BEA Festival of Media Arts honors six Rowan projects with awards

The Broadcast Education Association (BEA) this week announced that five Rowan University media projects will receive Awards of Excellence and named The Rowan Report, a show broadcast on WGLS-FM, second best in the country in for radio broadcasts.

Honorees for the BEA 2024 Festival of Media Arts this spring will include:

Student Winners:

Radio Newscast Category

Allison Bruce, 2^nd Place, The Rowan Report (WGLS-FM)

Specialty Program & Podcasts Category

Jonathan Hubbard, Award of Excellence, “Storyboards”

Brandon Bollwark, Award of Excellence, “The Green Pill”

Danny Ryan & Connor Brown, Award of Excellence, “The Rowan Sports Review”

Promotional Category

Khrystyyan Pasichnyk, John Hunter & Michael Rambo, Award of Excellence, “Enhancing The Farmers Experience: Using AI and Drones to Predict Crop Yield”

Faculty Winners:

Narrative Category

Jonathan Mason & Tisha Robinson-Daly, Award of Excellence, Film “HIGH” Teaser

Mason, a professor in the Department of Radio, Television & Film in Rowan’s Ric Edelman College of Communication & Creative Arts, said competition for the BEA Awards is always tough.

“BEA is the premiere international academic media organization, driving insights, excellence in media production and career advancement for educators, students and professionals,” Mason said. “Every year, more than 300 universities and colleges compete in BEA’s Festival of Media Arts. This year, there were nearly 1900 submissions in 31 Faculty and 31 student categories. Of them, nine Rowan students/faculty brought home awards in four different categories.”

Though Rowan students and faculty are often competitive at BEA, Mason said the Edelman CCCA really shined this year.

“We’re proud of how our students and media-making community continue to show excellence,” he said.
“This is a great reminder that our Rowan talent can be stacked up against just about anyone!”

He said it’s especially gratifying to be recognized for HIGH, an experimental short film made with virtual production techniques that are more commonly used in gaming.

“We shot this to prove the possibility of using virtual production and LED walls on an indie budget, and we came away with some concrete and positive findings,” Mason said. “Though the film was short in length, it required about thirty crew members, six months of pre-production, and a couple of months for post. This was also an opportunity to test how we could add virtual production to our toolset here at Rowan, which we’ll begin implementing this summer with a new testing space in Bozorth Hall. As for HIGH, the short film is being used to raise financing for the feature film we hope to shoot next winter.”

Station Manager Derek Jones and Assistant Station Manager Leo Kirschner supervise productions on Rowan Radio WGLS-FM. Dr. Joe Bierman chairs the Department of Radio, Television & Film.

Award recipients will be honored during the BEA Festival of Media Arts April 15 in Las Vegas.