IN Brentwood-Baldwin-Whitehall Summer 2018 | Page 65

Brentwood students walk away with six DMAC
awards and valuable experience
Ms. Sierra Powers, High School Student
As the auditorium at The Bible Chapel in Peters Township slowly
starts to fill with students from different schools all over western
Pennsylvania, you could feel the anticipation and tension of the
eager students awaiting to hear the announcements of the Digital
Media Arts Consortium (DMAC) awards. The DMAC organization,
through Robert Morris University (RMU), sponsors a school
competition, every spring, to showcase and award high school
students for their skills in digital media.
The twenty-fourth annual event hosted by DMAC welcomed over
400 students who attended the awards ceremony, awaiting to see
if one of their entries out of the 200 other entries would win one
of 85 plaques given out. Of these plaques, there are categories for
newspaper writing, videography, photography, graphic design and
broadcast. The awards are not only judged by surrounding area
teachers, but also industry professionals and professors from RMU.
“Professionals and professors p rovide valuable feedback for each
of the students who submit entries in each of the categories. It’s
nice for the kids to hear what they did well and what they need
to improve on from someone other than myself,” said Brentwood
digital media teacher Jennifer Hughes.
The DMAC board members also give out a Founder’s Award to
deserving students from their perspective schools. The awards are
designated to senior students who have dedicated and devoted
much of their time and energy to their school’s media program.
Senior Destinee Kellner was the recipient of the Founder’s Award
for Brentwood High School.
“Destinee is a valuable member of my program. As team leader
for the F1 in Schools team Interestellar, she was responsible for
most of the digital media for the team,” said Hughes.
“Over my high school years, I have worked so hard to improve my
digital media skills. So, it is really rewarding to finally be recognized
for all my hard work,” said Destinee Kellner.
Brentwood came home with six plaques awarding them for their
talents in media. Besides taking home a Founder’s Award, Kellner
also won an “Award of Excellence” for her feature package video on
the VEX robot competition.
Senior Sierra Powers took home two awards also, one was an
“Award of Excellence” for her feature photography also on the VEX
robot competition and second was an award for “Best in Category”
for her feature article on the name topic.
“I am very proud of my work on my feature article. Over the years
my journalistic style has improved and it was great to see it rank
as best among some of the biggest schools in western PA,” said
Powers.
Seniors Tanner Wells, Austin Veatch and Nathan Mingle were
given an “Award of Excellence” for their collaborative efforts to make
a documentary on the heroin epidemic in western Pennsylvania.
Veatch and Mingle went on to win a second “Award of Excellence”
for their instructional video on how to shoot a basketball, and Wells
also received a second “Award of Excellence” for his news package
on the changing cell phone policy at Brentwood.
“The whole process was a great experience. From recording the
videos, to editing them, and then of course the DMAC ceremony.
Winning two Awards of Excellence was just the cherry on top of
the whole experience. Even if I would not have won anything, I still
would have been a part of a great event and honored to be there
listening to the such successful speakers,” said Wells.
Immediately following the awards ceremony, the DMAC board
organizes the students to have two breakout sessions pertaining to
media. Each session highlights a person(s) who have a successful
career in media and communications. This year, the most popular
breakout session was one highlighting the Pittsburgh celebrity,
“Pittsburgh Dad.” Curt Wootton who stars as Pittsburgh Dad and
his director, Chris Preksta came to share their insights on the media
industry with all the enthusiastic students.
Other sessions included photographer, Martha Rial. Rial has
received a Pulitzer Prize for her work documenting the lives of
Burundian and Rwandan survivors of the 1994 genocide.
Michael Killen owner of Animal Media came to speak to students
and share his work with visual effects, documentaries, advertising,
design, and bringing his sitcom, Downward Dog, to network
television.
Lastly, Betsy Benson, publisher of Pittsburgh Magazine, was
in attendance to share her story about publishing, writing and
producing the magazine. Her career included feature photography
and photo illustration, so she shared with the students her journey
through print journalism.
Brentwood has been participating in the DMAC competition for
about 12 years and Hughes says she is already gearing up for next
year by coming up with innovative ideas and creative animations
for the 2019 spring festival.
“As a DMAC board member, I am very active in the event, I
help plan the teacher workshops we hold in the fall as well as
help plan the spring student festival. I believe the competition is
a great experience for students. They get to see how their work
stack up again bigger schools and the get to learn from industry
professionals,” said Hughes.
brentwood-baldwin-whitehall ❘
sUMMER 2018
High School
63