News 35 | College of Media

Media Career Night virtual panels extend engagement opportunities between students and alumni

Media Career Nights, a college initiative borne out of necessity during the pandemic, has become a successful continuing model for connecting students with alumni from across the nation. Now in its second year, this virtual series has been an innovative and effective way to facilitate panel discussions focused on careers in specific media industries.

Three Media Career Nights were scheduled this semester on careers in entertainment media, especially in Hollywood, in nonprofits, and in media and law. Past panels addressed sports media, politics and public life, science communication, crisis communications, and more.

“Students have enjoyed getting advice from professionals and hearing about panelists’ career paths,” said Daniel Almanza, assistant director of Media Career Services. “Students are also interested in knowing the types of organizations, internships, and other things alumni did while they were students here at Illinois.”

Alumni at the entertainment and Hollywood panel included Stephen Feder (BS ’02, media studies), producer at T-Street Productions; Emma Miller (BS ’08, media studies), senior vice president of scripted development and programming at AMC Networks; and Mike Vainisi (BS ’08, journalism), head of original content at ATTN:.

Students asked the panelists about recommended locations to begin entertainment careers, how to gain experience through summer internships, and how to connect with people in the industry. Panelists also provided advice on how to break into the entertainment industry and navigate the job market after college.

“Every experience that you have is part of the narrative you’re going to create, which is what you’ll use to help sell yourself for potential opportunities,” Feder said.

Alumni at the Media Career Night panel on nonprofits included Isabel Morales (BS ’13, journalism), media relations manager at The Nature Conservancy; Rosie Powers (BS ’12, journalism), strategist at Mission Minded; and Bradley Smith (BS ’18, advertising), program development manager at Children’s Miracle Network.

The panelists addressed what influenced them to work in the nonprofit industry, the resources they used during their time at UIUC, and the importance of resumes and portfolios.

“Our alumni panelists value events like these where they can give back and connect with current students,” Almanza said. “They also enjoy sharing their advice, their story, and are happy to discuss other topics to help students as they prepare for a successful career post-graduation.”

The final Media Career Night this semester, on media and law, will take place on April 12. The alumni panelists include Renee Cogdell Lewis (BS ’90, journalism), legal and HR consultant, private investigator, mediator, and coach at MFR Law Group PLLC; Aura L. Lichtenberg (BS ’06, journalism), partner and divorce and family law attorney at Berger Schatz; David E. McCraw (BS ’76, journalism), lead newsroom lawyer at The New York Times; and Todd Stern (BS ’85, advertising), entertainment attorney and shareholder at the law firm of Weintraub Tobin. Students can register here.

Past Media Career Night panels have been recorded and can be viewed online.

“We are grateful to our Media alumni for their generosity with their time and for their sincere interest in helping our students prepare to be the next generation of leaders,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin.

—Faith Lee, Communications Intern

Advanced Filmmaking class produces live action short film

This spring, students in MACS 480: Advanced Filmmaking are producing a live action short film called “The Goji Project,” written and directed by advertising senior Lincoln Rogers. Watch the final video.

The class, led by Victor Font, lecturer in media and cinema studies, built a dorm room set at Illinois Public Media in March and began filming just before spring break.

Students work on pre-lighting while others work on set decoration at the studio.

In February, students held auditions for the film in the new production studio in the basement of Gregory Hall.

Meyerson’s Chicago Public Square named best free daily roundup in your inbox by ‘Chicago Reader’

Charlie Meyerson (BS ’77, MS ’78, journalism), who creates ChicagoPublicSquare.com was named in the Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago edition for “Best free daily roundup in your inbox.”

“Square reflects all facets of Meyerson’s rich personality, his ear for news, his eye for finding interesting takes on that news, and his taste for quirky bits of human interest,” wrote Chicago Reader critic Jack Helbig.

Chicago Public Square is an email newsletter that Meyerson began producing in 2017. He has spent four decades as a journalist, working in Chicago newsrooms at various radio stations, as well as at the Chicago Tribune.

Directors del Toro, Zwigoff join Ebertfest slate

The 22nd Annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, co-founded and hosted by Chaz Ebert and also known as Ebertfest, announced that director Guillermo del Toro will return to the festival in April alongside screenwriter Kim Morgan with a black-and-white version of their Oscar-nominated movie Nightmare Alley. Director Terry Zwigoff also will attend with his cult classic film Ghost World.

