Student Mini-movie Showcase

BC 251 students will present their mini-movie projects to an audience next week. You're invited!

2005 Lunchtime Mini-movie Showcase
Monday, December 4 @ 11:45
Mueller Theater/Lecture Hall
McKelvey Campus Center
Westminster College

Students will premiere 16 one-minute mini-movie projects and four group projects. The goal is to transfer the skills, experiences and professional practices learned from shooting and editing sports, news and commercials back to the domain of the home user. I want students to shift back to consumer products such as video cell phones, digital cameras and typical video editing software found on most PCs. I want them to apply the video production techniques and approaches learned in BC 251 to the digital technology now available to everyone.
This one is from Tom Benoit made with his pocket DV cam entitled "Procrastination at Work."


Here's a sample of one of the early submissions. It's "The Last Chip" from Katie Hilliard.

Capstone Presentations (Fall '07 Edition)

Chris Zinkham, Kirstan Gides & Steve Bring complete their degrees in December. Each of them offered their senior presentations to an audience in the McKelvey Theater on Wednesday night.

Things I learned from these presentations:

• Steve Brink has family connections to journalism, writing and media. He revealed he has relatives who served as writers and editors for national publications, including his grandfather at Newsweek.
• Chris Zinkham realized making the client happy is the top priority in commercial production. He proudly showcased his CCCS commercial he produced for BC 410.
  
• Kirstan Gides revealed her own, personal checklist for students studying communications closely resembles Dr. Barner's "Checklist for Success in Broadcasting."

What's left for this bunch?

• Each student will now shadow a working professional connected to their career goals.
• These three will also put together a time capsule for the Spring BC 602 class to bury in the quad in May.

Successes, Misteps, Assessment & Course Adjustments

Five Mistakes
Seniors Make in Capstone

1. Taking on too much for a senior project.
2. Taking on too little for a senior project.
3. Waiting until the last minute to work on a senior project.
4. Discovering you didn’t save enough of your work: air checks, television news packages, writing samples, scripts, storyboards, etc.
5. Failing to set up your outside review of work well in advance. This is where you gather important feedback needed to tweak their portfolio materials.

I’ve tried to address #5 in the syllabus. Students will identify, solicit and secure off-campus feedback during the winter break. When they return for the second part of Capstone they can begin integrating that feedback into their portfolios. Will it work? I’m crossing my fingers.

BC 311 Student Lands a Celebrity Interview

Titan Radio's Danielle Adams has done something no other Westminster BC student has been able to do in the past six years-- land an interview with Amber Brkich. Below is the web story and links to Danielle's coup. Great hustle, Danielle!

Reality Television Turns Into a Career & Marraige for Amber
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Featured on Titan Radio's BEHIND THE MIC
She's a millionaire and reality television star who's turned what many called 15 minutes of fame into both a career and a marriage. Beaver County native Amber Brkich graduated from Westminster College in 2000 with a public relations degree and then was cast on Survivor on CBS. Now she's going by her married name, Amber Mariano. She's one half of of the Amber and Rob Mariano team born out of Amber's second reality TV appearance on Survivor: All Stars. After they became a couple they went on to star in a season of another reality show, The Amazing Race.

Amber and Rob went on turn their wedding into a CBS reality special. She's a published author who continues to work on reality projects with her husband working in Los Angeles. Now she goes "Behind the Mic" with Titan Radio's Danielle Adams talking about her journey into reality TV and how she keeps it going as a full-time enterprise.

December Capstone Presentations

You're Invited!!!
Time is running out for three BC students preparing for Capstone Presentations this month. Steve Brink, Kirstan Gides & Chris Zinkham will present on November 15, 2006. The capstone showcase begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Sebastian Mueller Theater located in Westminster's McKelvey Campus Center.

See how these students graduating this December showcase their experience, achievements and bodies of work in broadcast communications.