Filmmaker Turk Pipkin to speak at Texas State’s Platypus Workshop

Posted by Jayme Blaschke
University News Service
May 17, 2012

Writer and filmmaker Turk Pipkin will be a special guest speaker at the Platypus Workshop 7 p.m. May 20 at Texas State University-San Marcos in Old Main 234.

Turk Pipkin is the founder of the global education nonprofit, the Nobelity Project. He is the director of the feature documentaries Nobelity, One Piece at a Time and Building Hope. He is also the author of 10 books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times best-seller The Tao of Willie, co-authored with Willie Nelson. Pipkin has also worked as an actor in numerous film and television shows, including a recurring role in the HBO series The Sopranos.

Pipkin will talk about the role of the video journalist in the non-profit arena.

About the Platypus Workshop

The Platypus workshop, hosted by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, runs from May 19-27. Workshop attendees learn the proper use of camera position and angles, lighting, audio and sequencing under the direction of Dirck Halstead and Beth Corwin, veteran news and television photographers. Final Cut Pro editing will be taught by Tom Wolsky, an Apple certified FCP trainer and one of the best in the business. The workshop is acknowledged as the gold standard of digital video training. They teach high-definition digital shooting, editing and multimedia with an emphasis on storytelling. It is unique in the industry. They have taught more than 300 photojournalists since the workshop’s inception in 1999. Platypus graduates have gone on to do television documentaries, web videos--especially for newspapers--and even films.

For more information, contact David Nolan at (210) 488-5467 or via email at dn15@txstate.edu. The website workshop may be viewed at www.txstate.edu/continuinged/professional-development/Events/Platypus-Workshop.html.