The BYU Department of Theatre and Media Arts and Music Dance Theatre program will present the BYU premiere of Disney's Beauty and the Beast in the Pardoe Theater on Nov. 19-21, 27-28, Dec. 1-5.

Professor David Dibble and six alumni play pivotal roles in converting beloved characters from 2D to 3D He’s an icon who has appeared in the Sunday paper for more than half a century, but there are still some sides of Charlie Brown the public has yet to see. For example: the back of his head. This was the challenge facing a team of talented artists at Blue Sky Studios (owned by 20th Century Fox), which included BYU Illustration professor David Dibble and six other alumni from the BYU Department of Design. The group was tasked with transforming the two-dimensional world of Charles Schulz’s characters into a three-dimensional feature-length film. “In the 1950s, Charlie Brown comic strips were a little more 3D and had some depth and perspective in the drawings,” Dibble said. “But in the 70s, 80s and 90s, not only did Schulz progressively flatten down the space, he stuck a flat brick wall in front of the characters in many scenes to eliminate depth. We never see the back of Charlie Brown’s head, we don’t see him from a three-quarter angle. He’s always drawn from a profile view or straight on.” Dibble worked as a visual development artist on “The Peanuts Movie,” set to release Friday. Visual development artists design the color, shape, style and any other visual element that make up a movie. Dibble specifically created a style guide for fellow designers and animators down the production pipeline detailing the nuances for drawing like Schulz, which included references for pen strokes and line width. In order to keep the tiniest details in harmony with Schulz’s original work, such as a poster hanging on the wall in Charlie Brown’s bedroom, every illustration had to be documented with a comic strip reference to prove it was consistent with tradition. “The level of research that went into this is something people won’t necessarily see when watching the movie. To say we did a fairly deep dive to make sure that details are accurate to Schulz’s vision is an understatement,” Dibble said. For example, because Schulz drew Charlie Brown slightly different in every strip, artists created a matrix of over 500 Charlie Browns before narrowing down the final design for the movie. “We also don’t want those details to be felt more than distracting. If people aren’t noticing but it just feels right, then we’ve done our job right.” The influence of BYU graduates stretches from the beginning of the production process throughout the entire movie, with some spending more than two years on the project. BYU Alum Jeff Call helped visualize the movie as a story artist, creating a blueprint of the movie for other departments to use. “The script leaves a lot up to interpretation and we’re the ones trying to tie it down,” Call said. “Every audience member is going to bring certain expectations when they come to watch the movie. We needed to meet those expectations and hopefully surpass them.” Fellow BYU grad Tyler Carter, also a visual development artist, was responsible for designing the look of the Peanuts’ world as well as Snoopy’s imagination, an area not heavily explored in the comics. “When I first started on the film over three years ago, I was quite intimidated,” Carter said. “Peanuts is synonymous with American culture in such a way that it’s almost sacred. Like the rest of the country, I grew up watching the Bill Melendez specials. For me, it’s an honor to work on a film like this.” The fantasy world, which equates to approximately 6,000 miles of computer generated land, is where Snoopy faces off against his arch nemesis, the Red Baron. To create this world, Carter drew on his childhood memories of the towering Wasatch mountains for inspiration. BYU graduate Seth Hippen was an animator on the film responsible for some scenes that included Charlie Brown, Woodstock, Snoopy and Linus. He said his biggest challenge as an animator was mimicking the rough movement of the original Schulz work in the smooth 3D format. “The animation in the holiday television specials was shot on a budget, and movements can be a little snappy moving from a straight on view to a profile view,” Hippen said. “We didn’t want to lose that feel, so to make it work in 3D we would animate one or two frames indicating the head was turning a certain direction and then we would snap it into profile.” Other BYU alumni who contributed significantly to “The Peanuts Movie”include Raphael Tavarez (materials artist); Michael Murdock (lighting technical director); and Brandon May (lighting technical director). The BYU Department of Design is accustomed to being in the national spotlight for work produced by the animation, illustration, and graphic design programs. A 2013 news feature in The New York Times touted “Out of nowhere, B.Y.U. – a Mormon university owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – has become a farm team for the country’s top animation studios and effects companies.” Dibble agrees. “In the way our programs are structured, the students are working in teams and that translates very well to a professional setting,” Dibble said. “You need to be able to work with people. Those recently graduated students start out with a company and, because of their character and work ethic, very quickly become respected leaders.” BY NATALIE TRIPP, BYU UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAREN WILKEY, BYU PHOTO

