NEWS

Multimedia festival to showcase student work, new facility at UNC

CHAPEL HILL -- What do "Beowulf," farm parades and the Campus Y have in common? All are among subjects that have inspired University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students to pick up cameras, create Web sites or produce recordings. Their projects will be showcased in the university’s first Undergraduate Multimedia festival, sponsored by the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, Feb. 22 through March 2.

Visitors may view and hear the work in Room 039 of the Graham Memorial Building which houses the center.a

The festival also will celebrate the grand opening of the Beasley Multimedia Center on Feb. 22. Serving as a resource for students and faculty of the College, the center is in 018 Graham Memorial and boasts multimedia tools including: professional quality hardware and software for assembling, editing, and producing video and audio-based projects; digital video cameras, studio-grade sound recording and editing equipment; megapixel digital still cameras; and high resolution slide and document scanners.

The Beasley Center is supported by a gift from Thomas and Wendy Beasley of Nashville, Tenn. and their son Matthew, a 2001 Carolina graduate. "Although the facility is less than six months old, its value is readily apparent," said Dr. Jim Leloudis, Johnston Center director and associate dean for honors. With the resources available in this center, students and faculty have begun producing DVDs and multi-track sound recording, and they have digitized more than 5,000 images originally in slide and print formats.

Dr. Randi Davenport, center associate director said, "We knew that many faculty members ask students to create multi media projects—to practice critical thinking, research, and writing skills by creating films, short videos, web sites and recordings," said. "Our new Beasley Center has been humming with activity since the day it opened. Our goal in creating the festival was to provide an opportunity for students to show their work to a larger audience and perhaps inspire other students and faculty members to use technology in innovative ways in the classroom."

The free public festival will include a program featuring documentary photographer Bill Bamberger, who will lead the student exhibitors in a roundtable discussion of their work and of multimedia projects in general. Visitors are welcome at the discussion, set for 5-6 p.m. Feb. 25.

Bamberger is well known for his photos in "Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory" (DoubleTake Books/W.W. Norton, 1998), which documents the final months of operation of the White Furniture Co. in his hometown of Mebane. His work has been exhibited in venues including the Smithsonian Institution, the Yale University Art Gallery and the North Carolina Museum of Art.

To get the festival off the ground, Davenport sent a call for submissions to all students and faculty in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences. Then she created a festival review board of faculty who regularly use multimedia assignments in their courses. The Multimedia Festival Review Board, consisting of Todd Taylor (English), Sarah Shields (history, first-year seminar program director), Rachel Willis (American studies), Rebekah Tolley (art), Heather Ross (graduate student in English). Davenport joined them to review submissions and make suggestions about the festival. Taylor consulted on technical matters, and Rick Peterson, information services director for the college, supplied equipment.

"My experience with multimedia composition has definitely stretched my boundaries as a writer and as a storyteller," said junior English major Erin Sullivan, an honors student whose project, "This House is Home" is composed of images on community art. "It's made me much more aware of my subject and my audience, as well as my own role as an interpreter between the two. Learning even the most basic multimedia skills has opened up so many new avenues of communication for me, and the most exciting part is that there are still many more possibilities to explore." Festival hours will be from noon to 5 p.m. Feb. 23 and March 1-2; 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Feb. 24-27; and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 28.

For more information about the festival, visit the Johnston Center web site at www.unc.edu/depts/jcue or call 919-966-5110

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Contact: Randi Davenport at the Johnston Center, 843-7765.