Journalism Students Claim Overall Victory in 2007 Freshman iLife Challenge

Brian Brooks Journalism Studies Associate Dean

Links

ABC's Lost Apple Computer Chancellor Brady Deaton FOX's 24 Freshman iLife Challenge Freshman Interest Groups KOMU Ragtag Cinemacafe TigerTech

Columbia, Mo. (Dec. 31, 2007) -- Several hundred self-made stars of the silver screen, faculty members and campus leaders, including Chancellor Brady Deaton, packed Bush Auditorium in Cornell Hall the night of Nov. 27 to honor the winners of the 2007 Freshman iLife Competition.

Team iLost won both the freshman experience category and the overall grand prize with its video, Lost @ Mizzou. Related story and Lost @ Mizzou video playback available on MizzouWire. KOMU news coverage of the 2007 iLife Challenge, including an interview with the winning iLost team members, available on YouTube.

The annual iLife Competition, pioneered in 2004 by professors in the Missouri School of Journalism, introduces Mizzou freshmen to powerful digital technologies that will play an integral role in their future careers. In teams of three or four, students of all majors utilize Apple's iLife Suite and cameras provided by the Journalism School to create short films — between 30 seconds and three minutes — in one of seven categories: short film, news, sports, MU life, freshman experience, promotions and community involvement. More than 500 freshmen participated in the 2007 competition.

"Each year, the iLife Competition reinforces our School's time-honored method of learning by doing," said Brian Brooks, associate dean for undergraduate studies at the School. "I can't imagine a better educational opportunity — or a more exciting challenge — than writing, directing and producing an original multi-media project with other students during the first semester of college. It's always a thrill to see the fantastic work our freshmen create."

While exposing students to digital media is of primary importance, the competition serves additional vital purposes, said Missouri Journalism senior Christina Jenkins, student iLife coordinator.

"The competition allows freshmen students to get acquainted to working in groups with their peers, hopefully learning the importance of teamwork," Jenkins said. "The project promotes student creativity as well."

This year's overall winner was team iLost, comprising first-year journalism students Spencer Ernst, Daniel Posey, Alex Ruppenthal and Fred Trotman. The foursome's production, "Lost at Mizzou," chronicled the adventures of several students who felt lost during their move-in day, Aug. 15. The creators called upon popular TV shows Lost (ABC) and 24 (FOX) for inspiration.

In the sketch, a University professor watches a KOMU report on the missing students and calls in Jack Bauer, a special agent on the show 24, to find the students.

"In the end, Jack Bauer rescues the four missing students, and they all learn that they should never feel lost at Mizzou," said Ernst, who was the group's producer and co-writer.

Although the competition required a considerable time commitment, the winners agreed the experience was well worth the effort.

"I absolutely loved the entire process of the competition," Posey said. "I loved working with my partners and playing the infamous Jack Bauer, but the greatest part would have to be writing the video's screenplay. Writing the screenplay was exciting and challenging because I never knew what to expect, especially considering the fact that I may be bombarded with a plethora of ideas one day and suffer writer's block the next few days."

From coming up with original and appealing ideas to seeing the project through to the end, the winners had a host of advice for future participants. Ruppenthal suggested that next year's competitors keep in mind how everything looks and flows while shooting to ensure clean editing in the end.

"Whatever topic or direction you choose, do it well," Ruppenthal said. "Make sure everything is precise."

At the awards celebration, each member of team iLost received an eight-gigabyte iPod Touch donated by Apple, one of the competition's official sponsors. The other sponsors are the Missouri School of Journalism, TigerTech and the Ragtag Cinemacafe.