The cows will never make it home this week, as Brigham Young’s Jazz Legacy Dixieland Band is accompanied by the infamous cow-pleasing quintet, The New Hot 5. The bands will come together to perform “A Night in New Orleans” featuring composition from legends such as Louis Armstrong, Jelly Role Morton and more. The New Hot Five was organized by band director Steve Call and is composing entirely of alumni from the dixieland band. The quintet was formed in 2009 and in order to accept an offer the dixieland band had to decline to perform at the Jazz en Vercors Festival in the French Alps. In 2011, The New Hot Five became a viral phenomenon with “Jazz for Cows.' In the countryside of the alpine village of Autrans, France, a herd of cows was scattered around a large pasture next to the band’s scheduled venue. While the band set up, Call began to play his tuba for the widespread herd. “It was totally spontaneous.” Call told Good Things Utah. “While we started playing, the cows just starting coming towards us and they just stood there in rapture.” The rest of the band joined in as the majority of the herd gathered around the noise as if to listen. Call’s son Bruce filmed the cow crowd, and posted “Jazz Cows” to YouTube. The viral video quickly gave the quintet national attention as it received 13 million views, a spoof on The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien, and an opportunity for a special performance of the band on Good Things Utah. The New Hot Five will perform alongside the Jazz Legacy Dixieland Band on Thursday Nov. 5 in the de Jong Concert Hall. Download Program

The prestigious Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute selects only a handful of gifted young opera singers out of hundreds of applicants to receive private coaching, attend workshops and take part in master classes. This year, they have selected Brigham Young University master student in vocal performance, Dru Daniels, who has been chosen to participate in 'The Song Continues.' She will share the stage with the famed voices of Marilyn Horne, Stephanie Blythe and Sir Thomas Allen. Much of Daniels’ successful path to Carnegie can be traced back to the vocal training she received from faculty at BYU. One teacher, assistant professor of voice, Darrell Babidge, had his own Carnegie debut in 2004 and understood what Daniels would have to do to be ready for this program. “Dru has come a long way,” said Babidge. When she first arrived she had a few holes in her technique, and I have seen her work very hard to hone and polish these skills.” Babidge continues to train and work with students and alumni frequently. He assisted student, Rebecca Pederson as the second youngest ever to win the Metropolitan Opera Competition in 2013. Babidge understands the excellence of the Carnegie Hall program the intensive physical preparations one needs to sing, but he is confident in Daniels’ ability to perform. “Dru has worked really hard to get to this point,” said Babidge. “The week residency at Carnegie Hall will test her vocal and acting prowess, which she has learned so well at BYU.” While at BYU, Daniels has participated in several BYU productions including her performances as Ruth in Pirates of Penzance, the Witch in Hansel and Gretel and as Manon in the double-cast opera Manon. Daniels’ will be at Carnegie Hall January 18-23 in 2016.

The BYU Department of Theatre and Media Arts will present George Bernard Shaw’s classic comedy Misalliance, directed by Barta Lee Heiner, Nov. 5-7, 11—14, and 17—21 at 7:30 p.m. in the Margetts Theater, with matinees on Nov. 7 and 14 at 2 p.m. An ASL performance will be presented on Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m.

