Posted by SMAD February 16, 2009

SMAD students and faculty have been notified of multiple awards at the 2009 BEA Festival of Media Arts, the international media festival sponsored by the Broadcast Education Association. According to BEA Festival Chair Vic Costello, JMU received nine Festival awards resulting in a tie with Elon University for the largest number of awards received by any university or college.

The following SMAD students won awards in this year's competition.

Jim E. Thompson: Best of Festival & 1st Place Authorship, Student Interactive Media Competition - “The Interactive Beginner's Guide to the Trumpet.”
The project is an interactive tutorial on playing the trumpet and includes sections on parts of the instrument, fingering techniques, history and a simulation where uses can click on valves and hear the notes played. This is the overall top student award given by the Festival for work in interactive multimedia. As a Best of Festival winner, Thompson receives $1,000 and software from Avid.
(Produced in professor Tom McHardy's SMAD 404 class)

Nathan D. Burns, Student Video Competition, 1st Place Animation/Experimental/Mixed - “Aesthetics.”
(Produced in professor Rustin Greene's SMAD 405 class)

The following videos were produced by students in professor John Woody's SMAD 402 class as part of the “Madison Out Loud” series.

Ryan Holman, Student Video Competition, 2nd Place Music Video - “Forgiveness.”

Sara E. Hannon, Brendan Bagley, Caroline Carter & Reed Kackley, Student Video Competition, 3rd Place Studio - “Hollowelection Special.”

Ariel Park & George Hanuschak, Student News Competition, 2nd Place TV Feature Reporting - “Post Secret.”
The team choose to interview Frank Warren before his "Post Secret" show at the University of Virginia. The video contained interviews with the author who is engaged in an ongoing community mail art project in which anonymous people decorate a postcard containing a previously undisclosed secret.

Brian Weiss, Caitlin Roscioli, Josh Short & Timmy Jopling, Student News Competition, 3rd Place TV Feature Reporting - “Tunnels.”
The video takes viewers underground to show the mysterious JMU tunnels.

Professor John Woody won two awards in the competition, including:

Best of Competition, Faculty Video Competition, Promotional Category - “MillerCoors Visitation Video.”
This video is used to introduce visitors and special guests to the Shenandoah MillerCoors Brewery in Elkton, Virginia. Considered one of the most modern plants in the world, Shenandoah is the flagship brewery for the eastern United States.

Best of Competition, Faculty Interactive Multimedia Competition, Solo Website - “iEditHD.com.”
Professor Woody's received his award for a personal website that includes 3 gigs of videos produced for off-campus and on-campus clients. Hundreds of videos produced by SMAD/MCOM students throughout the years are also highlighted. The site is used by faculty across the country in production courses to show student projects created at JMU. The entire project was created using Apple's iWeb software.

As reported earlier, SMAD student Colin Greene will receive a $1,250 Helen J. Sioussat/Fay Wells Scholarship from BEA. The award is based on academic achievement and is sponsored by the Broadcasters' Foundation.

The winners will be acknowledged at the annual BEA Convention held in Las Vegas between April 22nd and 25th.