CMIX Faculty leads a project funded by the Louisiana Department of Economic Development (LED) in the amount of $920K

The Louisiana Department of Economic Development (LED) has funded a project at CMIX to develop the visual effects program and launch a location scouting platform based on virtual reality technology. The program will provide a highly specialized curriculum preparing students for sophisticated digital content creation careers. Moving Images Arts Program students will get hands-on practical experience by helping to develop the immersive location scouting platform. Selecting a physical site for a project can be constrained by scheduling and budgeting limitations; the VR scouting tool will allow for a cost-effective alternative for the exploration, interaction and annotation of sites. 

With the award, the university will receive $184,000 a year for five years (a total of $920,000 over five years) to cover instructional and infrastructure development costs. The project is lead by Dr. Arun Kulshreshth (PI) and his team include Dr. Christoph Borst from CMIX, and some faculty members (Prof. Virgile Beddok, Prof. Geoffrey Marschall, and Prof. Conni Castill) from the Department of English’s Moving Image Arts (MIA) Program. The program is designed to provide direct economic and educational benefits. In the process of doing work that promotes Louisiana as a prime motion picture production destination, UL Lafayette students will jump-start their careers as filmmakers by gaining marketable skills and an enhanced knowledge of the state’s resources and visual effects infrastructure.

A press release is available on the LED website. A news article was also published on the Acadiana's KATC news website.