May 2005  |  Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 2

Rice Media Center

The Rice Media Center
by David LaPorte, A '05

The ExCollege shares a special bond with Halligan Hall, a bond hidden deep among the quiet rooms and hallways of this twenty-four hour building so notorious for consuming the lives of Tufts’ aspiring Computer Science and Electrical Engineering students. Home not only to the Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Athletics Departments, Halligan also houses a piece of the ExCollege, namely the Rice Media Center.

Renovated during the summer of 2004, the Rice Media Center is headquarters for students enrolled in filmmaking courses taught by the ExCollege and animation courses taught through the Multimedia Arts program. I have heard it being called the nicest room in Halligan by an engineer who has spent the past four years working in the building’s other labs. Well done, ExCollege.

So what does this lab really have to offer students? Used predominately by students completing films for senior projects and Howard Woolf's Making Movies class, the lab houses ten work stations each built around two computers, a multimedia box and an editing box. Every computer is hooked up to a crisp, new 20-inch LCD monitor, and each editing box is also connected to a 17-inch NTSC monitor used for video output. A KVM switch at every station makes it possible for the same keyboard, monitor, and mouse to be used with both the Multimedia and Editing box, allowing students to alternate between the two with just the press of the scroll lock key. It’s about time that button actually does something useful.

Apart from looking cool, the computers in the Rice Media Center have a practical purpose as well. Sporting fast processors and powerful multimedia programs (including a bundle of Adobe software), they open the doors for students interested in cutting videos, creating special effects, and editing multi-track musical compositions. Before the lab was renovated and the new machines were installed, students were often beset with slow processing speeds that hampered workflow and consequently hindered creativity. The new systems have taken a bite out of the slowdown, allowing students to worry more about making cool movies than wondering how long it’s really going to take to render that glowing neon cloud outlining the dragon in the sky.

With its hot new computers and now-spacious interior (thanks to a simple yet effective table rearrangement this summer), the Rice Media Center fits in effortlessly among its fellow Halligan computer labs, greedily stealing away hours and hours from the motivated youth who are drawn inside. With its lack of windows to the outside world, the room is notorious for messing with students’ concepts of time. Questions such as “Where’s the sun? Why do I hear birds chirping? or What day is it?” can be heard slipping out of students near-dormant voices as they emerge from Halligan for the first time in many hours (or even days - sleepovers happen).

Despite its insatiable hunger for the life and time of its users, the Rice Media Center has given a select group of students the opportunity to create impressive video and multimedia works to share with the Tufts community. Hopefully, the lab will continue to inspire students to produce quality multimedia projects, and will, in turn, help to illustrate the positive impact that filmmaking and multimedia arts can have on the school as a whole.

Gib Metcalf, Chair of Economics, discusses life at Tufts with Emily Andrews, '07, & Chad Matlin, '07.

Go to newsletter page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6