David Liban's New Book

David Liban, former MFA student in the Department of Television and Radio, has just published a textbook on video editing entitled The Video Editor’s Guide to Soundtrack Pro: Workflows, Tools, and Techniques. The book offers instruction on audio postproduction through Soundtrack Pro while editing in Final Cut Studio suite. It is published by Focal Press and is available through Amazon.com.

Since graduating from Brooklyn College in 1994 Liban has gone on to direct numerous short films, including the Emmy nominated documentary Carhenge: Genius or Junk in 2007. The film details the origins and obstacles of a replica of Stonehenge made out of 38 junk automobiles known as Carhenge.

Currently, Liban is an Assistant Professor of film and video at the University of Colorado.

Alumnus Wins Big

Department of Television and Radio Alumnus K. Jonathan Park, class of 2009, won Grand Prize in the Pan Pacific Film Festival (PPFF) this month. The film, entitled “Peace Be With You”, was produced and directed by Park, and also took home the Best Short with a combine prize winning of $8,000.

The PPFF is a Christian film festival, which focuses on merging great cinema with faith based content. The winning films are distributed as tens of thousands of DVDs, iPhone Apps, Websites throughout the world- often used in missionary countries as well as the US.

Park’s film, "Peace Be With You", is a story of a young pastor and a cancer survivor, Hoeun Lee, who takes a journey to find a real hope in faith. In the course of the journey through the darkness, he writes and speaks of the hope to the youth groups. He finds the love of his life in a hospital bed and ties the knot with Yunjoo.

This win follows K. Jonathan Park’s previous success with his short film, “Birthday Cake” which won Best Short Film last Summer at the PPFF.

Cogratulations to Zach Napolitano

Brooklyn College’s own Zach Napolitano has been awarded by the New York State Communication Association (NYSCA) for the most creative paper in its 2010 conference. Zach’s paper represented Brooklyn College’s Television and Radio at the conference that was held on Saturday, Oct. 22. NYSCA is an organization of faculty, students, and professionals in communication - who are dedicated to studying, improving, and applying the principles and practices of communication.

Zach is currently enrolled in the Television and Radio Department’s Media Studies Program. His paper entitled, “Text Me My Love, You Can Text Me Any Day or Night”, focuses on the role of text messaging in modern, romantic relationships.

The paper was presented at the conference as part of the Brooklyn College Panel, “Dating, Sex and Sexuality: Digital Communication Really Matters”. Also included in it were students Joe Dodd and Jack Hazan. Prof. Katherine Fry organized and chaired the panel from papers written for her graduate, “Intro to Media Studies” course. Mike Placito, another MS student, was also featured in the conference

Fall Semester is Here! Time to Get Oriented!

The newest MFA TV production sequence kicked off its first semester Friday with orientation. Eleven MFA candidates for Brooklyn College’s Television Production program trickled into Studio B in the basement of Whitehead Hall that morning, helping themselves to coffee and bagels while making idle chatter and awaiting the faculty.

Once orientation began, the students were introduced to department chair Frederick Wasser, Professor Stuart MacLelland, Associate Professor Irene Sosa, Adjunct Professor Young Cheong, and other department faculty, like Tracy Lovett, Kathy Napoli, and Maria Signorelli.

“You grew up in the digital world, so your challenge is to understand the mediums you’re already familiar with and how to use them to tell compelling stories. Our program is very intense and very, very short. You have two years to experiment and learn and re-learn,” Sosa later said. “My hope is that people will jump into this intensity and try as many things as possible. We have great equipment. We have a faculty that is really excited about what is going on, so in that sense, I think our journey is going to be really exciting.”

The incoming class learned that the television broadcast program “Brooklyn College Presents,” (produced by the Television and Radio Department) penetrates approximately 3.1 million households in New York City on Channel 75, CUNY-TV. The students also learned about the plans to upgrade Brooklyn College’s studio to an HD facility, amongst other odds and ends.

Of course, no college orientation would be complete without awkward introductions from the students themselves.

“I was very excited, but very nervous at the same time,” first-year MFA student Ashley Cintron said. “I was excited to meet all of our professors and meeting everyone. We’re like a little production family for the next two years.”

The students in this year’s sequence, Sequence 40, range from those with freshly minted bachelor degrees to older students, who may have all but forgotten the feel of a college campus. They boast diverse backgrounds, including those in film, broadcast communications, print journalism, and political science.

“Everyone was much friendlier than I expected. They were warm,” said Heerak Shah.

Some students hail from far away lands, like Russia, China, and India. Though there are those who call the Big Apple home, and still others come from different parts of the United States.

With courses like Introduction to Graduate Study, Problems in Multiple Camera Production, and Video Postproduction, on our plates, this semester promises to be challenging and fun. Wish us luck, everyone!