For the past five years, Ringling College of Art and Design has been leading sound design workshops for students from nearby Booker High School’s Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) program.
This year’s workshop was led by sound designer and Ringling College Film alum Troy Logan ’22. Students learned the basics of Foley, sound design, dialog editing, and mixing for film. The best part? The workshops allow students to experience the College’s state-of-the-art Studio Labs post-production facilities, which boost their industry knowledge while training them on professional-grade software and technology.
The program has been running since the summer of 2022. The concept was heavily supported by Dr. Rachel Shelley, former principal of Booker High School, and Dr. Larry R. Thompson, former president and now president emeritus of Ringling College of Art and Design. Both Drs. Thompson and Shelley retired at the end of the 2026 school year.
Ringling College’s current president, Dr. Davis Schneiderman, is eager to continue the longstanding relationship with Booker High and its students. “As a leader in arts higher education, Ringling College remains deeply committed to providing opportunities and expanding access for local students,” he said. “We want to help students explore their creativity, develop in-demand industry skills, and learn the ethical and appropriate uses of artificial intelligence technologies. At Ringling College, we turn passion into profession—and these workshops fit that mission perfectly.”
Caleb Ard, a 2026 Ringling College Film graduate, attended Logan’s very first workshop. Another Ringling student, Riley Cullather ’27, Film, also attended the first workshop and continues to adamantly pursue a career in audio.
Over the last several years, the workshops have continued to evolve and adapt. “As sound designers and mixers, we know our industry is evolving with new technology and practices every day, something we like to stay on the cutting edge of to ensure our workshop attendees are learning with the latest and greatest our field has to offer,” said Logan. They plan to introduce Soundly this year, a new cloud-based sound effects platform that has significantly improved their sound design workflow. And while Logan steers clear of anything AI-generative, the recent developments in LLM-based AI dialog clean-up tools have reportedly been a game-changer for how they can treat dialog in these students’ films. Utilizing tools such as Izotope RX and Waves Clarity, dialog passes that would have taken days to complete can now be done in hours.
Also new this year, they are allowing students to bring their own films they created while at Booker High’s Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) program, to then create a professional final mix for those films.
As Sarasota’s first magnet program, Booker VPA allows its students to spend half of their school day studying in their chosen artistic field. Programs include Film and Animation, as well as Production and Design.
“The Ringling Sound Workshops have been invaluable in teaching our Film and Animation students how to tell their stories in the most fundamentally important way, showing them a career path they didn’t know they could pursue, and preparing them for film and art schools, especially at Ringling College,” said John Timpe, Film and Animation Instructor for the VPA Program at Booker High School.
“Fifty-eight different students have participated, some for up to three years. Of the 27 who have graduated as of one year ago, 20 went on to school for film/animation/storytelling or directly into the field. Of those who went to school, five of them chose Ringling College.”
“What’s more, the chance to learn on a college campus was a first for many of them. That is instrumental in helping students who didn’t imagine they could go to college, or don’t have anyone at home who has been to college.”
Regardless of whether students walk out of this workshop wanting to pursue a career in audio or not, the learning found beyond our audio content is irreplaceable. The opportunity to spend a week on a college campus with industry professionals gives students a rare early chance behind the curtain of the film industry, college life, and the creative industry as a whole.
The Ringling College Studio Labs is the first commercial and academic film and post-production facility of its kind in the state of Florida. Spanning the length of a city block, our 36,000-square-foot complex is home to five professional, acoustically-isolated soundstages, two of them offering 8,400 square feet each; as well as 5,000 square feet of post-production space complete with editing suites, recording studio, Foley stage, Color Grading suite, 7.1 mix room and an 18-seat Dolby ATMOS® Dub Stage. Soundstages (A, C, and D) and the post-production facility are available for commercial use.
To learn more, visit www.ringlingcollegestudiolabs.com. Learn more about Ringling College’s Film program at www.ringling.edu/film.
Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest Ringling College news in your inbox.
Contact:
Office of Marketing and Communications
communications@ringling.edu
941-309-4008
