Contact: Maridith Geuder
Students in two Mississippi State University graduate programs are earning national recognition for their video production skills.
Their creation, "Heart with Four Wheel Drive," took first place in the music video category of the Savannah College of Art and Design's 1998 Film and Video Festival.
The annual Georgia festival, which concluded Saturday [Oct. 10], screens professionally produced films. This year's top five winners were selected from more than 100 submitted from aspiring film and video producers at universities and colleges around the country.
The four-minute Mississippi State video is the work of six art and architecture students pursuing master's degrees in electronic visualization. Shot in Mississippi, it revolves around the theme of a rocky courtship.
The MSU art department offers a degree in electronic visualization, while the School of Architecture has a program in applied visualization. Both attract graduate students from throughout the United States, as the award-winning team demonstrates.
Wendy J. Allen is from Evansville, Ind.; Ezra Chasin, Boston, Mass.; Vance W. Lazar, New Orleans, La.; Laurie A. Livingston, Los Angeles, Calif.; Joe A. Phoebus, Temple Terrace, Fla. and Nathan S. Williams, Greenwood, Miss. Allen and Lazar are in the architecture program; the others, in art.
University Television Center director David Hutto, who has taught the course since its inception three years ago, supervised their project.
"They developed the concept for the video, planned and produced all of the field recording with Mississippi recording artist Paul Thorn," Hutto said. "They then edited the final product in our non-linear editing suite."
Thorn and fellow songwriter Billy Maddox wrote the lyrics and music.
"I'm really proud of what our students accomplished," Hutto said. "It is satisfying to see them receive the recognition they deserve."