Ken Dirkin

The Confucius Institute has several services that we often need to market for. The two most recognizable ones are our online course offerings.  These are for high school students around the country as well as a course tailored to be offered globally through the International Baccalaureate group.  Both are offered through the Michigan Virtual University, who is one of CIMSU's various partners.  I created three marketing videos for them, one of Dr. Zhao explaining the idea of the Confucius Insitute and two others marketing our courses.  These peices are mainly motion graphics compositing and animation work with a small amount of video shot on a Z1U.  All were edited using Final Cut Pro.

Swarm & Destroy was filmed over the summer of 2002. It was shot on a variety of media, including most prolifically miniDV. The interviews were all shot using a Canon XL2 on location at a coffee shop in Kalamazoo, MI during the annual Moped Army BBQ and pickup shots were accomplished strapping a consumer miniDV camcorder to various mopeds. The art and live action were combined in Final Cut Pro, with the help of the Matrox RT render card. Released in 2003, the documentary went on to win awards at various festivals around the region and have healthy grass roots DVD sales. This is the trailer which alludes to the live action and animated combination of the documentary.

The MAET program, which I'm tied to as a student, instructor and consultant embarked on a major image redesign in the spring of 2008.  As part of that redesign, we interview a large number of MAET faculty and staff about their interests, jobs and duties in the MAET program.  This is a short clip I produced of Mira Khattab, an edtech certificate coordinator in Dubai.  The interviews were all shot with a Sony Z1U to a Focus FS4-Pro in HDV format and lit using a Lowel DV Pro kit with softbox.

Ed-America is a project that has been evolving for several years.  The main goal is to document the entire administration hierarchy of the American school system to better give teacher candidates a sense of understanding about the leadership structure of schools.  Interviewees consisted of superintendents, school board members, principals, union officials and teachers.  This short clip is of Dr. John Lanzetta, principal of Okemos High School.  The interviews were all shot using a Sony Z1U using a Lowel softbox and DV Pro lighting kit.

Deerfield Elementary is a school located in Novi, MI, which opened in 2001.  In 2005, when the "Day in the Life" series was created, it had become a shining example of a community initiated and sustained elementary school.  I videotaped the documentary over two days in the school and then spent a month editing the resulting piece.  The piece was shot on Sony VX2000, using a steadicam junior for the tracking shots.  Edited and compositing done in Final Cut Pro.  This short clip shows the combination of documentary style of the editing, using informative interviews to flesh out an "average" day at Deerfield.

Brian Michael Cavanaugh ran for Ingham Circuit Court Judge in the 2004 election year.  Coming off my success with 2003's "Swarm & Destroy" I set out with Brian's sister, Shane, to document the campaign and in the end was involved in creating advertisements for his campaign.  The commercials were shot on a Sony VX2000, editing and compositing of 3DS Max titles and f/x in Final Cut Pro.