Media & Cinema Studies 7 | College of Media

Recent MACS alum reflects on film production ahead of Ebert Center screening

After Party, a short film produced by alum Kat Williams (BS ’22, media and cinema studies), will be featured on Thursday, April 4, at the Knight Auditorium of Spurlock Museum, as part of the screening series presented by the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies. This year’s Ebert Fellows, who curated the evening’s films, chose the 20-minute short to be shown before the main film screening of Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Williams worked as producer for After Party in her first major project since graduating in 2022. Based in Chicago, Williams has held various production assistant roles in the independent movie scene.

In a recent interview, Williams described the making of the film and what her time at the University of Illinois taught her about filmmaking. Director Jonah Koslofsky also shared insights on Williams’ impact on After Party and what he hopes viewers will take away from the film.

What is After Party about?
Kat Williams: After Party is a short film about a group of college friends who haven’t seen each other in a while, coming back together post-COVID when we all started hanging out again outdoors. It looks at the changes in their relationships, their dynamics, and how they figure those out and move forward. It’s about connection. It’s about people. It’s about shenanigans.

What was the filmmaking process like?
Williams: I first met with director Jonah Koslofsky about this project in October of 2022 and then we started shooting in April of 2023. It was one week of production—we shot for five days. Before that, it was a lot of coordinating, ordering things, finding our location, finding our crew, stuff like that. Then we shot for a week and spent the next several months going through editing, color, sound, and music. This was my first time producing a project front-to-back like that, so it was very fun for me to really explore that and find out what this job is like.

In your role as producer, what did you do for this film specifically?
Williams: A producer really oversees the project from start to end. A lot of people, when they think of film production, think of just the days that you’re on set. But there’s so much more on the front end and on the back end of that. In the year that we spent working on this project, we were only on set for a week. As a producer, what I do on a day-to-day basis is start with doing a breakdown. You take the script and figure out what you need and then you have to figure out where to get things, and how much it’s going to cost. You start talking to potential crew members, people that you would trust to help you take this from page to screen. Things just kind of fall together. If you get the right people together, you can make anything happen and we were really lucky to have had a good group.

What did Kat Williams bring to the project?
Jonah Koslofsky: She provided essential feedback and encouragement as I was writing the script. Once the writing was complete, she organized and constructed the budget for the project, and then she and I coordinated the crowdfunding of said budget. She set up our Backstage page and provided valuable input throughout the casting process. She helped assemble our incredible crew and communicated with our entire team so that our shoot was able to come together. Then she found our editor, post-sound editor, and composer so that our post-production could be completed in a timely manner, and now, she’s devising our festival strategy and building our website and press materials.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of things Kat brought to the project, but more than anything else, she was a support for me and the whole movie when things became particularly stressful or uncertain. Whenever I found myself close to an edge, Kat was able to pull me back to stable ground and towards actually solving the problem. She always believed in the project, and worked day after day to make sure it did not fall apart. After Party would not exist without her.

What do you hope students take away from the film?
Koslofsky: I hope students enjoy the film! I hope that they are able to see themselves in the ensemble; I hope students recognize the experience of re-entering the world as the pandemic ended and finding oneself increasingly confused. I hope that they read into the film and draw their own conclusions—we were very particular with where certain shots start and end, how certain characters reflect each other. And I hope they laugh at the jokes.

How do you feel about something that you worked on being screened in Champaign-Urbana?
Williams: I’m so excited. I learned so much about what I do at the University of Illinois. It means a lot to me to get to share this with the campus community and to have the Ebert Fellows sharing this with Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which is one of my favorite movies and also a huge inspiration for the film. It means a lot to have this all coming together like this.

Koslofsky: Screening in Urbana is a huge honor. I love Champaign-Urbana, and I’m so excited to bring the film to the audience here. While the film is set in Chicago, it’s packed with Urbana DNA—in addition to Williams and myself, our director of photography Ella Lubienski is also an Urbana native. It’s a movie made by Urbana people, so it really makes sense to show it to Urbana people.

