Paul Trillo (Film 2007) is a filmmaker, an illustrator, and, above all, a storyteller. Since graduating in 2007 he's been blazing a unique path --first in the Bay Area, and lately in New York -- with a prodigious output of dynamic, experimental short films and music videos. His new short film Happy Birthday Mr. Bracewell will be screening at the Cannes Film Festival's Short Film Corner in May.

It is a matter-of-fact fictional piece about a man named Gray Bracewell whose birthday is also the anniversary of the day his wife left him three years previous. Events depicted involve a long-lost brother, a decent bit of time travel, and the possibility of recapturing a love lost.

I spoke with Trillo in March 2012 about his recent projects and how CCA helped shape his artistic vision.

"People have always told me no, and I've done it anyway."

There's nowhere that Andrew Georgopoulos (Individualized Major 2007) won't go to get his image. He's photographed a nude woman in the middle of Lombard Street and documented the day-to-day exploits of Snoop Dogg and other hip-hop legends. Recently he grabbed his first Hollywood studio experience working on a film with a serious budget and an international crew that would go on to be named best picture of 2011: a production you may have heard of, called The Artist.

"It's all about access," Georgopoulos explains, of how to get the story you want. "It's the defining factor that separates you from the next person." His introduction to hip-hop musicians and lifestyles started by answering an ad soliciting photojournalists for a neighborhood magazine in the East Bay. "My body of work grew, from the next artist to the next. I was always looking to get the next big name, and I was able to come to them with a background." Eventually he spent a full year capturing the life of Snoop Dogg. This was during his sophomore year at CCA, when he was 20 years old.

Georgopoulos's work can be in-your-face, but his technique never overshadows his subject. His most engaging photos of musicians are often candid shots of their more mundane, day-to-day moments, and his travel photography is as contemplative as it is exotic. His personal work, on the other hand, captures for posterity those larger-than-life moments you see out of the corner of your eye or in your more vivid dreams.

Furniture faculty member Barbara Holmes spent most of February installing a tour de force exhibition in an impressive new space in one of San Francisco's more down-and-out neighborhoods. Located at 1045 Mission Street between 6th and 7th Streets, it will be on view through Sunday, May 27, 2012. Since it's viewable only through the front windows, visitors are welcome to come take a look 24 hours a day. At night the piece is theatrically lit with interior spotlights.

Read the press release

1045 Mission Street is a 100-foot-long window-front space on the ground floor of SOMA Residencies. In 2011, the owners invited Recology's artist in residence (AIR) program to utilize it for off-site exhibits. Holmes is one of the first artists to install there, and she leaped on the opportunity to conceive her most ambitious piece to date -- one that would specifically take advantage of the entire available space and the nighttime illumination possibilities. The opportunity to create something so abstract, almost alive, on this big of a scale, was deeply interesting.

Also interesting were her interactions with people who live in the neighborhood and passed by while she was installing. The door was closed, but that didn't stop people from tapping on the window pretty much daily, wanting to ask about what she was doing and, occasionally, relate their life story. "It's a pretty tough neighborhood. Sometimes the interactions were funny, sometimes sad. A lot of the people who were passing by, seeing the piece, were not people who would ordinarily go to art galleries, so it was wonderful to reach them with an artwork."

If you want to make a major impact on solving the country’s health care crisis . . . you go to design school, right? OK, so it may not be the obvious choice (yet!), but for Adam Dole (MBA in Design Strategy 2010) it was the best choice. He now has his dream job as a business planning manager for the Mayo Clinic. He is based in Silicon Valley and serves as a member of a “new ventures” team, focusing on identifying and incubating future Mayo Clinic commercial products, services, and businesses.

Back in 2008, when Dole realized that an MBA was what he needed to take his career to the next level, he knew from extensive professional experience that something was missing from almost all of the programs he was researching. Determined not to go the traditional business-school route, he saw clearly how the hybrid curriculum of CCA’s MBA in Design Strategy program would be perfect for his purposes.

Ready for Anything

Dole leverages his CCA MBA training on a daily basis. He hit the ground running at the Mayo Clinic by being able to effectively identify and evaluate new opportunities using a hybrid approach: Creative thinking defines what is possible, and analytical thinking determines what is required to bring new ideas to fruition. “Our health care system is on the brink of bankrupting our country,” he says. “We are now raising the first generation of children who are expected to live shorter lives than their parents. We can no longer rely on traditional thinking and existing models to solve these problems. Nor will they be solved by incremental improvements in operational efficiencies. Real solutions will require a systems-thinking approach.”