The Blog

Jonathan Loeffler

Teacher

Multimedia Design / VideoFilm / TV Broadcasting

Carmel Valley Middle School

jonathan.loeffler@sduhsd.net

858.481.8221 x3219

February 16, 2024

Multimedia Design students have created posters to advertise the upcoming school play. They look fantastic!

April 14, 2023

Interested in an exciting, fast-moving, and creative career? Imagine working for the marketing department of a professional sports team! Yesterday I got to do just that while touring the marketing department for the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. Special thanks to Daniel Kim (Senior Director, Creative Digital Design), Tom Higdon (Director, Video Production), and Matt Thomas (Team Photographer) for hosting me and providing this unique insight into their careers in the media and entertainment industry.

March 30, 2023

Thanks to contributions from the CVMS English Department, this year's Bobcat 500 music video was epic!

2023Bobcat500MusicVideoFinalCut.mp4

November 30, 2022

Multimedia Design students are writing and illustrating short stories for their 1st semester final projects. Can't wait to see the presentations in just a few weeks!

October 31, 2022

Video/Film students are learning about special effects and filming content with green screens. They wrote their own scripts for a scene that takes place in a haunted house. Afterwards, we edited together a music video for Halloween using a mashup of sequences from the haunted house footage.

October 17, 2022

Multimedia Design students have spent the 1st quarter learning to illustrate in Adobe Illustrator. Great artists in these classes! Next up: Photoshop.

2022ForestofCreativeAnimals.mp4

June 4, 2022

Carmel Valley Middle School students set a new school record for iVIE (ivieawards.org) nominations this year: 9! Of the 9 nominations, 4 were awarded iVIE Awards! Congratulations to the following students:

Electric Rebirth by Eva DCosta (iVIE Award - SDGE $750 award winner)

How To Make An Animation by Brooklin LeeKwai (Nomination - DIY)

Happiness by Yunji Kim ( Nomination-Short Narrative)

How Social Media Affects Us by Kyle Busby, Nickolas Sanchez-Kishko, Dylan Van Winkle, & Jacob Taylor (Nomination -News Broadcast)

I Love Bagels by Reiji Osu, Trey Riddle, & Glenn Krause (Nomination-Animation)

Plastic by Emma Valdez (Nomination-PSA)

Mans Friend at Heart by Carmelo Del Core, Chase Alton, Aadi Jariwala, & Audrey Chi (iVIE Award - Animation)

Pigeons by Amy Zhang (iVIE Award - Documentary)

The Concept of Modern Computers by Lingrui (Chris) Cao (iVIE Award - STEAM)

May 6, 2022

I love it when former students come back to visit CVMS. Two students, Reid and Ashley, are now in high school but took the time to come by CVMS this past month. Reid (junior at CCA) came by to share how he's developing a business making video content for local musicians. Ashley (senior at TP) shared that after taking the BNN class at CVMS she was disappointed when she went to Torrey Pines HS and discovered they didn't have a TV Broadcasting class. She became an advocate to get a TV Broadcasting class started at TP and it happened! The class has been developing these past 4 years and is now ready to do live streaming of events. Although CCA TV is our district's flagship leader in the video production arts, watch out because Falcon Vision is on the rise!

April 1, 2022

The annual Bobcat 500 is a 20-year CVMS tradition. After a 2-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the tricycle race around the quad returned last week. With the help of some incredible camerawork and postproduction from TV Broadcasting and Video/Film students, we proudly present...

2022Bobcat500MusicVideo.mp4

March 1, 2022

Multimedia students working on their projects for the upcoming Innovative Video in Education Awards (the iVIE's). Projects in multiple categories are currently in production:

Narrative Films
Animation
DIY
Diversity & Inclusion
News Story
Documentary
STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts & Math)
Music Video

Good sound design is imperative!

February 9, 2022

It's not every day you get to learn from an Emmy-Winning broadcast professional! Thank you Mr. Stuart Smith for coming to the TV Broadcasting class and sharing insights with us from your 30+ years in professional broadcasting!