Each fall semester, the School of Communications presents the Raymond E. and Ida Lee Beckham Lecture in Communications series. The series includes three lectures that explore the interactions between media and society. The final lecture of this year's series is on October 29, 2015 at 11 a.m. in the HBLL auditorium. The speaker will be Kristin Matthews, a professor of English and American Studies here at BYU. Her lecture will be entitled, “New Media for an Old Message: Print Culture, Democracy, and New Left Politics in 1960’s America.” You can also check out the first two lectures on YouTube including “Creating Viral Content: The Science Behind Social Sharing,” by Ryan Elder and “Transforming the Soviet Soul: Labor, Science, and Religion in Gulag Newspapers,” by Jeff Hardy. The lectures were established in 1995 in honor of Ray Beckham’s late wife, Ida Lee. Raymond E. Beckham was a leader in education at BYU for 42 years. He was the driving force behind the BYU Evening school program, the BYU Travel Studies program, Aspen Grove, and founded the New York Internship program for Communications majors.

Discover Dance in the Annual Dance Assembly this Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 11 a.m. in the Marriott Center at Brigham Young University. Five premiere BYU dance groups will be performing to help the audience discover the different faces of dance.The performing groups include The Ballroom Dance Company, Living Legends, Theatre Ballet, The International Folk Dance Ensemble and Contemporary Dance Theatre. Each group will present choreography demonstrating how dance can be used to inspire, imagine, reflect, celebrate, remember or express.“We hope our audience will discover how the art of dance can be used to ask personal questions and reflect on the things we value in life,” said associate professor, Ed AustinAustin hopes students take a break from their studies to see the talent of their fellow student artists in a presentation that takes them on a journey through the world of dance and its diverse forms.“Some might assume people dance for the same reasons, but that’s not necessarily true,” Austin said. “The pieces in this program have each been choreographed with different intent, and in some cases, for different reasons.”President Worthen will provide a live introduction and Rodger Sorensen, an associate professor of theatre, has recorded a narration for the program. The assembly is free and open to all who are interested in experiencing the talent of these BYU performing groups.

Seduction, deceit, wild living, death. No, not the latest HBO Drama–these themes are just a few that the 11 student illustrators from BYU’s Senior Studio Design class attempted to capture for BYU’s upcoming performance of Manon, an opera about how the desire for fleeting pleasures results in one young woman’s regretful choices. Guiding the students through the process of creating the concert poster is Professor Robert Barrett. Barrett explained that his class is one of the last chances students will have before graduation to create commissioned pieces with a mentor. “It raises the level of expectation for the students. They work pretty hard on it,” said Barrett. “I think they put their best foot forward.” While not exactly a professional commission, the project gives students the experience of meeting a client’s expectations. Students consulted with opera director Lawrence Vincent and then researched the opera more themselves to best understand and portray its essence. More>>>>

How do we make our life more artistic? How does our life influence our art? To answer and interpret these questions, Professor Daniel Barney’s art classes, Theory, Method and Practice and Issues in Contemporary Art, created this piece inspired by Oliver Herring’s TASK Area for Action concept. A TASK party is an improvisational event with few rules. For this TASK, the students were told they had to keep a three-foot boundary around the piece and only add to the artwork, no subtracting. Barney’s two classes each had a different role with the TASK. The first class was instructed to create the piece starting with a few students standing as statues and then adding any material they could find. Papers, tape and foil were draped around the students and tied up the staircases and walls. “It became not just artist-object, something pristine and curated, but to improvisation galore,” Barney said. The second class was charged with repurposing the materials already used and adding to the creation even further. “Everyone might not be an artist but everyone is a creative agent,” Barney said. “How we interpret the world is based off our own agency.” PHOTOS: Hailey Stevens For more information on Oliver Herring and TASK visit: https://oliverherringtask.wordpress.com/

The BYU Department of Theatre and Media Arts and the BYU Student Film Association present the Fall 2015 Final Cut Film Festival in the Pardoe Theater, Harris Fine Arts Center, on Oct. 22 and Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Tickets are $5,with discounts available for students, and can be purchased in person at the BYU Ticket Office in the Harris Fine Arts Center or Marriott Center, by phone at 801-422-2981 or online at byuarts.com. The BYU Final Cut Film Festival is a student-produced, student-created film festival. The festival will screen a collection of the best student-made fiction films, documentaries, commercials, animations and more. The purpose of this festival is to encourage students to create and watch meaningful and creative media. Festival submissions are open to all current BYU students. Two programs, each about 75 minutes long, will be screened each night, with an awards ceremony after the last screening on Friday. Program A: Thursday, Oct. 22, 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, 9 p.m. Program B: Thursday, Oct. 22, 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, 7 p.m.

