Missouri School of Journalism student to graduate with film festival experience under his belt
COLUMBIA, Mo. (May 8, 2025) — Out of the hundreds of J-school seniors who will be graduating from the Missouri School of Journalism this month, ten will be representing the Murray Center for Documentary Journalism. One of those students, J.J. Measer from Broomfield, Colorado, pledges to maintain his collaborative spirit by working on as many professional projects as he can post-graduation.
“Documentary does not happen in a silo. It’s about working with other people to show change and capturing that change to tell a complete story,” Measer said.
After graduation, Measer plans on moving to Los Angeles and submitting his capstone, a documentary about people watching news during the 2024 presidential election, into the film festival circuit. Another film co-directed with junior Jacob Siciliano — “The Story that Wasn’t,” about the 2024 Mizzou Football season — premiered earlier this month at the School’s Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Born in California, Measer came to Mizzou to sharpen his filmmaking skills and accomplish his dream of becoming a director of photography, a role he has stepped into countless times at the School of Journalism.
Measer first came to the School four years ago with an interest in studying sports broadcasting. During his freshman and sophomore years he applied his talents towards an internship with Mizzou Athletics. He created intro videos for the Mizzou Basketball Team’s and Mizzou Swim Team’s 2022 seasons. He also captured b-roll footage for KOMU-TV, the School of Journalism’s NBC-affiliate newsroom.
Measer’s time at the School has also given him the opportunity to pursue a handful of professional internships. He has worked as an intern video editor and producer for Ionis Pharmaceuticals since last year, and he has also assisted Columbia College with creating in-house and broadcast video for all of its sports teams.
“Learning about all of the intricacies and different complexities of documentary really opened my eyes up to the art form. I started to realize that there’s a real industry out there for documentaries and I want to be a part of it.”
J.J. Measer
As he became more acclimated within the School, Measer’s interests shifted closer to narrative filmmaking. Thanks to the opportunities he received through the Murray Center’s collaborative class environment, the encouragement of the True/False Film Festival and the Stronger than Fiction Festival, Measer said he was inspired to make his own movies.
“Learning about all of the intricacies and different complexities of documentary really opened my eyes up to the art form,” Measer said. “I started to realize that there’s a real industry out there for documentaries and I want to be a part of it.”
Students in the documentary program are encouraged to work together on their capstone projects, which are long-form documentaries slated to premiere at the Stronger Than Fiction Film Festival on May 17. Filmmaker-in-chief of the Murray Center, professional documentary filmmaker Robert Greene, said Measer grows as a filmmaker because he always offers his talents on productions that aren’t his.
Greene, who has mentored Measer for two years, said Measer has represented the industry-coded mix of passionate and versatile.
“I’m making a new film and there’s so many people I could have tapped to work on that film,” Greene said. “He was the best person to reach out to and say, ‘Hey, can you help me work on this film?’ because he can do so many things.”
Greene also chose a rough cut of Measer’s capstone film for a workshop session at the First Look Film Festival, hosted in March at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. Measer is one of three Murray Center students who screened their films before industry professionals during the festival in order to receive constructive feedback.
“I think JJ can be a director of films, and that’s not something I’d say lightly because at the very center, our job is not to produce 10 to 20 directors every year,” Greene said. “Our job is to make people aware of how to work in the industry, but I think JJ can make films. I think whatever he does, it’s going to be at the highest level possible.”
Updated: May 9, 2025