Are there any particular classes or experiences at the College of Media that helped you for this role?
Williams: I took MACS 100 with Dr. Amanda Ciafone, and realized I’m supposed to be studying movies and making them. That changed everything for me. I really loved all those MACS classes, and all of the professors were fantastic. Victor Font was also a huge help with teaching theory, and learning how to apply that on set, learning what all these positions are, what all the equipment is, and how to function on a set. I was also able to get a minor in critical film production, a minor in creative writing, and I got a certificate in international global studies. All of that has really come together in a way that I’m having a lot of fun with now and I get to use those skills all the time, which is exciting.

What advice do you have for MACS and College of Media students?
Williams: I think the biggest thing is just talking to people—find your people, use your network, make friends. And just have fun with it. Because for me, the whole reason that I started doing this was because I wanted work to be fun and I wanted to enjoy what I’m doing and have something beautiful at the end of it that I can show people.

—Vivian La, Communications Intern

Students explore media industry in Chicago during inaugural spring break media tour

March 27, 2024 | Kelly Youngblood

A group of College of Media students participated in a spring break media tour in Chicago, meeting Illinois alumni and visiting various industry sites including advertising agencies, news organizations, and a film studio.

Led by faculty members Victor Font, lecturer in media and cinema studies, and Margaret Ng, assistant professor in journalism, seven students attended the three-day trip, held March 10-12.

The inaugural trip was an experiential learning opportunity for students to discover more about media-related careers firsthand.

Bekah Douglas, a junior in media and cinema studies, described the trip as a “once-in-a-lifetime journey” and credits her family and College of Media donors for making the trip possible.

“I was so lucky to attend the College of Media’s spring break trip and have the chance to meet with the artists that make Chicago (and the world) a better place. The opportunity to travel outside of the classroom, to network, to explore the possibilities of media is priceless,” Douglas said.

For Douglas, visiting the Lyric Opera of Chicago to participate in a press announcement for the 2024 season with Holly Gilson and her PR staff and touring the opera house, was her favorite memory.

“I have been a devoted opera fan for many years, so getting to learn the history behind the building and hearing from the artists who make the shows possible was very emotional for me,” Douglas said.

Ng also enjoyed the opera house, where students had the chance to sit on stage alongside professional journalists and watch brief vocal performances that previewed the upcoming season.

“Witnessing the opera house’s level of preparation was a captivating experience. Additionally, observing reporters at work during a press conference taught us a great deal about media coverage of the arts,” Ng said.

Students also met alumna Judy Hsu (BS ’93, journalism), ABC7 evening news anchor, along with other anchors and hosts, and watched a live news broadcast (pictured at right).

“We were right behind the camera, watching the entire hour-long program unfold,” said Ng. “[The anchors] interacted with the students during the short off-camera intervals. They were so friendly and easygoing, yet they could swiftly transition back to delivering news concisely and professionally within a few seconds. I was deeply impressed by their focus and professionalism.”

Gavin Schroeder, a senior in media and cinema studies, said the trip was not only fun but informative. He enjoyed meeting other Media students and talking with professionals in their respective fields.

“[The trip] opened my mind to the similarities that people in the workforce experience. What I took away most was the advice on how to assert yourself and stand out, along with knowing how to work in a team environment,” he said.

Schroeder said meeting with communications staff and touring McDonald’s International Headquarters was impressive. As an aspiring filmmaker, the highlight of the trip for him was a meet and greet with Gordon Quinn, founder of Kartemquin Films (pictured at right).

Penny Bradford, a junior in journalism, was also inspired by a visit to the production studio. She said Quinn’s dedication to public media and storytelling allowed her to see a career she had not yet considered.

“Overall, the trip brought unique experiences and allowed us to connect with [alumni] of the University, along with others that are currently in positions we may want to see ourselves [in],” Bradford said.

