A group of Piedmont University students won an award in the Broadcast Education Association’s (BEA) international digital media and broadcast competition and traveled to Las Vegas to accept the honor.
Christopher Barker of Athens, Georgia; Connor Creedon of Peachtree Corners, Georgia; Tyler Goins of Hogansville, Georgia; Johnny Goodwyn of Moultrie, Georgia; Aaron Palmer of Alpharetta, Georgia; and Caleb Rogers of Clarkesville, Georgia, received a BEA Award of Excellence for their short film Overtime.
The students previously created a trailer for the film that won a Telly Award last June. Rogers said he was “shocked” to have received that honor.
“Then, a few weeks ago, we learned that we had won another huge award,” Rogers said. “It makes me so proud for the hard work we all put in and proud to be a student at Piedmont University.”
Goins, who wrote the original script for Overtime, gives some of the credit to the university’s Mass Communications department.
“We have great professors who push us to succeed, and I can’t thank them enough for that. This is just the start for such a great department,” Goins said.
Palmer said one lesson he took away from the project was that group collaboration improves creative ideas.
“We started with a very barebones idea, and we were able to converse about how to make it all work,” Palmer said. “This increased my passion for film and video making.”
Palmer will intern this summer as a video producer with South Carolina-based media company Red Ventures. He plans to work in video production/content creation after graduating from Piedmont.
Award winners are celebrated at BEA’s Festival of Media Arts, held April 24-25 in Las Vegas. Palmer, Rogers, and Creedon represented Piedmont at the festival and received the award in person.
Creedon was “beyond excited” to make the trip and is proud to have been part of a project that was as enjoyable as it was educational.
“I will remember this experience for the long haul. To be with some guys having fun with the project and putting it together is something we can all be proud of,” Creedon said. “A small school like Piedmont being able to not only compete but win awards over much larger schools is very impressive.”
“To be recognized on a national scale in a competition against huge public schools is something that we are all so proud of,” Palmer said. “I can’t wait to see what else the members of this group produce in the future.”
Rogers looked forward to exploring Las Vegas and enjoying time with friends as they celebrated the win.
“Being able to represent Piedmont at BEA puts the biggest smile on my face,” Rogers said. “Our group has created an award-winning film at a small private liberal arts university with no film program and a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera. It’s the creative minds that come together that win awards. I’m so proud that we get to represent Piedmont in that way.”
The BEA competition receives more than 1,500 submissions representing students and faculty from schools around the world.
Each entry was judged by a panel comprised of media educators and/or industry professionals with expertise in the submitted category. Entries are evaluated according to professionalism, use of aesthetic and/or creative elements, sense of structure and timing, production values, technical merit, and the overall contribution to the discipline in both form and substance.
Piedmont will offer a film production major beginning this fall. For more information, visit piedmont.edu/program/film-production/.
