Creative Career Fair – Wednesday, March 6

• February 26th, 2013
• in TCF News & Notes, TCF Students

Creative Campus and the Career Center will host the first ever Creative Career Fair at the University of Alabama on March 6 from 6-8 p.m. in the Heritage Room of the Ferguson Center. The fair aims to provide students with the resources to pursue successful creative vocations.

At the Creative Career Fair, students will attend two professional development workshops and participate in a speed-dating activity with creative professionals and other students.

Students will choose from four professional development workshops: Crafting a Creative Resume, led by Filmmaker and TCF Assistant Professor, Rachel Raimist; Delivering an Effective Elevator Speech, led by Career Center Assistant Director, Mary Lowrey; Budgeting for a Sustainable Arts Lifestyle, led by Certified Financial Planner and Assistant Professor in Consumer Science, Jan Brakefield; and Choosing the Right Career for Your Personality, led by Career Specialist Chris Chirino. The workshops will last 25 minutes each, with a ten-minute break between to switch groups.

From 7-8pm, students will sit in groups as creative professionals take turns giving 10-minute pitches. In these pitches, they will explain their careers, how they achieved their current position and the skill sets necessary to obtain a creative occupation. These professionals will be available to talk to and network with following the event. The speed-dating portion of the event will feature Ann Powers, NPR Music Critic and Correspondent; Rick Asherson, Executive Board Member of the Alabama Blues Project; Sandy Wolfe, Tuscaloosa Arts Council Director; John Miller, Poet and Professor, New College LifeTrack; and Chloe Collins, Executive Director of the Birmingham Sidewalk Film Festival.

Following the workshops and speed-dating event, there will be an open mixer and refreshments.

TCF Professor Talks About “Object X”

• February 25th, 2013
• in TCF Faculty, TCF News & Notes

Assistant Professor Matthew Thomas Payne has been selected to represent the department in Object X! Object X is a series of short speeches from different disciplines, all focused on a single object–a clock.

OBJECT X goes down this WEDNESDAY, February 27 at 7pm in 205 Smith Hall

Visit the page for more information: http://creativecampus.ua.edu/project/object-x/

View the commercial: https://vimeo.com/60432916

Submit Films to Black Warrior Film Fest!

• February 12th, 2013
• in Festival Calls, TCF News & Notes, TCF Students

On Saturday, April 13th, The Department of Telecommunication and Film, Student Producers Association, Crimson Cinema Productions and Creative Campus will present The Black Warrior Film Festival 2013 in 216 Reese Phifer Hall.

The Black Warrior Film Festival is a showcase of student films produced at the University of Alabama, giving student filmmakers a chance to have their work viewed by UA and Tuscaloosa communities. The festival will feature screenings, filmmaker Q&As, guest speakers, panels, and a camera workshops.

Rules and Guidelines:

1. Films must be produced and/or directed by a UA student.
2. Films must have been made in the last 5 years.
3. Submissions will be reviewed and ruled by a committee of programmers that includes professors and students.
4. Submissions are open to short films (narrative, documentary, and experimental), music videos, EPKs, commercials, TV Pilots, web series, and any other productions made by UA students.
5. Films must be submitted using the link below by February 22, 2013.

SUBMIT YOUR FILM HERE: http://creativecampus.ua.edu/project/bwfilmfest/
Please email blackwarriorfilmfestival@gmail.com with any questions or comments.

TCF instructor, students assist after Hurricane Sandy

• February 4th, 2013
• in TCF Faculty, TCF News & Notes, TCF Students

TCF instructor Chandra Clark and UA senior Ashley Swafford were part of a team that traveled to the Northeast to assist with Hurricane Sandy recovery and to work on a documentary about coverage by local broadcasters before, during and after the event.

Dr. Chandra Clark, instructor in the department of telecommunication and film, is producing the second in a series of mini-documentaries demonstrating the coverage by local broadcasters before, during and after Hurricane Sandy.

The Broadcast Education Association and the National Association of Broadcasters teamed Clark with the head of Media Arts at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Scott Hodgson, for the second time to conduct interviews and coverage following a major disaster. Clark serves as the producer and Hodgson is the director and editor of the project with the help of graduate and undergraduate students from both universities.

The filming took place Nov. 13-21  in the New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, DC markets. Their crew conducted 33 post-hurricane interviews at 14 different radio and television stations for an account of broadcasters’ response to the storms as well as compiling footage and audio stories from those different markets. The interviews included anchors, reporters, meteorologists, news directors, and general managers who dedicated financial resources and staff to ensure that people were informed when Hurricane Sandy came ashore October 29.  So far, 135 deaths are attributed to Hurricane Sandy.

The interviews also included NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Williams grew up along the Jersey shore and has anchored the show from various locations as well as continuing to cover the recovery effort. Governor Chris Christie was on the radio at New Jersey’s 101.5 WKXW-FM the night Hurricane Sandy came on shore warning people to evacuate and continues to inform constituents about the process of dealing with federal and state issues during a disaster. Hodgson and Clark interviewed Christie following his monthly broadcast Tuesday, November 20th on WKXW as he answered questions by listeners about the different situations they were facing.

Clark and Hodgson’s production of “Tornado Emergency: Saving Lives” won a Telly Award and Best of Competition Award by the Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts in 2011. The mini-documentary highlighted broadcasters in Tuscaloosa and Joplin after the 2011 tornadoes that devastated those two towns.

The documentaries are produced to make federal policy makers aware of the role of broadcasters in the time of disasters in light of the proposed sell-off of a large portion of the broadcast spectrum.

Clark also has created a website to share the stories of some of the families she met while in New Jersey. You can also view Clark talking to WVUA’s Danny Salter on the network’s First at Four program.

TCF Stories for 2/1

• February 4th, 2013
• in TCF Faculty, TCF News & Notes, TCF Students

Congratulations to Dwight Cammeron – two of his students’ projects were accepted to screen at the UNA Lindsey Festival, February 28 – March 2:

• Never Got A Dime, Lilly Ledbetter – — Shelby Hadden
• Amends With The Past, The Mike Parker Story —-  Bryan Anders, Jake Posey, Antara Harris, Katie Nelson and Alexandra Lancashire.

Also congrats to Nick Corrao, whose students produced Alabama Art Scene, which will air on WVUA.  Everybody tune in!  The dates are

Ep 101 – Wed. Feb. 13th, 7pm
Ep 102 – Wed. Feb. 20th, 7pm
Ep 103 – Wed. Feb. 27th, 7pm

Many thanks to Adam Schwartz, who reports that TCF students totally dominated Campus Movie Fest this week.  Adam is working on a complete list, but here is what we know so far:

Best Comedy – “No Paper, No Plastic” by Christian Magadan and Taylor Kern

Best Drama – “Rise” – directed by Alex Beatty (crew of a slew of TCF folks)

Best Picture – “Person-able” – (working on complete crew list)

Best Director – Connor Simpson for “Manta”

Best Actor – Chris Harding for “Rise”

In other news, a group of TCF students had their skit air on Conan on TBS Thursday night as part of his “Occupy Conan,” a fan-sourced episode project where people pick a clip from the show and re-create it.  This group consisted of Kamal Siraji, Rey Papa, Shane Fair, Ashley Wise, Courtney Williams, Brandon Sparks, and Justin Rudolph.