematic characters through the design of their costume specifically using the moulage technique.

Retrotech workshop

2013-05-04T00:57:02+04:00

Sound and Visualization

2013-05-03T01:58:25+04:00

3D Modeling with Rhinoceros

2013-05-03T01:30:15+04:00

Concept Design Basics

2013-04-10T22:53:00+04:00

Workshop leader Lilit Beglarian is a graduate of the FZD Design School of Singapore and has attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Currently, Lilit is working at Tumo as a game designer and is planning to continue to master her skillset at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design.

A group of 15 students participated in an intensive design workshop during the course of two weeks under the guidance of Lilit Beglarian. Participants explored the concept of art fundamentals and mastered core techniques forming a comprehensive visual library that helped develop their imagination and design ideas. They looked into the basics of design such as perspective, line drawing, references, thereby drawing inspiration from the world around them. Utilizing these skills, they responded to various design prompts such as Rescue Equipment, ending their two week workshop by polishing and presenting their designs using Photoshop.

The Art of Acting

2013-03-15T01:54:39+04:00

Beat-making

2013-03-15T01:40:58+04:00

Cinematography and the Visual Narrative

2013-03-15T00:15:02+04:00

Storytelling Through Design

2013-01-11T18:55:47+04:00

Short Documentary Filmmaking

2012-12-27T19:52:55+04:00

Egoyan Logo Animation

2012-12-21T00:42:50+04:00

Hack the Tumo Fountain

2013-01-11T18:51:18+04:00

OLPC Social Advertising

2012-07-24T03:11:32+04:00

Video Game Design Fundamentals

2013-01-11T18:42:56+04:00

Documentary Photography

2012-12-20T23:32:08+04:00

Lego Robotics

2012-07-24T18:48:25+04:00

Tumo Music

2012-07-24T03:11:46+04:00

Uneducated Democracy Music Video

2012-07-24T02:58:51+04:00

Tumo Center for Creative Technologies - WORKSHOPS

Cinematography in Three Takes

2D Frame-by-Frame Animation

Waves, a stop motion story

About Stop motion crew

Emotion through animation

Essentials of Paper-and-Pencil Animation

Performance Art

About Ani Nina

The Art of Comics

About Tigran Mangasarian

Intro to 3D Modeling

About 3D modeling

The Language of Film

About Shahane and Vigen

The Logic of Platform Games

About GameMaker

Infographics and Data Visualization

About Studio Safar

Technical Photography Basics

About Tumo Photography

Essentials of Paper-and-Pencil Animation

Interactive Performance Workshop

About Waraq

Game Mechanics and Level Design

About ENJMIN

Pinhole Photography and 3D Printing

About Nacho Marti

The Color in Your Photos

Origami and 3D Design

Telling Stories Through Photography

Product Photography

Interaction Design

Exploratory Form

Portrait Photography

Houshamadyan: Objects That Tell Stories

Design with Textures

Digital Art Practices

Game Fashion Design

Retrotech workshop

Sound and Visualization

3D Modeling with Rhinoceros

Concept Design Basics

About Lilit Beglarian

The Art of Acting

Beat-making

Cinematography and the Visual Narrative

Storytelling Through Design

Short Documentary Filmmaking

Egoyan Logo Animation

Hack the Tumo Fountain

OLPC Social Advertising

Video Game Design Fundamentals

Documentary Photography

Lego Robotics

Tumo Music

Uneducated Democracy Music Video