Category: TCF Students

TCF Students Selected by Television Academy Foundation

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama was one of only two schools in the nation with multiple students who earned internships in 2015 through the Television Academy Foundation’s highly competitive internship program.

Telecommunication and film majors Tanner Robbins, of Hoover, Dillon Owen, of Moulton, and Christina Irion, of Spanish Fort, were selected for the prestigious program.

Christina Irion, Dillon Owen and Tanner Robbins
Christina Irion, Dillon Owen and Tanner Robbins

The Television Academy Foundation, the charitable arm of the Television Academy which annually presents the Primetime Emmy Awards, identifies talented students from across the country and provides opportunities to work with the most reputable companies in the industry, across more than 30 disciplines.

The chosen students will spend the summer in Los Angeles as part of a UA course called TCF in L.A., offered in the College of Communication and Information Sciences.

TCF in L.A. was developed by Dr. Rachel Raimist, who teaches the course in California each year.

“I hope to learn what it’s like to be a real cinematographer,” said Robbins, who will be mentored by American Horror Story cinematographer Michael Goi during his internship. “I want to see how preproduction, production and postproduction actually work for a professional DP (director of photography) and what kind of pressures are put on them.”

Owen will be working for Revelations Entertainment, a production company co-owned by superstar actor Morgan Freeman. His work will involve a variety of administrative and production-related tasks, including researching site locations and reading scripts.

“I hope to gain knowledge that is far greater than what I can receive in a traditional classroom,” Owen said. “I want to know how a production company is run, how to network and make lasting connections that will benefit me for the rest of my life and to gain more experience in the postproduction side of things, whether it’s in the editorial process or marketing aspect of pushing a product and getting it noticed before its release.”

Irion will intern with the Wolper Organization, based in the backlot at Warner Bros. She was part of the TCF in L.A. class during summer 2014 and returned in 2015 for the internship.

“I am a television development intern for scripted television,” Irion said. “I will be sitting in on conference calls for television shows in preproduction, pitches for new shows, and meetings on shows that the company is developing now. It’s very exciting to see a show built from the ground up and what it takes to get it off the ground.”

Robbins said being able to add such an internship to his resume should give him a huge leg up when applying for future jobs.

“The Television Academy Foundation’s internships mean something in this industry,” Robbins said. “Not only will I have that recognition on my resume, but I will have experience that not many other people my age can say that they’ve had.”

Applications for the 2016 Internship Program will open next spring athttp://www.emmys.com/internship

About the Television Academy Foundation 

Established in 1959 as the charitable arm of the Television Academy, the Television Academy Foundation is dedicated to preserving the legacy of television while educating and inspiring those who will shape its future. Through renowned educational and outreach programs such as the Archive of American Television, College Television Awards and Student Internship Program the Foundation seeks to widen the circle of voices our industry represents and to create more opportunity for television to reflect all of society. For more information on the Foundation, please visit TelevisionAcademy.com/Foundation.

TCF Senior’s Film Selected for Screening at Cannes Film Festival

University of Alabama telecommunication and film student Michael Thomas will enjoy an international spotlight when his short film “Traces” screens at the Cannes Film Festival this summer.

Thomas, a senior from Birmingham, originally created the film for UA’s Campus MovieFest, where it won a Jury Award. The film tells the story of a young boy searching for his mother after a storm.

“My passion is cinematography,” Thomas said. “I love visuals, painting with light, conveying a story through imagery. I love directing, but my passion is cinematography.”

Dr. Rachel Raimist, an assistant professor of telecommunication and film, said Thomas’s inclusion at Cannes was well deserved. Her children Joseph and Tiana also appeared in the short film.

“Michael shows extraordinary passion, focus and dedication to learning his craft,” Raimist said. “He has taken advantage of many of the opportunities as a TCF student and has a very bright future ahead of him.”

Other crew members included Anna Marie Odom (human development, Huntsville), composer; Tanner Lee Robbins (telecommunication and film, Birmingham), gaffer; Stephen Thomason (telecommunication and film, Savannah, Ga.), gaffer; Anthony Baroody (mechanical engineering, Birmingham), gaffer; Lauren Rossi (telecommunication and film and theater, Coral Springs, Fla.), production designer; Andrew Sbrissa (marketing, Birmingham), gaffer; Katie Tygielski (telecommunication and film, Madison), gaffer; Patrick Maddox (telecommunication and film, Birmingham), composer; Austin Glenn Woods (music education/instrumental music, Florence), composer; Michael Ciulla (accounting, Birmingham), actor; Paula DiBenedetto (music therapy, Hoover), actor; Emily Higginbotham (dance, Laurel, Miss.), actor; Rachael Galbreath (communication studies, Birmingham), actor; and Tiana Raimist-Carter (pre-major studies, Northport), actor.

Thomas plans to pursue his Master of Fine Arts at UCLA after graduating from UA in May.

