Last week, we featured the new class of New York Film Academy (NYFA) Broadcast Journalism students learning the fine points of video editing. This week, it is camera class. Graduates will recognize Classroom #505, where many of our students first learned how to shoot with a Canon C300 camera. And as the pictures show, at first it was a lot of fun.
But out in the field, shooting your first story (30-second Voiceover) is always challenging. However, things seemed to work out pretty well in the end. (How many of you shot on Stone Street for that project?) I don’t remember the “lion” ever being interviewed before. And with a reflector to even out the light!
The big news last week was New York Film Academy grad Sergei Ivonin winning a Primetime News & Documentary Emmy Award. (That is the highest honor in American television.) Sergei was a member of one of the first NYFA Broadcast Journalism classes, and after graduation he went to work at NBC News. For many years he was an MMJ (multimedia journalist) for the magazine show Dateline NBC. That meant lots of travel. He also played an important role in NBC’s coverage of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. In fact, his Russian language skills made him irreplaceable.That meant he didn’t get very much sleep, as stories had to be generated around the clock for various NBC programs.
Sergei is now a producer on the Today show, working on the 9am hour with Megyn Kelly. But it was as a field producer on the Dateline NBC team that he won his Emmy, for a segment in which former U.S. President Barack Obama was interviewed.
Congratulations, Sergei!
Also last week, 2011 Broadcast Journalism graduate Alana Blaylock was profiled in Forbes magazine. Alana used the skills she gained at NYFA as the basis for her development as an innovative content creator. She also has some insightful things to say about the arc of her career, as well as the creative process. Underlying it all is a belief in hard work, adapting to the demands of a project while retaining your integrity, and the enduring value of curiosity and an open mind…
Finally, Summer Workshop graduate Varvara Makarevich is still working in Russian language television… Only here in the United States! She is working with Voice of America (VOA), which is a U.S. government-funded broadcast service that distributes journalistically balanced programing in a variety of languages around the world. I know it sounds like a contradiction — a government agency providing unbiased programming — but it’s true. A long-time friend and former colleague in Tokyo is now head of the VOA White House bureau. I think he has one of the toughest jobs in the world. (But that’s just my opinion…)
Great work, Varvara!
You can find more information on classes offered at the New York Film Academy Broadcast Journalism School here.