Announced last year prior to the festival’s rescheduling to 2022, directors Azazel Jacobs and Ramin Bahrani are also in the Ebertfest lineup. Jacobs will appear with the movie French Exit and Bahrani with The White Tiger—both recent critically acclaimed movies that audiences did not get to watch on the big screen during the pandemic.

Best known for his Academy Award-winning fantasy films Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006 and The Shape of Water in 2017, del Toro is considered among the most creative and visionary artists of his generation, with a distinctive style showcased through his work as a filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and author. The Shape of Water earned the Oscars for best director and best picture.

“Del Toro is a director with a genuine visual sense, with a way of drawing us into his story and evoking the mood with the very look and texture of his shots,” Roger Ebert once wrote. The director appeared at Ebertfest in 2016.

Recalling his last visit to Ebertfest in 2006, Zwigoff said the festival and Roger Ebert’s legacy are important for filmmakers. “Roger was a very wise and enlightened guy,” Zwigoff said. “If the film was a good one, he didn’t care who was in it, or what the budget was, or who made it. If it was good, he embraced it.”

Festival co-founder and host Chaz Ebert, the wife of Roger Ebert—an Urbana native and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign journalism alumnus who gained a wide following as a film critic until his death in 2013—said she is excited by the return to an in-person festival this year.

“Watching movies during quarantine and then again afterward reinforced for me how totally different it is to watch movies in the cinema,” she said. “There are some movies that you don’t want to watch on a little screen unless you have to and, even if you have streamed some of these movies, you are going to get a very different experience seeing them at the festival.

“This is certainly the case for Nightmare Alley, where we’ll screen the black-and-white version that represents the filmmakers’ original vision for the film.”

Ebertfest organizers aim for variety in its programming by curating a mix of small gems, independent films and classics—old and new—as well as blending musical performances into the schedule.

The alt-country band Clem Snide will open the 2022 festival, and musical presentations will be part of other Ebertfest movies this year. A silent movie screening of Siren of the Tropics, starring Josephine Baker, will be accompanied by 10 musicians from Renee Baker’s Chicago Modern Orchestra. In addition, the festival will follow other movies on the schedule with live musical performances that will be announced shortly.

Ebertfest will also feature an “audience choice” movie, the Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps. Among Roger Ebert’s all-time favorite movies, the 1935 British film is an early work that puts on display all of the style elements that Hitchcock is known for.

The festival will announce more films and filmmaker guests in the next few weeks.

Ebertfest will be held April 20-23 at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign, with related talks and panel discussions at the Hyatt Place in Champaign and at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Passes are available for purchase at $200, including all processing fees. Four passes purchased together are $700. Also available are a small number of University of Illinois student passes priced at $150 each. Passes may be purchased through the festival website or at the Virginia Theatre box office, 203 W. Park Ave., Champaign, 217-356-9063. Updates will be posted on the festival website. Depending on available seating, tickets for individual movies may be available April 1.

Roger Ebert’s Film Festival is an event of the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. For additional information, visit http://www.ebertfest.com.

Anyone interested in supporting the event as a festival sponsor may contact Andy Hall, the festival’s project coordinator, at amhall2@illinois.edu.

Campos illustrates new book by Jimmy Fallon and Jennifer Lopez

Andrea Campos (BS ’12, advertising) has teamed up with Jimmy Fallon and Jennifer Lopez for her debut picture book. Con Pollo: A Bilingual Playtime Adventure, which was co-authored by Fallon and Lopez, centers around a bilingual chicken, which was brought to life by Campos’s illustrations. Con Pollo will be released on October 11, 2022.

Learn more.

Kishi wins Shirakawa Shinobu Award from Tokyo Advertising Association

College of Media master’s and doctoral degree alumna Shizue Kishi (MS ’79, advertising; PhD ’83, ICR) received the 41st Shirakawa Shinobu Award from the Tokyo Advertising Association for distinguished contributions to the advertising industry.

Kishi is the first female honoree to win this award, named after the advertising director at Shiseido, the largest cosmetic company in Japan. Kishi will retire on March 31, 2022, after her many years of service as dean of the School of Business at Tokyo Keizai University.

Her publications on media models and communication effects of advertising appeared in Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Advertising Research, Proceedings of the American Academy of Advertising, as well as in Japanese academic journals. Her book, Contemporary Advertising (coauthored with Hiroshi Tanaka and Kazue Shimamura), was awarded a prize for an excellent textbook from the Japan Academy of Advertising in 2001.