Payton Jarzyna, a senior in advertising, said the trip sparked excitement as she will soon enter the workforce.

“I learned about a lot of fields I didn’t even realize I could go into. I also learned more about the job application process, and how to stand out as a candidate,” Jarzyna said. “The businesses we visited and the people we talked to were super knowledgeable and helpful.”

The itinerary also included conversations with:

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune film critic and mentor to the College of Media Roger Ebert Fellows
Geno Schellenberger (BS ’20, advertising), communications director at Havas Chicago
Suheily Davis (BS ’04, journalism), vice president, global chief diversity officer, McDonald’s International Headquarters
Journalism alumni who work in nonprofit communications and fundraising, including Samantha Kiesel (BS ’13), marketing content manager at Boys and Girls Club of Chicago; Isabel Morales (BS ’13), media relations manager at the Nature Conservancy; and Rosie Powers (BS ’12), strategist for Mission Minded; along with Sarah Morris, Associate Vice Chancellor for Regional and International Advancement at the University of Illinois

In addition, students were invited behind the scenes to see:

A model and perimeter tour of the Barack Obama Presidential Library with UIC alumna Rebecca Silverman and the communications and content staff at the Obama Foundation
Blackhawks Live coaches show with Jon Hansen (BS ‘06, journalism) and Joe Brand at WGN Radio (pictured at right)
Google with advertising alumni Katelyn Pringle (BS ’09) and Stephanie Stewart (BS ’08, advertising), both senior account executives

See more photos from their trip.

Ebert Symposium 2024 to address ‘Representations and Their Critics’

March 15, 2024

Updated 4/30/2024: Recordings are now available to watch.

This year’s Chaz and Roger Ebert Symposium, presented by the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies, will address “Representations and Their Critics.” Discussions will consider the current state of film criticism, the interpretive power of media critics, and how this work might evolve over the next decade. Presenters include culture commentators and film critics Megan Cruz, Bobbi Miller, Michael Phillips, and Dana Stevens.

Join us for this two-day event, in person or via Zoom:

Tuesday, April 16, 7-9 p.m.
Knight Auditorium at Spurlock Museum
Watch a screening of important film representations—a selection of scenes from movies curated by the panel—along with discussion about their importance. Free tacos will be provided before the screening, while supplies last.

The panelists—culture commentators and film critics Megan Cruz, Bobbi Miller, Michael Phillips, and Dana Stevens—selected short clips on important representations in film that included contemporary womanhood, atomic bomb portrayal, Black male representation, conversations about abortion, and more.

Watch the recording:

Wednesday, April 17, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Starlight Room at Siebel Center for Design
Meet the critics over coffee and pastries, and enjoy an interactive panel discussion about the state of film criticism and the future of media critics, led by moderator Tanya Melendez, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois Department of Communication and contributor to Entertainment Weekly.

Watch the recording:

About the presenters

Megan Cruz

Megan Cruz, @jstoobs on TikTok, is a host, pop culture commentator, writer, and producer who has built a strong audience with a diverse 600k+ following across social platforms. She was named by New York Times as one of eight TikTok stars redefining how movies are reviewed. She is the former co-host/EP of the #1 entertainment podcast Geeks of the Week, which had over 1 million monthly listeners. She has hosted a spectrum of live and taped events from press junkets to Netflix’s Geeked Week showcase, Disney+/Hulu’s Live From D23 Stage to Warner Bros The Batman, and Disney/Pixar’s Lightyear red carpet livestreams.

She is a passionate advocate for marginalized voices, especially women in film. Her brand new podcast, The Broad Perspective, focusing on female trailblazers in the entertainment industry, was released on December 6, 2023, with a profile in Variety.

Bobbi Miller

Bobbi Miller is a culture critic and host of The Afternoon Special Podcast, where she pulls back the curtain on some of pop culture‘s most interesting niches and tries to make sense of it all. Across the Internet and beyond, she creates edu-taining pop culture content that uses history, analysis, and a dash of humor to highlight film, TV, and more.

