Champlain College Students Go Full 'Psycho' With the VSO 

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• Luke Awtry
• From left: Rachel Hooper, Robin Perlah and Sarah Jerger

Three college students hovered over a laptop, mumbling to each other, while their instructor dimmed the lights in an office at Champlain College's Emergent Media Center.

"Um, I think it's all good now?" Ruby Singer said as she stepped back from the computer, narrowing her eyes in concentration. The Champlain College junior was flanked by seniors James Maron and Jack Duffy. The three students are serving as motion graphic producers on a project they agreed to demo for Seven Days.

"Got it," Duffy said, hitting a final key.

Suddenly the walls of the office were bathed in jagged red shapes and elegant lines. The projection contoured itself to the surface almost like moving spray paint, thanks to a computer application called MadMapper.

"So, obviously, this is during the murder," Singer explained to the reporter in the room.

"God, we watched the murder so many times," Duffy added with a weary laugh.

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• Courtesy

The murder in question is the on-screen death of Marion Crane, played by Janet Leigh, in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. As part of a partnership between the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and Champlain College, the students on the EMC team are using motion graphics and projection mapping to generate visual effects that will accompany a VSO performance of Bernard Herrmann's chilling score for the film at the Flynn in Burlington in March. The same motion-graphic technologies are used to create special onstage effects, such as oceans and forests, for big-time concert tours such as Taylor Swift's.

It's one of many enterprises at the EMC, the mission of which is to provide Champlain's students the tools they need to operate in a professional environment.

Founded in 1878, Champlain has always been "a professional school, rather than a research or trade" one, said Rachel Hooper, the program's project manager. "The work we do in the EMC is looking at the actual application of contemporary and emerging technology."

The EMC was launched in 2007 by professor Ann DeMarle, who established degree programs for emergent media before retiring and becoming a professor emerita at Champlain. Located inside the Miller Center at Champlain's Lakeside campus, the program was initially established with a focus on video game development, and the college now ranks among the top 25 U.S. schools for game design. Over the years, the program expanded to include more technology and associated majors.

"Games are still a part of what we do here, but it's really just a part," EMC director Sarah Jerger said. "We play in virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and all sorts of interactive media."

Hooper works closely with Jerger and Robin Perlah, the program director for the master's programs in Emergent Media and an assistant professor, to assemble and oversee student cohorts that operate like professional teams. That means Singer, Duffy and Maron get to use the skills they're developing in their respective majors for academic credit while gaining experience working with real-world clients.

"The VSO project is the perfect example," Hooper said. "Our students are working with motion graphics in their classes, but once they join the program here and begin working on client projects, we try to push them to use those skills in interpretive, experimental ways."

Perlah explained that the EMC, while embracing tech and toys, looks to tackle real-world problems.

"Visual communication is always the same, regardless of the tech," Perlah said. "It's about understanding what the concepts are and what emotional response you want people to have to the project."

What does that entail? Perlah explained that one of the first steps in the process for the students is creating what she describes as "pattern languages," where they identify recurring themes in a work — colors, shapes or musical cues — and use them to create a palette or tone for their project.

"They then use that language and combine it with their research — that's the general design process we teach here," Perlah said.

Near the students' workstation was a massive whiteboard covered in hastily written notes and time stamps from Psycho. In red, circled and underlined, the words "the murder" all but glowed against the white backdrop.

The students tracked Herrmann's score meticulously, noting key changes and motifs to correlate with the graphics they were designing. They had inspiration on that front as well, as much of the design of Hitchcock's films featured the work of legendary graphic designer and filmmaker Saul Bass.

"We're basing a lot of the animation we're making for the project on Saul Bass' work," Singer said, describing the longtime Hitchcock collaborator as "the real deal."

The students used construction paper to cut out staircases that aped Bass' opening credits in Psycho, Perlah recalled, then uploaded them to an editing program to add them to their animations — a visual homage to Bass that pairs ultramodern technology with simpler methods of making art.

"It's just so cool to see them in their creative process," she said. "If we do our job right, the students feel like they have just as much ownership and buy-in on the project. We're not just assigning them tasks; we're watching them come up with their own concepts and create their own process to make them."

All three students visited the Flynn at the beginning of the semester to scope out the venue for the VSO performance. They decided to forgo screens in favor of using the brick back wall of the stage as the canvas for the projected motion graphics. That required them to digitally map out the pipes and grates using MadMapper and another program, TouchDesigner.

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• Courtesy Of Sarah Jerger
• Vermont Symphony Orchestra with film on the screen from the Champlain College Emergent Media Center

On hand to witness the scene was VSO executive director Elise Brunelle, who began the organization's collaboration with Champlain College not long after she took the post, three years ago.

"I was thinking about the role of the modern orchestra," Brunelle said. She'd recently seen an immersive exhibit based on the work of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh that utilized motion graphics and augmented reality technology, as well as the work of Santa Fe, N.M.-based art collective Meow Wolf. The experience got her thinking about the orchestra working in concert with other art forms.

"I wanted the partnership to not only benefit the VSO but to be an educational opportunity for the kids who are going to be the next Meow Wolf designers or make the next Van Gogh exhibit," Brunelle said. "So, really, where else would you go other than Champlain College?"

The VSO's performance of Herrmann's score is still months away, and both Maron and Duffy will have graduated by then. Singer, a junior, will be studying abroad next semester when the performance takes place, but all three plan to watch it however they can.

"Meeting deadlines, working with each other and our respective methods, creating these long animations ... These are skills we're all going to carry into our lives and professions," Maron said. As he spoke, Herrmann's score for the so-called "shower scene," officially titled "The Murder," played in the background, the staccato stabs of strings and alternating semitones perfectly creating a sense of impending doom.

"I'm also never going to be able to get this music out of my head," Maron said.

Correction: October 19, 2023: An earlier version of this story misspelled James Moran's name and misstated the year in which Champlain College was founded. It was founded in 1878.