BEA DAY 2

FIRST BEA MEDIA FESTIVAL AWARDS & THEN APPLE TOOK OVER

I kicked off the BEA events by attending the BEA Media Festival- News Division awards presentation. Arizona, BYU, UNC Chapel Hill and Marshall University were among winners. I was really surprised in the low turnout. Just yesterday I saw hundreds of college students making their way through the NAB/RTNDA Career Fair. Today, most of the students are gone along with the NAB execs.

I found it interesting that the radio feature reporting award winner was a story about favorite Christmas literature by a BYU student. While he presented solid production values, the clip played for the audience showcased clips of popular Christmas sounds and holiday sound effects and man on the street interviews. Where was the original sound from the field? The best television news feature award went to a Northwestern student and it was story slugged “Heard but not seen.” It was about a carillon at the school. That’s a story students have repeatedly covered for radio and television at Westminster. Feature stories do exist in your own back yard.

WHERE THE HECK IS ADOBE?
The keynote address was actually a dog and pony show presented by Apple pushing Final Cut pro. The company flew in one of its award-winning editors who uses the software and touted its use in this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner “No Country for Old Men.” While the keynote address smacked of promotions and marketing, it's clear Mac's Final Cut Pro is the dominant software tool for editing on college campuses. The Apple workshops were booked with faculty and students. I did not see Adobe and it’s Premiere system anywhere at the BEA this year. Finally, I chatted with about a half a dozen faculty and campus media advisors and all of them have made the switch to Final Cut Pro. Perhaps a larger, more significant survey is in order to confirm the writing I’m seeing on the all. The problem for Westminster is we’re a PC campus in a Final Cut Pro world.