After hours of interrogation, Kayla Peel, one of Divine Comedy’s newest members, finally reveals her secret to landing a spot on BYU’s favorite sketch show: “I brought a birth certificate that said my middle name was comedy.” Peel is one of four people who made Divine Comedy’s final cut this year. She is joined by Alena Helzer, Addison Jenkins and Dalton Johnson. “I was in the Tanner building from 9:00 A.M. to 10:00 P.M.” Helzer said. “I missed a family vacation for it so I hoped it paid off – bailing on my family to do it!” The four new members competed with over one hundred other Divine Comedy hopefuls to secure their spot. Tryouts spanned two days and were broken up into three rounds. Entry-level auditions required each contestant to write and perform a ninety-second skit. Twenty people of the initial hundred were chosen to progress to the second round beginning the next morning. “I was dazed really, because I wasn’t expecting to even get callbacks.” Peel admitted. “The whole day I kept thinking, ‘This isn’t happening! This isn’t real life!’” The remaining contestants were split into groups and given twenty minutes to write three to five minute sketches. After performing their sketches and playing more improv games, contestants had to memorize and perform previous divine comedy sketches. “That was actually the hardest part of the day – in just a few hours having to memorize the whole thing and then performing a show,” Johnson said. That evening, ten out of the twenty progressed to the final round, when the finalists performed their original sketches live in a Divine Comedy show. After more than 12 hours of skits, games and shows, the victorious four were chosen. The new members are already excited to make a positive impact on the troupe. “People in the back never get candy or glow sticks.” Jenkins said. “I’m a populist. I will please the masses at the back of our venues. That is my mission.” For the masses in the back and everybody else, these outstanding newcomers are bringing fresh ideas and personalities guaranteed to harness more laugh energy than the entire Monsters Inc. factory. Catch the new cast members in the upcoming show, “The Hunchback of BYU,” at 7:00 and 9:00 P.M. on Oct. 9 and 10 in room 151 of the Tanner building.

BYU Alumnus Shaun Parry not only gives back to the community, but shows students how they can as well. Dance Education student, Kyla Threlfall, had the opportunity to work with Shaun Parry in India as she volunteered for Promethean Spark International, the organization Parry founded. She spent the winter semester of 2014 teaching dance, using methodology Parry taught her. Threlfall first heard of Parry’s India program because her sister was in Parry’s ward in New York City. She shared the information with Threlfall, knowing her interest in dance education, and Threlfall jumped on the opportunity to volunteer. Threlfall’s experience led her to teaching classes at a boarding school in Tamul Nadu for kids from kindergarten to ninth grade. She was the only one teaching the dance classes while other volunteers focused on medical assistance and other service projects. She worked closely with Parry on implementing life skills into dance lessons. “We would try role plays of figuring out how I would add in a life skill to a simple movement,” Threlfall said. From this experience Threlfall learned how to be vocal about what the students were learning. She explained that if an exercise required teamwork, she would make sure the students knew that what they were doing was exhibiting teamwork. She used this to have them think of ways to use teamwork in their everyday lives. “The performing arts inherently teaches life skills, sometimes they just needed help recognizing it,” she said. In India, society tells people with leprosy that they cannot do anything worthwhile in their life because they are “untouchable,” Threllfall said. Parry showed her the importance of changing that perception. “He taught me that a major part of my job was ... to let them know that with hard work they can accomplish their dreams,” Threllfall said. As a Dance Education major, Threlfall hopes to implement the teachings from this experience in her future career. Her philosophy goes beyond creating good dancers, but creating good people. “After learning from Shaun, I now have a foundation to use with my future students,” she said. FEATURE PHOTO: Kyla Threlfall and the LifeDance Company.