News

New Professional Certificate Program Accepting Applicants

We're proud to introduce our newest opportunity for imagemakers looking to advance and enhance their careers and storytelling abilities across the media spectrum. Launching this fall, Maine Media's Professional Certificate in Visual Storytelling was developed in response to an evolving world in which working professionals need a far broader array of media skills. "A photo spread needs a video to accompany a web posting; a documentary needs production stills for the pitch," says Professional Certificate Program Chair Brenton Hamilton. "Today's visual storytellers need to be able to work on multiple platforms. Photography, video, audio, design, and writing are skills needed by everyone in the media arts, not only as a means to convey a story, but also to create and maintain a professional presence."

An interdisciplinary and immersive 30-week curriculum, the Professional Certificate in Visual Storytelling Program allows photographers, filmmakers, and media artists to master an individual craft as well as to experiment, integrate, and collaborate with other students in multiple types of media. In less than a year, students become fluent in multiple forms of visual media in order to effectively tell a story – whether it is one of personal expression, documentary journalism, social advocacy, or fictional narrative. "The Professional Cerificate in Visual Storytelling really takes full advantage of everything we have to offer at Maine Media," says MMW President Meg Weston. "By the time our students graduate with this professional certificate, they have the skills and confidence to tackle just about any project." Or, as the parent of a recent graduate said,"They go in as young recruits, and come out as Navy SEALs!" 

Applications for the Professional Certificate Program are accepted on a rolling basis, with courses beginning on September 8, 2013. Find out more about the requirements, curriculum, and scholarship opportunities by visiting our website, or give us a call at 877-577-7700 to discuss how this program can help you meet your unique career goals.

 

Alumni, Send Us Your Photos!

Alumni Weekend is coming up, and we've been having some fun looking through old photos from our 40 years with you. It's fascinating to see what has changed (especially in video gear!), what remains the same, and what trends are cycling back around again. Do you have some pictures from your time here? We want to see them! Chances are, the shots of your Big Hair are a lot less embarrasing than they used to be. And apparently mustaches are hot again. Send us your pictures by email at images@mainemedia.edu (or post them on our Facebook page if you prefer). If you know who took the picture and who is in it, please be sure to note it in your email, or tag it on Facebook. We'll make a slide show of our favorites and share them with all of you. And if you haven't yet bought your tickets and made your plans to be here for Alumni Weekend, get on it! It's the very busiest weekend in midcoast Maine, and you're really too old to sleep in your car.

Click here to reserve your spot.

Your ticket provides access to all that's going on here that weekend, including the Mentor opening at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, the Focus On Faculty exhibit in the Maine Media Gallery, and all kinds of food, fun, and festivities. Planning to come earlier or extend your stay? Be sure to check out all the workshops running before and after Alumni Weekend.

Alumni News

MMW Scholarship Recipient Makes Directorial Debut

Rachel Seed first came to us in 2006 as a work-study student, and later returned for our Platypus course with Dirck Halstead on a Yarka Vendrinska Scholarship. We were excited to hear that Rachel is now working at the International Center for Photography and is preparing her first documentary, A Photographic Memory, a personal and photo-historical project based on archival film interviews that Rachel's mother conducted with photographic luminaries like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, and Lisette Model in the early 1970s. Not only a fascinating window into the philosophies and motivations of some of photography's most influential artists, the film is also a vehicle for Rachel to learn about her mother, Sheila Turner-Seed, who died not long after the interviews were filmed, when Rachel was just a toddler. Weaving archival footage with Rachel's own contemporary interviews with many of the same artists, A Photographic Memory is a posthumous mother-daughter collaboration fueled by a shared love of photography. Read more about the project's progress at Rachel's A Photographic Memory blog. 

Bridget Besaw Launches New Environmental Documentary Project

Conservation Photojournalism instructor Bridget Besaw will soon begin production on a film series exploring food sustainability and the viability of small-scale agriculture here in Midcoast Maine. Bridget and Seedlight Pictures are producing the project in collaboration with Maine Farmland Trust, and the series will explore issues of how to feed New England into the future, whether bottom up agricultural policy may be more effective in serving the needs of Maine farmers, and how to make a framework in which local farmers can make a robust, sustainable livelihood. All these themes will be told through the eyes of the farmers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and activists who impact and are impacted by them. Follow along with the project by reading Seedlight’s blog. Photojournalists interested in exploring environmental themes should be sure to check out Bridget's People in Nature: Conservation Photojournalism workshop running Aug 11-17. 

Doc Makers, Wind Up Your Pitches

The Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) Points North Pitch is now open for submissions. Documentary filmmakers who would like the opportunity to present their feature-length work-in-progress to a panel of influential industry decision makers should be sure to make the August 9 deadline. The pitch is the highlight of the two-day Points North Documentary Forum held during the September film festival, and is now open to all international filmmakers.