When she’s not masquerading as a niche Internet micro-celebrity, you can probably find her engaging in various enrichment activities, including reading and ranking all the Ghostfaces in the Scream franchise.

Michael Phillips

Michael Phillips is the film critic of the Chicago Tribune, appointed in 2006 after serving as the Tribune theater critic since 2002. Previously he worked as theater critic for the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He started out as arts editor and film critic for the Twin Cities weekly City Pages, while serving as film critic for Minnesota Public Radio.

Since 2015, Phillips has been the advisor/mentor for the University of Illinois College of Media Roger Ebert Fellowship, and had the honor to co-host the nationally syndicated TV series At the Movies, first opposite Richard Roeper and, later, A.O. Scott. He also introduced 100+ films, from Citizen Kane to Total Recall, on the universal goodwill machine known as Turner Classic Movies. (Photo courtesy of Sally Blood.)

Dana Stevens

Dana Stevens is the film critic at Slate and a co-host of the Slate Culture Gabfest, the magazine’s weekly culture podcast. She has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and Bookforum. Her first book, Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, came out in 2022 and is now out in paperback.

Derek Long takes on history of Hollywood film distribution in his first book, ‘Playing the Percentages’

March 11, 2024 | Kelly Youngblood

Derek Long, assistant professor of media and cinema studies, sheds light on a rarely covered piece of Hollywood history in his first book, Playing the Percentages: How Film Distribution Made the Hollywood Studio System.

Praised as “invaluable to media industry scholars of the past and present,” the book is a comprehensive history of film distribution in the United States during the silent era that illustrates the importance of power struggles between distributors and exhibitors over booking, pricing, and playing time (i.e., how long it stays in theaters).

“When people think about Hollywood as an industry, maybe they think about the more glamorous aspects of it like stars, producers, or figures in Hollywood,” Long said. “But I was interested in how Hollywood came to be an industrial institution and the history of that, particularly in the silent era.”

Playing the Percentages, set for release on April 16, considers the economic history of the industry’s film distribution process from 1910 through 1930, including booking, circuiting, and packaging marketing practices.

While many Hollywood histories focus on linear narratives such as industry growth and improvements in technology, Long said there was a “hole in the scholarship” regarding the various ways films were distributed, sold, or marketed.

“That was a story nobody had really told, at least in an American context, and so I wanted to fill that gap,” he said.

Long didn’t begin writing Playing the Percentages until 2017, but the project developed out of his dissertation over a decade ago.

Previous histories basically think about distribution as a mechanism or industrially organized system of shipping films out when there’s a lot more to it than that.

Derek Long

Assistant Professor of Media and Cinema Studies

In addition to using digital libraries, Long conducted extensive archival research across the country, visiting the Margaret Herrick Library in California, which is the archives and repository of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the Warner Brothers Archives at University of Southern California; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the New York Public Library; the Shubert Archives in New York; and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas.

After months of research, Long said it became apparent that developing the system of film distribution was not a straight line and his book highlights those crucial changes in the system brought about by live theater, the rise of longer feature-length films, and the transition to sound.

“Previous histories basically think about distribution as a mechanism or industrially organized system of shipping films out when there’s a lot more to it than that,” Long said. “Actually, the history of building that system is part and parcel of the history of Hollywood as an industry, and how it came to be so powerful, particularly in the 1930s and ’40s.”

Long, whose course specialties include film history, media distribution, and digital tools and historiography, has incorporated his research discoveries into his lectures on classical Hollywood and how distribution works.

In addition to teaching and writing, Long is also the creator and developer of Early Cinema History Online, a filmographic database of credits for over 35,000 early American films. The searchable archive, which serves as a reference tool for scholars, features credits for titles released in the United States from 1908 through 1920.

