Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K Supports Troy University’s Art and Design Department

Students experience real world workflows with professional digital film cameras

Blackmagic Design today announced that Alabama based Troy University is using Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K, Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K digital film cameras as part of its curriculum technology in the Art and Design department. Over the past three years, student projects shot with Blackmagic Design cameras have won more than 60 awards, including dozens of ADDY Awards and film festival accolades, as well as the university’s first Telly Award.

According to Associate Professor, Graphic Design and Assistant Chair, Art and Design Chris Stagl, MFA, “As a faculty, we work very hard to bring both artistically fulfilling and objective client projects into the classroom. For example, for the past two years, students have worked on a series of commercials for an annual book about Stephen King, which have won multiple ADDY Awards, and this year, five design students made a music video, which won a Silver Telly Award.”

It’s this determination to expose the students to real world workflows that brought Stagl to Blackmagic Design. The Pocket Cinema Camera 4K was one of his first purchases in 2020 when he was asked to bring the department in line with industry standard technology to help students be more competitive in the workplace, and he was quick to implement the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K due to Blackmagic Design’s reputation for affordable and professional cameras.

“We implemented the Pocket 4K because we wanted students to utilize affordable, industry leading technology for their creative projects. Most students coming into the design program are used to shooting with their phones, and while that’s a great medium, we also want to support students with specialized filmmaking tools,” said Stagl. “We find it’s extremely beneficial to introduce students to real world technology and prepare them for producing high quality media.”

Stagl noted that investing in the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K helped increase the students’ exposure to filmmaking technology. “We chose the Cinema Camera 6K first, to demonstrate and utilize the open gate feature which allows for easy reframing and cropping without losing quality,” he said. “I personally do this all the time so I can move quicker during production, and it saves a lot of time in post.

“Second, anamorphic desqueeze in the camera body is fantastic for wide, detailed, cinematic images. Also, the ability to capture full frame stills is something that many other cinema cameras just can’t do. Not to mention that as we migrate to a 6K workflow, having the ability to work with proxy files is a lifesaver. Finally, on a personal note, the OLPF is an incredible feature that creates a very clean image.”

“We want our students to be prepared after college with strong technical and conceptual skills, and we want to provide them with access to the best tools available to reach those goals,” said Will Jacks, assistant professor of photography at Troy University. “Blackmagic, especially our new 6K full frame camera, is the perfect tool for all of our photo and video students to use as they work toward becoming the most well rounded creators possible.”

Eager to grow Troy University’s creative video opportunities, in 2021 Stagl developed the YellowHammer Film Festival, a free and interactive experience open to high school and college students across the U.S. Now in its fourth season, the festival has seen more than 1,100 submissions from student filmmakers around the country.

“Not only do many of the submissions use Blackmagic Design, but I use my own ATEM Mini Pro switcher to help produce the YellowHammer Film Festival. It’s instrumental in seamlessly switching between our live cameras and feeds of presenters and films from the computer,” noted Stagl. “Blackmagic Design is ubiquitous when it comes to production. In our current minor, we’ve also had students enter the incredible workflow of DaVinci Resolve, which has led to some of them securing employment because of their advanced skill set.”

With the Art Contract and Photography minors already equipping students with a valuable, real world skillset, Stagl and Jacks have plans to grow academic offerings in digital media at the university.

“We plan to leverage and extrapolate the current Art Contract minor into a larger, more focused offering of media courses in the next 12 to 18 months. We have already shown through our many successes a genuine proof of concept and are now securing the data needed from students and faculty to put together the framework for, what I believe will be the future of creativity at Troy University, powered by Blackmagic and built on the shoulders of our already robust Art and Design program,” Stagl concluded. “Our incredible artistic faculty here at Troy University in audio, motion graphics, animation, film and photography are all folks who are excited about the potential of building upon our strong and competitive program.”