November 8, 2021

Sylvia Kosowski was among the first students that I began teaching animation to here at CVMS. It was 2008 in the Video/Film class at Carmel Valley Middle School. Although we didn't have proper animation software in the computer lab at that time, we improvised using Microsoft Paint and Windows Moviemaker. Sylvia created two animated short films in the class. After CVMS she continued to practice animation and while at CCA and she returned twice to CVMS to share her latest animation projects. After high school, she studied at Carnegie Mellon University and earned a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Art. Today Sylvia is employed by Disney Animation Studios as a Technical Director. Check out her story here.

Sylvia Animation Hungry Cat.wmv

June 11, 2021

It is finished. The pandemic school year of 2020-21 is finally over. And after overcoming all the great obstacles, the students are SUPERHEROES!

January 19, 2021

This week marks a historical moment for CVMS as we complete our first semester ever offering online distance learning. It's been an unexpected challenge for all of us. I'm proud to be a part of an amazing staff here at CVMS that has pivoted with remarkable agility. I'm enjoying seeing my progress from my last blog post (August) until now. The learning curve is steep and still going - but it's going!

The CVMS students continue to amaze me. They keep showing up, working hard, and creating amazing work.

Featured here some advertising posters for the stories Multimedia Design students wrote and illustrated this past month.

August 25, 2020

Commence distance learning! Today marked a first in 20 years of teaching for me. This photo captures how I felt at the start of the day. Let's just say my learning curve from the first period of the day until the last was steep.

LET'S GO BOBCATS! KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

June 5, 2020

CVMS is retiring one of it's great founding teachers, Katrina Peterson. Very proud and grateful for the many Bobcat Studios students who contributed to this video project celebrating her career and contribution to the Arts at CVMS. We will miss you Katrina!

March 2, 2020

I've been reflecting over the past month the passing of my former student Stella Chung. Stella was a CVMS student (2014). She was attending Johns Hopkins University when she passed away on February 1, 2020.

Stella was a special person. Compassionate. Earnest. Attentive listener. Accomplished musician. A purposeful and productive student.

Looking for a way to honor her, the TV Broadcasting class (a class Stella took while she was at CVMS) is producing a music video to be presented to the CVMS student body later this month.

Thank you, Stella. What you shared with the world is what it keeps of you.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/baltimore-md/stella-chung-9027302

February 11, 2020

Multimedia Design students are involved in a collaborative project with Mrs. Ramirez's English class. Her class has written short stories for children. The stories have been passed on to the Multimedia Design classes for illustration. Students are working in teams (2-4 students) to illustrate their peer's stories.

January 22, 2020

Today Video/Film students conducted an interview with CVMS drama teacher Katrina Peterson for a documentary film project for this year's iVIE Awards film competition. The documentary will present an overview of her 31-year career as a teacher.

November 8, 2019

Video/Film students are in the preproduction phase of their silent film project. Shown here sharing their story ideas.

The Multimedia Design class has finished their self-portraits. They look fantastic!

October 22, 2019

How did we get this far into the school year without a blog update?!

Our Halloween-themed projects are coming together soon!

Multimedia Design students are finishing up "The Monster Project" (inspired by themonsterproject.org) and Video/Film are in postproduction on the Haunted House Project - their first green screen project! Can't wait to see the results!

June 5, 2019

For the final project, video/film students choose their project. Aidan decided he wanted to learn how 3D films are made. He did the research, learned the techniques, then created his own 3D short to share with the class!

June 1, 2019

5 CVMS student projects were nominated for an iVIE Award this year - a new CVMS school record!

Giraffe Status (News Broadcast)
Riding In Style (News Broadcast)
How to Tie Your Shoes (How To)
Free Flight (Documentary)
The F Team (Cross-Curricular)

Proud of these young filmmakers!

May 10, 2019

11 years ago Kevin Shanmugam was a student in my Video/Film class at Carmel Valley Middle School. Today he came back! After graduating from SDSU Film School, he is currently employed as a professional cinematographer. He came and shared his experiences with CVMS's current Video/Film class, where his young cousin Anush is currently a student.

May 2, 2019

Multimedia Design students are currently working on a music video project. They have drawn background and foreground artwork in Adobe Illustrator and will be creating composite shots with green screen video footage. Looking forward to how these will turn out!

March 14, 2019

Today my students turned in a FANTASTIC silent film project. So proud of their work - the creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking it took to put this together!

