The 2004 ~FAST Tex projects
College of Fine Arts

Title:
Using DVD Technology in the Teaching of Comedy Acting

Faculty Client:
Lee Abraham, labraham@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer(s):
Raul Montes, David Hartstein

Project Description:
An old show business saying claims “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Often even the best student actors struggle with comedy. This project created a DVD designed to help students examine and analyze the craft of comedic acting from moment to moment in any given performance. The DVD includes such topics as: Comic Structure, Comic Language, Characterization, Terms and Techniques, and Rehearsing and Performing. Students can watch and re-watch classic comic scenes with or without the instructional audio track and analyze them according to guidelines provided by the instructor.

Title:
Bassoon Class Web site Design

Faculty Client:
Kristin Jensen, kwjensen@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Scott Herrick

Project Description:
This project developed a sophisticated Web site to support the instruction of Bassoon. In addition to course materials and instructor information, the site contains an in-depth tutorial on how to make good bassoon reeds. Advanced bassoon players must hand-make the reeds that produce the sound on their instruments and an average player makes 100 reeds per year. The reeds wear out quickly, and many never play well for various reasons. Until now, much class time has been spent adjusting reeds to produce the desired tone, but this online tutorial enables students to learn the necessary reed-making and adjustment skills outside of class, thus giving them more actual playing time in class.

Title:
Handbook of Diction for Singers

Faculty Client:
Dr. David Small, dasmall@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Laila Nawaz

Project Description:
This project produced a small companion Web site to David Adams' text "A Handbook of Diction for Singers," which is designed to support voice students needing help with the pronunciation or diction of French, German and Italian. Paralleling the existing text, the Web site enables students to play audio and video examples of the languages' phonemes and vocabulary, spoken by native speakers and experts in each language.