Related

Nov. 15, 2007: KOMU Earns Three Emmy Awards; Missouri Journalism Student-Producer Among Journalists Honored KOMU, mid-Missouri's NBC station and the only University-owned commercial network affiliate in the United States, claimed three Emmy Awards from the Mid-America Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on Oct. 20 in St. Louis. Among those honored was Thad Kemlage, a Missouri Journalism senior and student producer at KOMU. [More]

Oct. 19, 2007: Master's Student Named David Kaplan Memorial Fellow at ABC News in D.C. Melissa Chee, a Missouri School of Journalism radio-television master's student, is the recipient of the 2007-2008 David Kaplan Memorial Fellowship. The fellowship, which is awarded each year to one Missouri Journalism student who has an interest in network field producing, includes a paid position at the ABC News Washington Bureau and a $10,000 stipend during the winter semester. Chee will be the School's 15th Kaplan fellow. [More]

Sept. 26, 2007: Missouri School of Journalism Students Hone Skills at Top Media Institutions For 12 weeks this past summer, going to work meant going to a baseball game for Carolyn Rauen, a senior radio-television journalism major. Dozens of Missouri Journalism students spent the academic off-season involved in prestigious internships across the country. Internships are a key element of the "Missouri Method," a proven style of instruction that emphasizes learning through hands-on experience. [More]

Sept. 17, 2007: Missouri Journalism Faculty Welcomes New Walter Williams Scholars The Missouri School of Journalism welcomed 40 new Walter Williams Scholars at a ceremony Aug. 30, bringing the total number of students enjoying the benefits of the elite program to 155. [More]

Sept. 6, 2007: Fall Programs Welcome New Students to Campus, Highlight Opportunities for Involvement Several hundred students, faculty and staff gathered in Peace Park on Aug. 30 for Fall Welcome, an annual event designed to connect new students with representatives of various journalism- and University-related organizations, programs and offices. Fall Welcome shows students the multiple facets of the School and helps faculty members, graduate students and upperclassmen interact with freshmen. [More]

March 8, 2007: Convergence Journalism Students Use Cutting-Edge Skills to Promote Film Festival Since 2004, Columbia's own True/False Film Festival has been challenging the notion that all documentaries are "stuffy and dry" by bringing together some of the world's best filmmakers and interested movie-goers in downtown Columbia. The annual festival, which ran March 1 to 4 this year, showcased more than 40 documentaries on subjects as lighthearted as an air guitar championship and as hard-hitting as genocide in Darfur. [More]

Dec. 6, 2006: Freshmen Tackle iLife Challenge, Learn Career-Building Multimedia Skills Hundreds of University of Missouri students, faculty and staff members recently filled Bush Auditorium in Cornell Hall for the awards presentation of the third annual Freshman iLife Challenge, a multimedia contest designed by the Missouri School of Journalism. [More]

Dec. 15, 2005: iLife, Camera, Action! Armed with laptops and video cameras, hundreds of journalism students displayed their movie-making talents at the 2005 Freshman iLife Challenge awards ceremony. Comedy Wars emceed the event, which was co-sponsored by the Missouri School of Journalism, Apple Computer and TigerTech, the campus computer store. The School of Journalism designed the competition, now in its second year, to introduce freshmen to the new digital technologies they can expect to use in their journalism careers. [More]

April 4, 2005: J-School to Host National Summit for Technology In Curriculum The J-School and Apple will host 140 higher education and industry leaders at an interactive conference designed to make higher education more relevant for today's "digital generation" of students. The MU School of Journalism organized the conference as a founding member of the Apple Digital Campus initiative, a partnership that includes Stanford, Duke, Penn State and The Ohio State University. [More]

Nov. 19, 2004: Winners Selected in First J-FIG iLife Challenge The multimedia project of "Dozing in the Strangest Places" won best of show at the Journalism-Freshmen Interest Group (J-FIG) iLife Challenge awards ceremony held Nov. 17 at the University of Missouri-Columbia. A total of 77 teams representing approximately 250 freshmen students participated in the Challenge, designed to help students learn digital technologies in a creative way. Each entry needed to present a completed story in less than five minutes and use the iLife suite of software tools from Apple. [More]

March 29, 2004: Journalism Student Reels in Dream Job on ESPN Before he walks across the stage at MU in May, Mike Hall landed just about everything he could have hoped to gain with his pending journalism degree. Hall earned a one-year contract as a "SportsCenter" anchor, a new Mazda 3 and a $95,000 salary Sunday, beating Aaron Levine, a Stanford University student, in the finals of ESPN's reality series "Dream Job." [More]