Professor Nick Corrao and Alabama Art Seen

Nick Corrao and his students.
Nick Corrao and his students.

TCF Professor Nick Corrao and his students are featured in a UA Dialog article about their on-going documentary series on Alabama artists, Alabama Art Seen:

The state of Alabama is home to an ever-expanding community of artisans and performers, and part of Nicholas Corrao’s mission is to shine a spotlight on them.

Corrao, an instructor in the department of telecommunication and film, recently received a grant from the Alabama Council on the Arts to assist with the production of “Alabama Art Seen,” a program Corrao and his students produce for WVUA-TV, focusing on the arts in Alabama.

“The show is valuable in that it profiles artists living and working in Alabama,” Corrao said. “It’s not only a great resource for the public to see what’s happening in their state – and hopefully we’re introducing them to some things they didn’t know are happening – it’s also a great promotional tool, both for the state and the artists themselves.”

Read more…

 

Two TCF Majors Develop Fight Choreography for Film

TCF majors Kevin and Calvin M. Ross were recently featured in the Crimson White:

About 10 years ago in the gymnasium of Liberty Middle School in Madison, Alabama, Kevin and Calvin M. Ross were doing more pull-ups than most of their classmates, running at two of the quickest speeds for their mile runs and playing on the school’s basketball team.

Now, as college seniors, the Ross twins do flips off the steps of Gorgas Library while finding the best camera angle to complement their martial-arts-inspired fight choreography. The two are pursuing degrees in Telecommunication and Film with the hopes of doing stunt work and eventually producing their own action films.

Read more…

 

Professor Kim and C&IS students co-author paper on journalists’ Twitter use

TCF faculty member Yonghwan Kim is first author of “Tweeting the public: Journalists’ Twitter use, attitudes toward the public’s tweets, and the relationship with the public,” which has been accepted for publication by the journal Information, Communication & Society.

Dr. Kim’s co-authors include four C&IS graduate students: Youngju Kim, Joongsuk Lee, Jeyoung Oh, and Na Yeon Lee.

Information, Communication & Society

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rics20/current

TCF student wins “Pitch Perfect” competition at New Orleans Film Festival

TCF student Danny Ryan won the “Pitch Perfect” competition at the New Orleans Film Festival. The win earns Mr. Ryan $1,000 to help finance production of the film he pitched. TCF faculty member Nick Corrao stewarded TCF student participation in this competition.

25th Annual New Orleans Film Festival
http://neworleansfilmsociety.org

Pitch Perfect competition at the New Orleans Film Festival
http://neworleansfilmsociety.org/pages/detail/149/pitch-perfect

TCF students cover Magic City Miracle for WVTM-TV

TCF faculty member Chandra Clark supervised a team of TCF students who covered yesterday’s Magic City Miracle community service event in Birmingham for WVTM, Channel 13, Birmingham’s NBC affiliate station. As alabamas13.com explains:

“[On] Sunday, September 28, 2014, WVTM-TV Alabama’s 13 and alabamas13.com hosted student journalists from the University of Alabama and the University of Montevallo. Participating students came together to cover the 2014 Magic City Miracle Community Service Event. They wrote web stories, captured photographs, and produced video stories about the numerous volunteer projects on the day of the event. Their work was showcased on alabamas13.com.”

A live-streamed 30-minute newscast about this event featured student anchors and reporters and aired last night. A rough recording of the newscast has been posted to YouTube for those too impatient to wait for a more authorized version of the newscast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daogQxApJ4M

“Magic City Miracle mobilizes thousands of volunteers for third consecutive year”
WVTM: Alabama’s 13
http://bit.ly/1oq0qd6

TCF’s “Zom-Com” and “Clean Break” at Sidewalk Film Festival

The Sixteenth Annual Sidewalk Film Festival wrapped up Sunday. Featured among its short film entrants was  Zom-Com:

https://www.facebook.com/zomcomshow

Sidewalk also saw the premiere of TCF professor Nick Corrao’s short film Clean Break:

https://www.facebook.com/cleanbreakshortfilm

Together these projects involved dozens of TCF faculty and students. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who helped keep TCF on the program of this competitive and highly-regarded film festival.

Tuscaloosa Amp and TCF Interns Win Award

The Tuscaloosa Ampitheater won the Venue Education Award from the International Association of Venue Managers. As noted by Tuscaloosa News, “[t]he award, given for venues demonstrating active student involvement, educational opportunities and leadership, was given to the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater largely based on its internship program created with the University of Alabama.”

The T-News article notes that more than 45 UA students have interned at the Ampitheater. We’re sure that 95 to 100 percent of these students have been guided by TCF’s Rachel Raimist. Accordingly, congratulations and thanks to Dr. Raimist for putting the Tuscaloosa Ampitheater and TCF in the international spotlight.

See the Tuscaloosa News story: http://bit.ly/1pmxB5b