Six filmmakers will be selected to present a seven-minute verbal pitch and trailer before the panel of judges and the general public from the stage of the Camden Opera House. Participants are then eligible to win the Points North Pitch Award, which includes amazing cash and post-production prizes to help you get your project finished. Maine Media is also proud to sponsor a $3,000 workshop scholarship prize.

It's a fantastic opportunity for emerging doc makers. Since winning the Points North Pitch Award, the documentary Betting The Farm went on to premiere at last year's Silverdocs, and played to sold-out crowds as the official opening night film of the 2012 Camden International Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. "We are thrilled to see filmmakers who have pitched at the forum go on to do great things and build on relationships that started in Camden," says Points North Director Sean Flynn. The documentary In Country, another Points North Pitch Award winner, received a Garret Scott grant and was selected by the Hot Docs Forum and IFP labs, and was also recognized as one of "50 indie films to look out for in 2013" by indieWIRE.

The 2013 Camden International Film Festival will run from September 26-29, with the Points North Documentary Forum events running concurrently on September 27 and 28. Find more information, including an application for the pitch, at http://camdenfilmfest.org/pointsnorth

Letterman Head Writer and Best-Selling Memoirist Lead New Writing Classes
Expanding our list of world-renowned faculty, Maine Media Workshops + College will welcome four-time Emmy award-winner Steve O'Donnell and best-selling author Joyce Maynard to teach workshops this summer. If you have ever wanted to test out your comedy writing chops or refine your own personal narrative, you couldn't pick a better summer to come to Maine.
 
A longtime head writer for both David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel, Steve O’Donnell has written for The Chris Rock Show, The Bonnie Hunt Show, The Dana Carvey Show, and most recently Sports Show with Norm Macdonald. Oh, and he's also been the man behind the laughs on Seinfeld, The Simpsons and Lateline with Al Franken. Not too shabby! O'Donnell's workshop, Late Night Comedy Writing, runs July 14-20, and will explore various approaches to creating comedy-variety content, including monolog, running bits, sketches, and short comic vignettes that are the staple of websites like Funny or Die. 
 
A celebrated writer of both fiction and nonfiction, Joyce Maynard has seen her work translated into eighteen languages and optioned for A-list actors. At Home in the World, Maynard's poingant memoir, has been a huge international success.  Her novel To Die For was adapted into a film starring Nicole Kidman, and Labor Day is the basis for a forthcoming film starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin.  Her latest novel, After Her, will be published by William Morrow in August.  Maynard also performs frequently as a storyteller with The Moth in New York City, and with Porchlight in San Francisco.  In her pair of Personal Storytelling workshops running July 28-August 3 and August 4-10, Maynard will help students transform their own life experience into a book-length memoir, short essay, or a work of performance storytelling. The weeks are designed so that you can participate in one or both.

Be sure to check out all the fantastic writing workshops we'll be offering this summer and fall, including Writing & Developing The Documentary with Emmy Award-winning writer and director Jack McDonald, screenwriting workshops led by veteran screenwriters Wayne Beach and Janet Roach, and a documentary master class led by the award-winning documentary filmmaker and writer DeWitt Sage. Our Young Artist Workshops offer writing courses too!

Alumni News

Brianna Torres wins Coco Latino Video Contest


It's been less than a year since Brianna Torres was here, taking our Storytelling With Bruce Strong workshop, but already she has made major inroads on her career. Brianna wrote to us recently to share the news that she had won the Coco Latino Video Contest with her short film, Feed What You Love. "I was in such a rut last year that I cashed out some of my retirement to pay for Bruce Strong's class," says Brianna. "And it made all the difference, because a month later I won $10,000 in a video contest!" Brianna rounded out her year making running videos for Adidas and Running Times Magazine, and creating a web app during Tribeca Hacks. She's now ready to launch an independent documentary film project about travelling back to Cuba with her father who emigrated from there when he was a boy. "It's the creative life I've always wanted." says Brianna. 

"Thanks for being such a special place. It helped encourage and prepare me for this current project that I've wanted to make for years." Check out the pre-production trailer for the documentary on Brianna's vimeo page. We look forward to seeing the finished product!

 

 

Goodbye Students, Hello Staff!

We were honored to celebrate the gallery opening and graduation ceremony for our Professional Certificate students last week.  They are so talented, and have worked so very hard all year long. We know that they are going to go forth and launch amazing careers in photography. In fact, their careers will start next week! Parting is not such sweet sorrow when students turn into staff. We congratulate Photo Lab Intern Jourdan Selkowitz, Digital Services Department Technician Adam Pitula, and Teaching Assistants Collin Howell and Sujata Khanna on their new jobs. You can see their stunning work on display in their upcoming exhibit at PhoPa Gallery in Portland, running from June 12 through June 22.

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