Flashpoint Academy

Flashpoint Chicago is a non-profit campus of Columbia College Hollywood, a private liberal arts college with a focus on communication, media arts, and contemporary storytelling. Flashpoint Chicago is located in downtown Chicago, Illinois.

The college is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC) to offer Bachelor of Fine Arts and associate degree programs.

In 2021, Flashpoint Chicago announced the campus would be permanently closing at the end of the 2021–2022 academic year.

History

In 2018, Flashpoint Chicago became a branch campus of Columbia College Hollywood, a private, regionally accredited non-profit institution, after the college acquired the former Tribeca Flashpoint College in Chicago, Illinois.

Flashpoint Chicago was originally founded in 2007 as Flashpoint, The Academy of Media Arts and Sciences. In 2010, the college entered a partnership with Tribeca Enterprises, the company established by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff best known for producing the Tribeca Film Festival, and the college was renamed Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy. Sterling Capital Partners, a private equity firm, became the majority owner of Tribeca Flashpoint Academy in 2012, and in April 2015, the school announced that it had become Tribeca Flashpoint College. Flashpoint has since ended its association with Tribeca Enterprises. The college became known as Flashpoint Chicago, a campus of Columbia College Hollywood.

Columbia College Hollywood has operating and degree-granting authority in the Chicago region from the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE).

Campus

The Flashpoint Chicago campus occupies the fifth and sixths floors of the historic Burnham Center building at 28 North Clark Street in the downtown Chicago Loop.

The campus is located near museums, performance venues, and a wide range of annual cultural events. The neighborhood is bordered on the north by Chicago's historic theatre district and the Chicago Riverwalk and on the east by Millennium Park and the shoreline of Lake Michigan.

Chicago area attractions are easily accessible to students and faculty via public transportation, by bikeshare, or on foot. Union Station, offering Amtrak and Metra train transportation, is a 15-minute walk from the campus. CTA train stations are located a few blocks from the campus, offering public transit access to city destinations and both O'Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport.

Flashpoint Chicago's 52-seat screening room is a space for students in all disciplines to view professional work and showcase their own productions. The screening room is equipped with 4K projection, Blu-ray playback, 7.1 surround sound, and wireless microphone and computer connections for speakers and presenters.

In 2019, Flashpoint expanded upon existing studio space and built a full scale, three-wall set in the middle of campus. Adjoining this studio are classroom/production office spaces and a wardrobe, makeup and props room, as well as a film student meeting room. Down the hall is a second, black-box rehearsal studio. All of these resources are accessible to students right in the middle of campus.

Flashpoint Chicago also has three suites for post-production digital film editing. The private rooms are soundproof and include space for collaborators to join in the session.

The music studio at Flashpoint Chicago is a professional audio recording facility equipped with 24 channels of audio and designed to accommodate musical ensembles of different styles and sizes. It includes four live rooms all interconnected to a large control room, including a vocal booth, an array of studio microphones, speakers, a variety of instruments, including a grand piano and a drum kit.

The professional-quality equipment room is stocked with industry-standard film, video, and sound equipment, available for students to check out and use on film productions and coursework as well as independent productions. It is fully stocked with cases, accessories, and supplies.

The Foley/Automated Dialog Replacement (ADR) suite is a sound-isolated booth and control room where students learn to record, edit, and mix dialog, sound effects, and audio for their projects. The Foley/ADR suite is equipped with multiple microphones, monitors, and industry-standard computer hardware and software.

Flashpoint Chicago has four audio mini suites, which are high-tech workstations in private, sound isolated rooms suitable for editing and mixing music and sound design. Each room is equipped with software, studio monitors, and large screen video monitors for editing sound to video. Two mini suites are alongside a dedicated narration booth for voice over work.

The library and learning commons offers quiet study space and a variety of print and digital publications and other media.

Academics

Columbia College Hollywood offers liberal arts degree programs focused on the art and science of communications and the diverse media of contemporary storytelling, including film, graphic design, interactive media, visual effects, digital media production, and recording arts. Students also study liberal arts and sciences, such as the humanities, communication, fine arts, mathematics, natural sciences, and social/behavioral sciences to build essential skills in creative problem solving, effective communication, informed decision making, and leadership.

Flashpoint Chicago campus degree programs for 2019 include Bachelor of Fine Arts in Cinema, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design + Interactive Media, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Effects, Associate of Fine Arts in Design + Visual Communication, Associate of Applied Science in Film, Associate of Applied Science in Recording Arts, and Associate of Fine Arts in Visual Effects + Animation. Online programs include Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design + Interactive Media, and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Effects.

All Bachelor of Fine Arts degree students choose a focus for their studies in an area of personal and academic interest called an emphasis, such as cinematography, directing, digital marketing, or digital modeling.

Flashpoint has integrated critical studies competencies and skills into the outcomes of specialty courses. Critical Studies learning outcomes include critical thinking and problem solving, oral and written communication, global awareness and responsibility, information literacy, quantitative reasoning, and aesthetic literacy.

Columbia College Hollywood has operating and degree-granting authority in the Chicago region from the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE).

Faculty

Courses at Columbia College Hollywood's Flashpoint Chicago campus are taught by professionals who work as filmmakers, producers, directors, editors, writers, artists, sound engineers, game designers, media makers, cinematographers, and scholars.

Collectively, the faculty of Columbia College Hollywood's Los Angeles main campus and Flashpoint Chicago campus has contributed to dozens of studio and independent feature films and hundreds of hours of television programming. Their work has been seen in film festivals worldwide.

Faculty are active members of the entertainment industry's professional organizations and guilds, including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Emmy), the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the Producers Guild of America (PGA), the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), the Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG), the Higher Education Video Game Alliance (HEVGA), and the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS).

The college's general education faculty members have academic backgrounds in the humanities, natural and social sciences, technology, business, and art.

Admissions

Columbia College Hollywood at Flashpoint Chicago welcomes applications for admission from all individuals who seek undergraduate liberal arts degree programs focused on the fields of film, graphic design, interactive media, digital marketing, recording arts, animation, visual communication, and visual effects.

Columbia College Hollywood does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability in admissions and/or all other institutional policies.

References

External links

*

{{authority control

Universities and colleges in Chicago
Video game universities
Film schools in Illinois
Design schools in the United States
Educational institutions established in 2007
Digital media schools
Private universities and colleges in Illinois
2007 establishments in Illinois