King to serve as inaugural director of Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media

After a successful run as the executive producer for MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, Colleen King decided to shift her career focus from broadcast TV news to education, pursuing her master’s in journalism and mass communication.

Her new path has led her to become the inaugural director of the Richard and Leslie Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media and a clinical assistant professor of journalism.

King, who joined the College of Media in February, looks forward to providing students with “front-row seats” to professional journalism today as programming ramps up at the Frank Center.

She hopes that students will be able to hear from high-profile speakers, get connected with internship opportunities, and learn from professionals directly through panels, workshops, and symposia.

“I want to fulfill the Franks’ mission of making Illinois a top choice for all future journalists and I want every media professional to think of UIUC graduates as the best potential talent for their newsrooms,” King said.

King, who spent 17 years at news outlets from CBS News to Fox News, has produced political news about such high-profile events as presidential elections, inaugurations, and Supreme Court nominations, as well as other national news stories such as the Parkland, Florida, school shooting and several devastating hurricanes.

Colleen King in control room — Colleen King works in the control room during *The 11th Hour.*

During her time at The 11th Hour, King helped the show transform from what was supposed to be a six-week, half-hour news digest to a permanent full-hour program that became the number one rated cable newscast in the 11 p.m. time slot.

“I loved my time in television and I am so proud of all of the time and effort I put into that work,” she said. “Some of my most rewarding moments in journalism were working with younger team members and staffers and watching them learn and develop skills that helped them rise through the ranks in journalism, so [the transition] was a natural progression for me,” she added.

After leaving MSNBC in 2019, King earned her master’s degree from Kent State University, concentrating on journalism education. That time allowed her to consider how to apply her newsroom skills in the classroom.

“I can [provide] students with my firsthand experience of being in multiple newsrooms for all hours of the day and all days of the week covering a range of stories,” King said. “I’ve experienced firsthand what they’ll be walking into and I hope that my knowledge and skills can be an asset for them—both in learning how to navigate their roles in journalism and introducing them to professional opportunities that can help them develop their own career paths.”

This semester, King is teaching JOUR 494: Navigating the Job Market. She feels that it is the perfect way to begin her career in education and she is excited to equip and prepare students for their own journalism careers.

“It’s incredibly inspiring to be surrounded by student journalists because they have the drive and passion that makes us remember why we got into this business,” King said.

Students can look forward to more Frank Center programming later this spring. Past panel discussions can be viewed on YouTube:

—Story by Faith Lee, Communications Intern. Headshot of Colleen King by Isabella Pennebaker, Photography Intern.

Min’s advocacy for underrepresented groups leads to appointment on President Biden’s Advisory Commission

March 1, 2022 | Vivian La, Communications Intern

Sarah Min (BS ’93, journalism) has always wanted to have a public service chapter of her life. After an extensive career as a media executive, Min now focuses on advocating for people of color and women through nonprofit and political work.

In December, Min was appointed to President Biden’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The commission will advise the President on issues of equity and inclusion for AANHPI communities, as well as address anti-Asian xenophobia and violence.

“I think we’re in a situation right now where a lot of things in our system are converging to create a climate of hate and polarization,” Min said.

In 2019, she began serving on the board of directors for nonprofits like civil rights advocacy group Color of Change, political action committee EMILY’s List, and engaging with grassroots organizations like the Korean American Community Foundation, with the goal of building civic engagement.

Min saw the power of media in shaping narratives about underrepresented communities.

“Stories—how they’re portrayed and who’s telling them—influence systemic injustice and the biases that we have just as everyday people and consumers of media at scale,” she said.

Min believes it’s important for students to gain real-world media experience as part of their education. In 2020, she established the Daily Illini Journalism Scholarship Fund with her husband Matt Pincus. The fund supports undergraduates in journalism who are committed to working at least one semester at The Daily Illini.

Min said her experiences as a production assistant as well as special projects editor and a reporter for InPrint at The Daily Illini, where she made lifelong friends, were some of her most fun and formative years.

“I’m grateful for that opportunity of being able to learn in an academic setting, but then simultaneously being able to put it into practice,” she said. “[The Daily Illini] was not just a club in the way that we were doing something together, but we also produced something that everybody read every day.”

Min credits the College of Media for facilitating industry connections that launched her career. As a student, Min was drawn to magazine journalism, and was encouraged by journalism mentors Dana Ewell, Jo Thomas, and Bonnie (Bellew) Layton.

