50 Students Inaugurate Classes at Ex’pression Center for New Media

Pioneers launch Unique New high-tech Thinning Program

Emeryville, CA-Excitement cascaded through the Ex'pression Center for New Media on January 11, as members of the school's Inaugural class of 50 students began a 14-month course of study intended to lead them to new careers in digital visual media or sound arts.

Students in the first class range in age from 19 to 35, with an average in the mid-20s. There are six women among the group of 50. While many will commute from their homes in the So Bay Area, some 1S percent come from outside California, with one having traveled from Germany to achieve the Ex'pression experience.

Ex'pression President Gary Platt promised his new "family" of students that by the time they are ready to begin more advanced phases of their curriculum on March 10, the multiple recording studios and computer laboratories that were bare concrete and steel when school began will be ready for them.

Award-winning architect John Storyk, of the Walters-Storyk Design Croup who worked with Platt to design the ground-breaking Ex'pression complex, will teach a course on "Architecture and Acoustics of Media Production Faculties."

Students work with Instructors on a 6:1 ratio in the labs and studios. Classroom lectures can accommodate up to 30 students. In their first two courses - "Living in a Digital Media World:' and media-Sound and Visual - all students fill study the basics of computer hardware and software use, sound and video recording and post-production techniques. Then they separate Into one of two concentrations, either in sound or visual media, where they will remain for the balance of me Intense 14-month study and hands-on training, affectionately referred to as "total immersion boot camp.

The full curriculum offers an average of nine hours of classes and labs each day, five days a week for d total of 2,168 hours of study. Classes may be scheduled anytime between 8 a.m. and midnight because the working world they are training for doesn't operate on a 9-5 schedule. Students must maintain at least a C grade and attend at least 90 percent of their classes to stay in good standing.

Students must be high school graduates and must pass a basic skills test and participate in an application Interview. Tuition is $ 25,700 in the Comprehensive Sound Arts Program and S27,700 in the Comprehensive Digital Visual Media Program. The second Ex'pression class will commence on March 10.

Persons Interested in information about attending Ex'pression Center fir New Media should call the admissions office toll free at 1-877-833-8800, or visit their website at http://www.xnewmedia.com.