He also organizes the annual MACS Student Showcase, screening student work that has been produced in MACS classes throughout the academic year. This year’s showcase will be held on Saturday, May 4, at the Spurlock Museum.

Long is already thinking about a sequel to his first book, which would look at film distribution relationships in the 1930s and ’40s, including how race was a factor.

“I want to look at alternative systems of distribution, particularly for race cinemas, films specifically for African American audiences,” Long said. “That was essentially a completely segregated and different form of distribution.”

In the meantime, Long is enjoying the feeling of accomplishment after completing his first book.

“It’s very exciting to see your book in print for the first time,” Long said. “Especially when you’ve been working on it for so long.”

Long’s book, Playing the Percentages, will be available on April 16; use code UTXM25 for a discounted price.

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Angela Aguayo selected as 2024-25 Humanities Research Institute Faculty Fellow

February 29, 2024 | Kelly Youngblood

Angela Aguayo, associate professor of media and cinema studies and acting director of the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies, has been selected as a 2024-25 Humanities Research Institute Faculty Fellow.

As an HRI Faculty Fellow, Aguayo will be provided with research funds and one semester of release time to work on a new book, titled Collective Matters: Documentary Film Practice and Public Engagement in the US, 1970-Present.

Her book will address the micro-practices of public engagement with documentary production that have led to sustained media culture. When the larger culture is deeply divided, the traditions and strategies of community-centered documentary storytelling build connections between people.

“There is a long tradition of communities representing themselves, acquiring equipment, pinning a sheet to a wall, and projecting images made by the community for the community,” Aguayo said. “These early films addressed social problems, local needs, and aspired to compel hearts rather than turn profits. This tradition had evolved over the years, shaped by technological innovation and years of connecting media-making with communities who need validation, visibility, and representation.”

Drawing upon research in media, communication, and cultural studies, and informed by interviews with media workers, filmmakers, and activists, the book will consider how community-centered documentary storytelling provides frameworks for larger civic-sector conversations.

“These are the types of media that start and sustain conversations in the world, beyond the screening room, about what could and should be done to activate the conditions for a more equitable and just world,” Aguayo added.

Aguayo will join six other faculty members and seven graduate students who will meet at the Humanities Research Institute throughout the year to address how they are rethinking research paradigms. She will take leave from teaching for the Fall 2024 semester.

The upcoming project will be Aguayo’s third book. Her first book was a reader on theories of public argumentation. Her second book, Documentary Resistance, addressed the possibilities for documentary and social change.

HRI grants fellowships to Illinois faculty and graduate students, who spend the year engaged in research and writing. All HRI Fellows participate in HRI activities, including the yearlong Fellows Seminar.

HRI’s 2024-25 theme, “Think Again…,” is an invitation to revisit well-known texts, to upend dominant narratives, to historicize what appears self-evident in the present, and/or to ask what happens when we juxtapose x with y in ways never been done before. “Think Again” underscores the opportunity to think across diverse interdisciplinary formations, and to identify when, how, and under what conditions new ones may be happening.

Q&A with Carrie Wilson-Brown

Get to know some of our College of Media faculty. Carrie Wilson-Brown is a lecturer of media and cinema studies and of advertising.

What’s it like to teach two Media majors?
The Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising has incredibly creative faculty and creative classes, and we tend to dive into the social sciences. Most research by the tenure-track faculty is on effects: how advertising affects populations, why people are persuaded by particular messages, or what pushes us behaviorally. It’s also capitalism and buying, and for me, what’s so intriguing is coming from a creative space to get to the minutiae of what makes people psychologically tick. In the Department of Media & Cinema Studies, there’s a community of creative people who love film and television; they love to talk about film, television, and storytelling, and also the industry. I’m able to mold them together, but I get something so vastly different from the students and faculty as well.

