Second Annual Georgie Awards Honor WC's Best Multimedia Productions

Chestertown, MD, May 3, 2007 — Students, staff and parents attended Washington College's 2007 Georgie Awards, hosted by the Multimedia Production Center on May 3. The Georgie Awards showcased the year's best student multimedia projects, including class assignments, senior capstone projects, MPC challenges and other personal projects.

The judges, industry professionals from across the country, had quite a number of entries to score. There were 36 total entries across all the categories, and over two hours of viewing time for the video entries. To keep the presentation time to a reasonable length, the top scoring video entries were shown in their entirety, while the remaining videos were highlighted, featuring a portion of the video with the titles and directors' names.

Georgie Award Recipients

Graphic Design and Multi-Medium Awards

Best Poster Design: Lindsay Bergman won in this category for a poster she created for the WC Dance Company's Spring Concert. As a student employee of the Department of College Relations, Lindsay has been utilizing her fantastic design sense to promote events on campus throughout the year.

Best Multi-Medium Campaign: Eric Shan won Best Multi-Medium Campaign for his senior capstone project for business management and computer science. Eric's entry included portions of printed and web materials, and included photography he personally shot. In essence, he designed and developed an e-commerce web site for a photography company. The entry included three major components. A planning-and-design section included detailed diagrams, flow charts, schedules and other documentation used to design and develop the site. A customer web site, which greatly impressed judges, was fully functional with the exception of credit card transactions. An administrative web site allowed employees of the photography company to maintain the database of images, add new events and photos, and remove outdated events. Keep your eye on Eric, as he is sure to go far!

Video Production Awards

Best Editing: Corey Holland took the award for his work in "WAC Zombies." After receiving first place in the 24-Hour Digital Video Challenge and honorable mention in the 2006 Communicator Awards (an international communications-industry competition), Corey fine-tuned "WAC Zombies" with additional titles and sound elements, as well as other minor adjustments.

Most Original Concept: Jesse Wolcott took the award for Most Original Concept with his entry titled "Make Mine Freedom." Already the second-place winner of the 2007 Music Video Challenge, "Make Mine Freedom" was created after Jesse searched through millions of hours of available public-domain footage from www.archive.org. He edited together a brilliant anti-war video using a soundtrack by System Of A Down.

Best Videography: Corey Holland won the Best Videography award for his work in "WAC Zombies." Especially considering all the planning and shooting that took place during the one night of the 24-Hour Digital Video Challenge, Corey clearly has an outstanding ability to predetermine what footage is needed to convey his message.

Best Use Of Effects: The team of Jesse Wolcott, Ryan Stiffler and Doug Pfaff received the award for Best Use Of Effects for their work in "Munkey Madness." The judges were impressed with the team's talent for knowing how and when to incorporate visually engaging effects, titles and credits.

Best Overall Video: Corey Holland had the highest-scoring video entry with "WAC Zombies." This was no surprise considering his Georgies for both editing and videography, and the positive feedback from judges and audience members alike. His combined videography and editing skills seemed to be the one-two punch that knocked out the judges.

Best Of Show Award

And the winner for Best of Show was Corey Holland for "WAC Zombies." His video had the highest score of all the entries, including poster designs and multi-medium campaigns. "Congratulations to Corey for his amazing work as a first-year student," said Brian Palmer, manager of the Multimedia Production Center. "We look forward to seeing his skills advance over the next few years, and can't wait to see what he comes up with next!"

WC Talent on Display in Second Annual Music Video Challenge

Chestertown, MD, April 23, 2007 — A fun time was had by all at the Washington College 2007 Music Video Challenge, hosted by the Multimedia Production Center (MPC) on April 19. With entries from nine teams consisting of dozens of actors, production crews and editors, this year's entries definitely raised the bar to a higher level.

In addition to encouraging a traditional approach, this year the MPC encouraged students to experiment and to consider using less traditional methods to gather their source video. Some students gathered public-domain footage from sources such as Archive.org, or even carefully selected clips from favorite movies.

Another team used a sequence of hundreds of photos they shot with a digital camera, and then carefully synchronized the images to the music to create a stop-motion animated video, with touches of traditional video. This approach allowed them to bring a sock to life, which left its owner's dorm room to explore the surrounding areas.

Judging was performed remotely earlier in the week by an international team of judges who are professionals in the video and film industry. Each judge scored the videos in four categories, giving a 1 through 5 score in each of the following categories:

• Originality - Is the concept either original or an original approach to a traditional concept?
• Videography - Is camera work smooth, well framed, focused, and well lit? If the person is using "found footage," they cannot get credit for the quality of the video, but they can get credit for locating and choosing appropriate footage.
• Editing - Is the editing done well? Were appropriate clips selected to convey the message, and excess trimmed? Was timing accurate?
• Effects - Does the use of any effects (created during production or post-production) add to the overall piece? Do titles appear readable and placed logically?

Award winning videos

First Place

Christina Izzo and Piper Owens, with their video titled "One Of These Mornings," took first place with a score of 18.83 out of 20. With three judges giving a perfect 20 out of 20 score, Izzo & Owens received glowing comments from judges: "Clever and creative, and funny too!" "I swear that sock had personality." "Charming and clearly a labor of love." "Wow! The planning that went into this!" and "Very witty, well paced, synced and edited." First prize was a Canon ZR500 MiniDV camcorder kit, which will help this team to participate in future video projects.

Second Place

Jesse Wolcott, with his video titled "Make Mine Freedom," took a close second place, just one point behind the lead team, with a score of 17.83 out of 20. His video was the only other to score a perfect 20 from one of the judges, and received such comments as, "Blown away! Impeccable production!" "BRILLIANT use of video segments—creative and clever," and "If I saw this on TV, I would be impressed, let alone in a student contest like this." Wolcott won a $50 gift card to B&H Photo Video.

Third Place

Corey Holland, with his video titled "I'll Bet My Girlfriend," took third place with a score of 15.83. Judges' comments included "Effectively captured a cool and goofy mood with this video," "The video paired with the music provided moments of great dramatic tension. Nicely done," and "Looking forward to WAC Zombies 2!" Holland won a $25 gift card to B&H Photo Video.

Rookie Award

The Rookie Award, going to the highest scoring entry from a student who has not previously entered one of the MPC Challenges, was awarded to Karen Ferguson, with her video titled "Sacrifice of War." Judges' comments included "Powerful!" "The music moved very well with the film," and "Solid. Clear message underscored by dramatic and sometimes gory video footage." Graciously donated by Apple, the Rookie Award prize was a $50 iTunes card.