Students in MACS 150 receive in-class awards for final videos

Students in MACS 150: Introduction to Digital Media Production, taught by Derek Long, assistant professor of media and cinema studies, celebrated their final work of the spring semester at an in-class awards ceremony called the "CORNIs," where students received Camera Operators' Registry of Note at Illinois certificates and small trophies, and watched the winning films. 

In the course, which draws majors across campus, students learn photography, Photoshop, web design using HTML and CSS, and podcast production. They apply these skills to their final videos, which could be short fiction, documentary, or experimental films of about five minutes in teams of three or four. At the end of the course, Long wants students to learn what kind of media creator they are and to discover which part of the process they enjoy most.

"In the videos, students bring all the digital production skills they learn in MACS 150 to bear: framing and composition, storytelling structure, thinking about audiences, lighting and cinematography, sound recording, design, editing, and postproduction," Long said. "They also need to make their videos in ways that accord with accepted practices of copyright and fair use, and they make cases for their use of copyrighted material in statements of attribution and fair use for each project. The assignment also serves as a culmination of students' training in inclusive collaboration. They must draft and pitch a pre-production proposal that distributes labor equitably, and they write peer- and self-evaluations of their collaboration."

Watch the student films selected to win CORNIs:

Narrator

Jester of the Bard

All He Ever Wanted

Birds Aren't Real

Mysterious Algorithms