You double-majored in journalism and communication, yet lecture on different topics. What were your reasons?
It doesn’t seem like it would have relevance with advertising, but some of the relevance is that we read advertising texts like any story, if you think about it. When I ask students, “Why advertising classes,” all can point to an advertisement that tugged at their heartstrings or made them cry or joyous. People who love certain ads see them as a way to tell stories, not only as a way to sell products to audiences. Advertisements are created for more than that, building culture with each one that is produced. On the other hand, I’m mostly doing video production classes, and 15 years later, with social media, this is what people do, and it’s such a beautiful process to see. [Students] are storytellers out of the womb, always with a camera in your hand. I love visual culture; I love helping students create visual culture.

What courses are you teaching currently?
I teach three courses this semester, two in advertising and one in media and cinema studies. I teach ADV 301: Becoming an Influencer; ADV 393: Advertising and Society; and MACS 203: Contemporary Movies. I’ve only taught it twice, but MACS 203 is fun to teach because I take “contemporary” very seriously—something I’ve watched in the past three to four years. There are a lot of films that slipped under the radar during COVID-19, so it’s great to pick newer films. We watch the movie, and then we try to apply concepts in small prompts. It’s one of those spaces of joy for students in their day where I’m like, “Let’s go watch movies.”

What has been your best memory from teaching here?
Last semester, I taught ADV 393: Advertising in Society for the first time, and I don’t have a traditional advertising background. I think when I talk about advertising, it’s from a bit of a different perspective, and there were a couple of moments where a group of four or five students wanted to clap after my lecture because it was such a crescendo. Sometimes, as professors, we get hung up on dictating knowledge, but when someone says they want to clap, they feel engaged with what I was saying and want to listen to me.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to students?
There’s no one way to be successful at college. It’s easy to be trapped because you have friends, roommates, or siblings you see are successful—whatever that looks like to you. Maybe they’re paving their way through higher education in a very particular manner, whether that’s joining groups, being in fraternities or sororities, or staying up until three in the morning. But, if you look around, you are in a community of around 43,000 people, and everybody seems to do their successes differently. Don’t figure out the formula to success because that might not be your formula. Find the way that’s best for you.

—Interview by Chloe Barbarise, New Voices Intern

Amanda Ciafone lends Coca-Cola expertise to new TV series ‘A History of the World in Six Glasses’

February 9, 2024 | Holly Rushakoff

From a corner table in the Coca-Cola-branded brick building of Flesor’s Candy Kitchen (est. 1901) in Tuscola, Illinois—with a nostalgic Coca-Cola straw canister positioned nearby—Amanda Ciafone, associate professor of media and cinema studies, shared stories about Coca-Cola’s origins with producers of the new TV series A History of the World in Six Glasses.

Streaming on Fox Nation, the six-episode series stars comedians Dan Aykroyd, co-host Jim Belushi, and their friends Kevin Nealon, Jon Lovitz, and George Wendt. It’s based on a book of the same title by Tom Standage, who is interviewed in the broadcast among other authors and historians, where the history of beer, spirits, soda, wine, tea, and coffee are explored. The episodes are peppered with retro stock footage and ads, bubbly animations, as well as anecdotes, trivia, and taste tests around the bar from the chummy cast.

Ciafone is featured in episode three—”Soda: American Fizz Goes Global”—drawing upon her research of Coke from her first book, Counter-Cola: A Multinational History of the Global Corporation (University of California, 2019). Ciafone’s book examines the Coca-Cola Company and the politics, cultural representations, and social movements around the multinational corporation’s impact on the environment, consumer health, workers’ rights and conditions, and international cultures and economies. She also has an appointment in the Institute of Communications Research and is ICR’s director of graduate studies.

“With the rising temperance movement in the late 19^th century, [pharmacist and inventor] John Pemberton realized taking the red wine out will allow his drink to be marketable to a wider consumer base,” Ciafone explained in the episode. “So he’s seeking ingredients that will give you that kind of buzzy uplift without the alcohol, and he turns to coca and kola and puts them together to make this drink: Coca-Cola.”

