SCAD students win big at 2018 Student Production Awards
SCAD students from six different disciplines won awards across multiple categories at the 2018 Student Production Awards, honoring the best student work at universities around the Southeast U.S.
SCAD student crime drama "Hot Case" (Shayain Lakhani, Christian Montalvo, Mark Alex Vogt) was the most decorated winner, collecting the Best Long Form Fiction, Best Director and Best Editor awards. The series follows the investigation of a college student's death by a conspiracy theorist and a true-crime devotee.
Lakhani, a film and television student, was also director of the Short Form Fiction winner "The Senator," along with cinematographer Kyle Rose and production designer Liam Haehnle. The short film explores the life of Essie Mae Washington-Williams, who discovered as a teenager that her father was segregationist U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, parentage she did not disclose until after his death in 2003.
SCAD students Laura Cash and Zeno Padinjattekara each won two awards at the June ceremony. Cash was honored with Best Music Video for "You Are Here With Me (In This Sequence)," an animation created as a senior project for the Woods of Ypres song of the same name, while Padinjattekara's "Fossil Watch" advertisement won the Student Emmy for Best Commercial. The two students were named co-winners of Best Animation/Graphics/Special Effects — Padinjattekara for the "Fossil Watch" commercial and Cash for "A Brief History of Underwear," a tour of undergarments from the Roman Empire to the present day.
Two SCAD projects also were named co-winners of Best Audio/Sound in 2018: the "CoMotion 2018" title sequence (Haley Bowers, Woo Yong Cho, Myung Soo Kay), the centerpiece of the annual student-sponsored motion media event, and "Escaper" (Ashton Faydenko, Ryan Sullivan), a short film about a man coming to terms with the loss of his lover. SCAD students also split the Best Writing award for student-produced sitcoms "Nailed It!" (Anna Braswell, Bryson Lima, Mitchell Smalenski) and "The Buzz" (Megan Librizzi, Chad Morton, Dillon Slack, Cannon Wise).
Three other student projects won awards: anti-bullying message "Weird" (Mason Douglass, Maegan Mann, Olivia O'Hara, Demi Waldron) earned Best PSA; Darren James Usher's "Not Another Video Essay – Renoir & Vallée," examining film editing and its influences in French New Wave cinema, won Best Video Essay; and Manahar Kumar's "Kya Dekh Raha Hai? (What Are You Looking At?)," chronicling three young boys who sell glass bottles in an Indian city, was awarded Best Short Form Non-Fiction.
The Southeast EMMY® Chapter presents the Student Production Awards for college students in more than 20 categories across news, sports, film and more. The entries are judged on three criteria: content, creativity and execution (maximum 30 points). Craft entries are judged on two criteria: creativity and execution (maximum 20 points). Judging panels are made up of professional peer judges from the five markets in the region.
2018 Student Production Awards winners
- Haley Bowers (B.F.A., sound design, 2018)
- Anna Braswell (M.F.A., dramatic writing, 2017)
- Laura Cash (B.F.A., motion media design, 2017)
- Woo Yong Cho (B.F.A., sound design, 2018)
- Mason Douglass (B.F.A. advertising, 2018)
- Ashton Faydenko (B.F.A. sound design)
- Myung Soo Kay (M.F.A., sound design, 2018)
- Manahar Kumar (M.F.A. film and television)
- Shayain Lakhani (B.F.A. film and television)
- Megan Librizzi (B.F.A. dramatic writing)
- Bryson Lima (B.F.A., film and television, 2018)
- Maegan Mann (B.F.A., film and television, 2018)
- Christian Montalvo (B.F.A. dramatic writing)
- Chad Morton (B.F.A., dramatic writing, 2018)
- Olivia O'Hara (B.F.A., film and television, 2018)
- Zeno Padinjattekara (B.F.A., motion media design, 2017)
- Dillon Slack (B.F.A. film and television)
- Mitchell Smalenski (B.F.A. film and television)
- Ryan Sullivan (B.F.A. sound design)
- Darren James Usher (M.F.A. film and television, 2018)
- Mark Alex Vogt (B.F.A. film and television)
- Demi Waldron (B.F.A., film and television, 2018)
- Cannon Wise (B.F.A. performing arts)