Media Arts Trip to Five Towns College April 2024
The Five Towns College Media Arts Show took place on Friday, April 12, 2024 and LIHSA students from Audio Production, 3D Animation, and Film were thrilled to attend! Two busses full of LIHSA students arrived at the FTC Campus for a day of juried competitions in 2d Digital Art, Photography, Film & Animation, tours and program overviews, and workshops and demonstrations with industry professionals.
It was “really fun – and my first time going to the conference,” said Madison Villalobos of Massapequa. She picked demonstrations that corresponded with that they liked and what she wants to learn in the future. “I want to go into storyboarding and character design in college,” Madison shared. She attended “Storytelling” with an English professor that showed guests what questions to ask to create your own characters. Later, Madison worked with Maya software on pre-rigged models. Thanks to working with Mr. Fedorczak for the past two years, the 12th grader felt really prepared for the workshop.
This year, Madison was nominated for two awards for her original animations.
Mekiah McClain, 11th grader from Roosevelt, had a great time walking around the Five Towns College campus and connecting with classmates. But the best part was being on the FTC Radio Station, WFTU. “We gave a big shout out to LIHSA and Ms. Tourt while we were on the air.”
Afterwards, Mekiah went to view the student films and got to see some LIHSA originals on the big screen. She’s thinking about being a movie producer so this was really exciting to her.
The best part of the day for Mekiah was the Immersive Sound Workshop which explored ways to create sounds that are realistic and moving to movie goers. “It’s like in Star Wars when the jets fly overhead and you hear them in different parts of the theatre. It makes you feel like they are really there!”
The FTC Show really interested Mekiah who is now considering applying there for college.
Stell Rinaudo, 12th grader from Massapequa, really loved watching the films and seeing their own work featured at the festival. Stella submitted a work-in-progress, Making the Call that is a short animation about a character that creates a creature to make contact with a friend instead of calling them. This earned Stella a nomination for an awards in the 2D category.
Ava Doonan and Oliwia Szymanska from Hicksville High School attended the festival for the second time this year. They worked with guest artist Charlie Forschner to create a film using the prompts: Cowboy, McChicken Box & the line “Behind You.” The duo worked with a team to create a movie about two McChicken sandwiches that end up in a love-triangle that ends in disaster. Although the film didn’t win, Ava and Oliwia were thrilled to have their film featured.
“It was nice to see how other high schools do their films,” Ava said of the film screening. “Not only film but also animation and lots of animated movies,” Oliwia added. After the screening, the young filmmakers watched the Five Towns College Live Stream behind the scenes and toured the campus.
Overall, it was a tremendously fun day!
We are very thankful to Chris Fedorczak, Bruce Long, Robyn Morgan, Nicole Tourt, and Iris Wiener for chaperoning this trip and to our classroom teachers for preparing the students to partake in this incredible experience.
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