2019TestDaySilentFilm.mp4

February 26, 2019

This class collaboration project was a success! Students from Mrs. Vermilyea's art class produced some beautiful silhouette artwork that went on display in the school office at the end of the fall semester. Then students in Mr. Loeffler's multimedia design class were able to take the artwork and turn them into animation! Check it out:

ProjectArtCollabration2.mp4

October 30, 2018

The Monster Project (October) was fun! Students pencil-sketched a monster, then traded drawings with another student who was tasked with creating an illustration of the monster.

October 18, 2018

Students enjoying our new classroom space. The extra square footage is awesome!

September 24, 2018

TV Broadcasting students at CVMS are gearing up to launch the BNN, our school's weekly news broadcast - this week!

August 2, 2018

I spent today at "Truth and the News: A Media Literacy Workshop" at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Los Angeles. The "Situation Room Experience" immerses participants into a role-play of reporting and making decisions from media and government positions in a crisis situation. Very insightful. We learned the relationships between the public, the media, and government actually work.

May 29, 2018

Multimedia Design students are currently in a digital photography unit, which includes learning the fundamentals of manual camera settings. Here are student samples of long exposure and fast exposure shots from today's class.

March 1, 2018

Multimedia Design students at CVMS are currently building children's books.

After writing a short story, students are using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to create accompanying illustrations

The artwork coming in is fantastic! I'm so excited to see the final books in May!

Ian M. (7th grade)

Tim H. (7th grade)

Maya M. (7th grade)

February 14, 2018

Video/Film students are learning about the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, in preparation for their upcoming mini-movie project. Students will create a 3-Act short film (approx. 5 minutes). Story spines will be developed in preproduction. Then production will include 9 sequences as follows:

Once upon a time...
Every day...
Until one day...
Because of that...
Because of that...
Because of that...
Until finally...
And ever since then...
The moral of the story...

December 11, 2017

TV Broadcasting students welcomed Troy Hirsch, news anchor from Fox 5 Sports into our class today. Troy came and shared the story of his path into a successful news broadcasting career.

November 3, 2017

Video/Film students are learning how to use green screens for special effect shots. We're currently in a unit where students have written a dialogue sequence between students outside of a haunted house. We're also learning about sound design. Can't wait to see the finished productions!

October 12, 2017

Multimedia Design students are learning Adobe Illustrator. We're currently in a 5-week unit where students will create 5 pieces of digital artwork. We're about 1/2-way through and the pieces are getting better each week!

October 2, 2017

Monday's are Genius Hour in Mr. Loeffler's classes. Students select a topic of choice and embark on a self-guided study of the subject. The only rules are:

You must do inquiry-based research.
You must make something.
You must present something to the class.

This inquiry-based learning environment is inspired by Google's policy of letting employees use 20% of their time to explore personal-interest research projects that could potentially help the company.

Students have chosen topics such as:

What are the positive effects of vegetarianism?
How is space exploration going to (and already) changing the world?
How is Adobe Character Animator software used to create a computer animation?

September 27, 2017

Video/Film students embark on their first projects today: Public Service Announcements.

March 30, 2017

Multimedia Design students are working on building their SILENT FILM projects today - can't wait to see the final cuts!

March 23, 2016

We're going to learn manual controls on DSLR cameras for low light photography! Wohoo!!

Here I'm messing around with the APERTURE, ISO, and SHUTTER SPEED SETTINGS in the Bobcat Studio.

March 1, 2017

Video/Film students are finishing up Act 1 of our 3-Act Mini Movie. The working title is "Bobcat Island." We'll be taking a break from production next week to work on our IVIE Awards projects.

February 28, 2017

Multimedia Design students started a new unit for the first time ever for CVMS today. Photography with DSLR cameras! (In 2016 CVMS students took a school-wide career interest survey and #1 was photography.) Thank you CVMS PTSA for providing the Canon Rebel T5i's. We've done Photoshop in the past, but never before have we been able to dive into how to use DSLR cameras and lenses.

"Visual Anchor" by Tristan T. (7th grade)

February 1, 2017

Beginning to build this new website today. It's overdue. The objectives are:

Target Audience: Young Digital Arts & Media Students at Carmel Valley Middle School

Objectives:

Showcase Student Work

Resource for Information and Inspiration in the Digital Arts

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