Guest speakers inspire audience

Three media professionals urged students to follow the path that suits them best as they begin their careers in the next few years. They spoke to an audience on Nov. 8 in the McAfee Center as guests of the Media Arts Program (MAP).

The guest speakers — Barry Jenkin, an independent filmmaker; Gary Meyer, co-director at the Telluride Film Festival and Danielle Feinberg, director of photography at Pixar — discussed the impact of media on their lives and how they became involved in the industry. They also went in-depth about the processes behind the creation of different aspects of the media world, such as the animation of a movie or the setting up of a film festival.

“A lot of thought is put into each piece,” Feinberg said. “Just lighting, for example, has a large effect on a scene’s mood.”

Mithal, also the current student leader for MAP, said that while the event was well-planned, there was initially a concern about the event’s attendance.

“Around 5:45 we still had very few people that had taken their seats,” Mithal said. “And while hosting, I kept checking the crowd to see if people were actually paying attention and liking the show.”

There were conflicts with other activities since the event began at 6 p.m., and Mithal was also worried about the general interest for the improvised talk show. But in the end, the show garnered enough interest from parents and students to be considered a success.

According to Mithal, while there was no official head count since the event was free and no tickets were sold, about half of the seats in the McAfee Center were filled.

“When the show ended, there were tons of people, MAP and non-MAP [who] said how great of a program it was,” Mithal said. “And there were people swarming the speakers so that they could ask more questions.”

He credits most of the success to the speakers being engaged, conversational and unafraid to share personal experiences, which helped move the show along.

“They were easy to listen to,” sophomore Hannah Leney said. “[They were] people who weren’t gifted with unbelievable talent but instead went through the same struggles that we have to achieve success.”

After the hour-long talk show ended, members of the audience were free to join the guests on stage and request elaboration on any points or ask any questions of their own.

“It was overall a great night,” Mithal said. “The speakers were great, the audience was great and I really had a nice time hosting it too.”

Other attendees also agreed that the event had a better turnout than expected and that the speakers were inspirational.

Senior Sam Kobara said that he enjoyed the event because the speakers were blunt in making statements about college and work in media.

"[They] showed me that you need to do what you love, otherwise your job would be work and no fun," Kobara said.