“I was fortunate to have mentors who understood the career I wanted, and people who coached me along the way and connected me,” Min said.

Her career began in New York City at Glamour magazine, where she began as an editorial assistant. She held managing editor positions at other magazines including Vibe and Domino, which she helped launch. Min also was president of the publishing company McSweeney’s, founded by fellow journalism alum and author Dave Eggers (BS ’02).

Then, with the rise of digital media and smartphones, Min said “the world changed.” She became executive vice president for marketing and corporate development for ScrollMotion, a mobile enterprise technology company.

Min’s career in for-profit media ended with her time in media consulting, working with companies such as HBO and Penguin Random House.

Min said she recognizes the role that journalism and communications plays in trying to address issues like AANHPI racism.

“I think it’s all our responsibility to be able to tell our own stories, to help other people tell our stories, and to understand our stories,” Min said.

Through the President’s commission, she hopes to bring her professional and personal experience to her role as co-chair of the Data Disaggregation Subcommittee, which will expand the collection and use of disaggregated data at the federal, state, and local levels on AA and NHPI communities, and facilitate improved research on policy and program outcomes for AA and NHPI communities.

“I am honored to be among such a diverse group of leaders who have dedicated much of their lives to improving economic opportunity, environmental health, and equity of AANHPI and all Americans,” she said.

College of Media announces Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies

February 21, 2022 | Holly Rushakoff

The College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is excited to announce that the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies will officially launch this year, with programming to begin in Fall 2022.

Thanks to gifts totaling more than $5 million from a collection of donors—inspired by a lead gift from Roger and Chaz Ebert (pictured at right)—funding will support robust annual programming, including the Ebert Symposium, Ebert Lecture, and a screening series.

The famed Roger Ebert, who died in 2013, was an Urbana native, a University of Illinois journalism alumnus (BS ’64), a longtime film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, and co-host of numerous televised movie review shows. He was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first film critic honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“Unlike many centers on film studies, which focus primarily on the skills of making a film, Roger’s Center will also focus on analysis and study of films, the state of the industry, and the impact of film on individuals and society for personal and social change,” said Chaz Ebert, CEO of Ebert Digital LLC and cofounder of Ebertfest.

“This new center will undoubtedly elevate the University of Illinois and the College of Media in the discipline of film studies,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin. “We are eager to realize the Eberts’ vision of making Illinois the place that inspires generations of students and scholars and are grateful for the generosity of those who are supporting us in making this happen.”

A faculty member from the Department of Media & Cinema Studies will be appointed director of the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies. The director will coordinate event programming, Ebert research grants and travel grants for film studies, the Ebert Fellows Program for undergraduate students, and equipment and operations support for the teaching of film production.

“Through its support of engaging research, production, and public lectures and discussions, the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies will enrich experiences and facilitate connections, especially for our students and faculty in media and cinema studies,” said Professor CL Cole, head of the Department of Media & Cinema Studies.

Special kick-off events will be scheduled during the 2022-23 academic year, and, in collaboration with the Spurlock Museum, the Knight Auditorium will be outfitted with new equipment to create a first-rate screening space for campus.

When the Eberts established the endowment for the center in 2009, Roger said: “The University of Illinois is deep in my heart as a great institution. It informed and enriched me. Although there were no film courses when I was an undergraduate, it nevertheless guided me in my lifelong love of film.”

The University of Illinois is honored to celebrate Ebert’s legacy through this new center.

If you wish to contribute to the center, you can give online and select “Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies” under Champion Innovation in Media Research & Collaborations.

For media inquiries, please contact Holly Rushakoff at the College of Media at (217) 333-3949 or media-news@illinois.edu.

Burke tops charts again with award-winning Super Bowl ads

February 15, 2022

Advertising alum Patrick Burke (BS ’95), executive creative director of the Chicago-based ad agency Highdive, has once again topped the charts with award-winning Super Bowl ads. His team created both the Rocket Mortgage commercial and the Lay’s potato chip commercial, earning the #1 and #6 spots on the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter poll.

He got the #1 and #2 spots for Rocket Mortgage in 2021 and the #5 spot for them in 2020.

With Rocket Mortgage this year, Burke served as creative director, overseeing a team. His role on the Lay’s ad was more hands-on.

Burke told Adweek that the team starts each project like any other assignment by getting to one single insight that can drive the creative. Read his interview.

Read our 2021 story about Burke.