The Decline of AET's Entertainment Technology Courses

In our last blog article, "How AET Manipulates its Curriculum & Certificates," we demonstrated how Santa Monica College's Entertainment Technology ET 12 and ET 13 courses have steady lost their respective sections. Let's look at some other classes at the Academy of Entertainment and Technology. All course listings are taken from SMC's Schedule of Classes. The other data is taken from SMC's and AET's official websites.

In the Spring 2001 SMC Course Schedule for Entertainment Technology, it states the following:

The following courses are open to all students. Please call (310) 434-4700 for information on admission to the Academy of Entertainment and Technology, which offers comprehensive course work and entertainment industry internships in Animation, Interactive Media, and Entertainment Production Management.

Here's a screenshot confirming this information:



Now, Santa Monica College is stating that there is both course work and industry internships in Entertainment Production Management. But, according to a cached version of AET's website for the same semester, "The Entertainment Production Management curriculum is under revision and is not being offered at this time." Here's a screenshot from the AET curriculum page:



You can read more information on the disappearance of the Entertainment Production Management occupational certificate in our blog article, "AET's Questionable Vocational Career Certificates."

Let's return to SMC's Spring 2001 schedule of classes for Entertainment Technology. ET 11 is a 3 unit course entitled, "Computer Skills and Software for Animation and Interactive Media." There is no prerequisite. Bill Lancaster teaches several sections. Here's the course description:

This introductory course covers the computer skills, concepts, and essential software needed to work successfully in the fields of computer animation and interactive media. Students will learn the use of general computer skills such as file organization for projects, keyboard shortcuts, using local area networks, and using proper file suffixes. Digital image concepts such as vector and rastor images, color bit depth, and pixel dimensions will be introduced. Key software applications will be covered for rastor image editing, vector image editing, audio, web browsing, and spreadsheets.

ET 14 is a 3 unit course entitled, "Interactive Design for the Web 1." The prerequisite is ET 12. Philip Van Allen teaches several sections. Here's the course description:

This computer-based course is focused on the design and implementation of successful web site design, web graphics and audio, HTML, dynamic HTML, and authoring tools. Design issues such as effective communication, technical constraints, typography, navigation, and information architecture will be addressed. Students will design and implement web sites that can be included in their portfolios.

Let's track the history of both these courses from Spring 2001 to Spring 2006.

ET 11: Spring 2001: 6 Sections
ET 14: Spring 2001: 4 Sections

ET 11: Fall 2001: 6 Sections
ET 14: Fall 2001: 5 Sections

ET 11: Spring 2002: 7 Sections
ET 14: Spring 2002: 5 Sections

ET 11: Fall 2002: 6 Sections
ET 14: Fall 2002: 3 Sections

ET 11: Spring 2003: 4 Sections
ET 14: Spring 2003: 3 Sections

ET 11: Fall 2003: 3 Sections
ET 14: Fall 2003: 2 Sections

ET 11: Spring 2004: 2 Sections
ET 14: Spring 2004: 2 Sections

ET 11: Fall 2004: 3 Sections
ET 14: Fall 2004: 2 Sections

ET 11: Spring 2005: 2 Sections
ET 14: Spring 2005: 2 Sections

ET 11: Fall 2005: 2 Sections
ET 14: Fall 2005: 2 Sections

ET 11: Spring 2006: 2 Sections
ET 14: Spring 2006: 2 Sections

At AET's peak in Spring 2002, ET 11 had 7 sections and ET 14 had 5 sections. For the last several years, ET 11 and ET 14 both remain at only 2 sections each. During this same period, ET 12 went from 5 to 2 sections and ET 13 went from 3 to only 1 section. ET 12 is now only worth 1 unit of credit. These are allegedly the core computer-based courses for the Entertainment Technology department at Santa Monica College.

Also notice that ET 14 is now called "Web Design I." The ET 12 prerequisite has now been kicked down a notch to only an advisory. This was done to help recover lost enrollment by allowing anyone to jump right into this course. Consider also that AET has lost both the online and ground versions of its ET 61 History of Animation and its ET 4 Interactive Design For e-Business. Also, ET 7 Entertainment Law is also not being offered in Spring 2006. The following courses also lost credits: ET 12 Principles of Web Design, ET 42 Principles of Game Development, and ET 72 Career Exploration. Finally, ET 95 Animal Drawing and ET 96 Costumed Figure Drawing have been combined into one course called ET 95. In Fall 2002, both courses had the prerequisite of Art 21 A. Now, the new ET 95 course has no prerequisites.

What about all those Academy courses in Fall 2002 that required passing a portfolio course prior to admission? Let's see what happened to them in Spring 2006. ET 16 Interactive Design for the Web II has been renamed ET 16 Web Design II. Anyone can now take this class if he or she has taken ET 14. The Storyboards courses were divided into ET 18A Storyboards I and ET 18B Storyboards II. Now it is just ET 18 Storyboarding. The course description has been conveniently modified to include "videogames and visual effects" since AET is trying to push its pending certificates in Game Development and Visual Effects. Since AET lost its Theme Park Major, it has dropped the "theme park rides" wording from the 2002 description. Since Professor Keeshen teaches ET 18, there is now the corequisite of his ET 2 Storytelling course.

ET 23 Character Animation, another portfolio by admission only course in Fall 2002, has disappeared entirely. In its place is ET 24B 3D Character Animation. AET is slowly gravitating away from traditional 2D animation in lieu of 3D computer generated animation using Alias Maya. ET 28 Animation Final Project is also gone. Since ET 28's course description was "designed to produce a portfolio piece that will help get the student a job in the industry" and AET obviously hasn't done too good a job in this regard, it would make sense that this course would no longer be offered.

So, from this raw data, it seems that the Academy of Entertainment and Technology's program is slowly declining through the years. Where once it was a program open to a select few, now it is open to anyone who wishes to pay the price of admission. It will be interesting to continue to track this progress over the next few years to see if the program survives at all.

-- Des Manttari,
Editor-in-Chief,
Phoenix Genesis

(c) 2006: Phoenix Genesis/MBS LP

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