Ciafone also described how social concerns, such as kids drinking caffeine, affected Coca-Cola.

“While the temperance movement, and eventually Prohibition, was a great boon to Coca-Cola because it didn’t have alcohol, those same forces of concern about people’s consumption of drinks that had ingredients that were potentially risky or unknown eventually brought Coca-Cola under the focus of both popular movements and government regulators.”

But of course, Coca-Cola survived court cases, brand wars, sugar substitutions, and other sticky situations.

Ciafone paraphrased a famous management guru, Peter Drucker, who said that “Coca-Cola is fundamentally an advertiser with access to a distribution system,” she said. “And it’s true. So much of their business is the production of the image around the drinks.”

To learn more about the popularity of soda (or pop), its place in American history, and its global impact, watch A History of the World in Six Glasses on Fox Nation.

UIUC Student Film Festival 2024

February 1, 2024

UPDATE: Watch a recording of the 2024 UIUC Student Film Festival, featuring 13 film selections created by students at the University of Illinois.

Join us for a celebration of student filmmaking at the 15th annual UIUC Student Film Festival, featuring the work of students from across the University of Illinois campus. Programming will include roughly 2 hours of student shorts, a filmmaker panel, and some trivia and door prizes!

Doors open at 6 p.m.

This event is produced, programmed, and curated by students in MACS 366: Film Festivals.

Sponsored by the Department of Media & Cinema Studies and the Jonathan Laxamana Endowment Fund.

Julie Turnock awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship

January 11, 2024 | Jodi Heckel, University of Illinois News Bureau

Julie Turnock, professor of media and cinema studies, was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for a book project titled Beyond King Kong: Special Effects in the Hollywood Studio Era, 1915–1965.

She will receive $60,000 in funding to research and write a book about the technical, labor, industrial, and aesthetic history of the special effects industry during the Hollywood studio era.

Turnock’s book project is a history of the labor performed by unsung “below-the-line” effects workers of the era. Through archival historical research, oral history accounts, interviews, theoretical discourse, and formal visual analyses, this project presents a polemic for considering the “specialness” of effects work not from the point of view of the film but from the position of the specially contracted labor. As a labor history, it centers the workers of the Hollywood studio era who are rarely considered in cinema histories, training attention onto those whose skills make much of “movie magic” possible.

Turnock served as the inaugural director of the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies and is on sabbatical this academic year.

The NEH awarded $33.8 million in grants for 260 humanities projects across the country, including 82 fellowships. The fellowship program supports advanced research in the humanities, and recipients produce articles, books, digital materials or other scholarly resources. NEH Fellowships are competitive awards granted to individual scholars pursuing projects that embody exceptional research, rigorous analysis, and clear writing.

The NEH has received an average of 1,120 applications per year for fellowships in the last five rounds of competition, according to its website. During that time, it awarded an average of 79 fellowships per year for a funding rate of 7%, making the fellowships among the most competitive humanities awards in the country.

The NEH is an independent federal agency and one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the U.S. It supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy and other areas of the humanities by funding selected peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation.

See University of Illinois News Bureau press release.

College of Media apparel on sale for limited time

November 9, 2023

Show off your University of Illinois and college pride with branded apparel items featuring the College of Media, Advertising, Journalism, Media & Cinema Studies, and the Institute of Communications Research.

From November 9 through December 4, a College of Media apparel shop will be open with items to purchase including branded sweatshirts, ball caps, T-shirts, beanies, polo shirts, and quarter-zip pullovers.

Orders will be ready to ship or pick up locally by Monday, Dec. 18. Customers can select shipping via USPS Priority Mail or via UPS Ground shipping, or pick up orders from Dixon Graphics at 312 S. Neil in Champaign (open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.). USPS International Priority Mail is available as well.

To browse the shop, visit https://stores.inksoft.com/ui_media_shop/shop/home.

The shop will close at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 4.