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Wenli Liu Hopes to Dive into Chinese Film Market


By Jacob Nelson

Wenli Liu wants to jump into the Chinese film industry. The Beijing native sees that China’s market “is booming right now,” and hopes that when she’s done with the MSLCE program she will be able to dive right in.

“The number of film productions is increasing every year by a pretty big percentage,” Liu said. “I hope I can help more talented directors and screenwriters to have more opportunities to generate more creative works besides the commercial products.” (more…)

Students Learn About Organizational Processes from MSLCE Faculty Director


By John Hounihan

For ten weeks in Pablo Boczkowski’s course we talked about lenses.

To a fly on the wall, we could be optometry PhD candidates with all our talk of lenses, led by the MSLCE Faculty Director and Northwestern School of Communication Professor. However, the lenses we focused on were figurative, and what we really learned were the tools to understand organizational processes on three different levels: Power dynamics, networking, and building company culture all crossed our paths as topics in Prof. Boczkowski’s course.
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MSLCE Students Learn to Use Big Data in Creative Industries


By Natalie Agbele

A group of MLSCE students were graced this quarter with having Agnes Horvat as their Culture and Art Analytics professor. I happened to be one of them.

Agnes Horvat, an Assistant Professor at Northwestern School of Communication, is a computer scientist who focuses on developing theories and methods for studying collective intelligence, crowdsourcing, and the creative industries. Many of us went into the class without knowing what to expect, but we came out with the necessary skills needed to analyze Big Data in the creative industries. (more…)

Facebook Brand Strategy Lead Describes a Career Built Off a Desire to Connect

By Jacob Nelson

Chris Meador’s professional path that brought him from theater stages to the History Channel to Microsoft and, finally, to Facebook throughout a career he refers to as “strange and convoluted.”

However, Meador was quick to identify the running thread through all those jobs: the desire to connect.

Meador, who is the Brand Strategy Lead at Facebook, discussed his life, his career, and his insatiable appetite for learning on the job with Northwestern School of Communication Professor Leslie DeChurch during last Thursday’s MSLCE Speaker Series event. (more…)

Natalie Agbele Wants to Be a Digital Media Entrepreneur

By Jacob Nelson

After years studying economics and finance, Natalie Agbele realized that she did not want to professionally pursue either of those subject for the rest of her life.

“My dad is an accountant, so I thought I’d be one as well,” the MSLCE student said recently. “But I don’t want to do finance… I’m going into the creative industries.” (more…)

MSLCE Students Visit Chicago Shakespeare Theater

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By Scotty Stieber

It was November of 1997 when the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s eight-employee staff met with City of Chicago officials at a Gold Coast pub and struck a monumental deal. After signing a 90-year lease with the City, the theater prepared to make their risky move to a mostly uninhabited, bizarre Navy Pier.

How did the Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) evolve from a one-man show into one of the most successful regional theaters in the country? MSLCE students stopped by last Friday and sat down with the theater’s Executive Director Criss Henderson and Associate Producer Heather Schmucker to find out. (more…)

MSLCE Student Wants To Make TV, Movies for Chinese and American Audiences

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By Miya Williams

Xiaoyu Dong aspires to be an international television and film producer. The Qingdao, China native dreams of one day having her own multinational media company. “I hope to integrate Asian cultures into American television and movies and to make Chinese films and television series more universal,” she said. (more…)

MSLCE Student Hopes to Design Mobile Games for the Future

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By Miya WIlliams

Yuan Tian hopes to have his own company designing mobile games, but he is not a novice to the industry.

Two years ago, the current MSLCE student started Yuyi Tech, a mobile game company that was very successful and eventually sold to one of the biggest tech companies in China. His ultimate goal, however, is to “entertain people with technology,” he said. (more…)

From NASA to MSLCE, Northwestern Professor Teaches Team Dynamics

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By Scotty Stieber

Creative minds typically house bold, novel and elaborate ideas, but can brainstorming lead to the production of dull and unoriginal ideas, even in a group of creative people? Leslie DeChurch certainly believes so, and she has the research to back it up.

Coming from the Georgia Institute of Technology as a Professor of Organizational Psychology, DeChurch has a research background in leadership and team dynamics. She now teaches in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. When she is not teaching, DeChurch is helping NASA’s teams work more efficiently in their mission to put humans on Mars. (more…)

MSCLE Students Look Inward in Innovative, Unconventional Pitching Course

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By Joe Giovannetti

“We are all creative, resourceful, and whole.”

Laverne McKinnon, Adjunct Lecturer and Head of Television at Denver and Delilah, shared this sentiment as members of the MSLCE cohort completed their first graduate class, “Pitching Creative Projects.” On their first day, these students quickly learned that that this was no ordinary graduate course. (more…)