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Blog

Chip Potter Hopes to Help Beginning Filmmakers Find Their Way


By Jake Nelson

Though a countless number of people have attended world renowned film festivals like Sundance and Cannes, few can say they’ve been there for college credit.

Chip Potter is one of them. The MSLCE student went to Sundance in 2013 for school credit while studying at DePauw University in Indiana.

“I met these people who are so passionate about what they did,” Potter said, referring to the filmmakers that were there representing their movies. What’s more, he saw some of these people get their films sold, which was a thrilling experience. Potter said it was witnessing the “realization of this dream.” (more…)

Amy Aldrich Hopes to Build Career Developing Chicago’s Classical Music Scene

By Jacob Nelson

Amy Aldrich has a unique interest in classical music. First, she performed it. Now, she wants to develop it.

The MSLCE student and San Diego native started as a clarinetist, before deciding she was more interesting in nonprofit development, specifically within classical music or theatre. While studying performing arts management and business administration at DePaul, she worked as a development intern for Chicago’s recently-shuttered Redmoon Theater, and for Studio 773. She’s also worked for the Newberry Consort, a classical music organization in downtown Chicago. (more…)

Victory Gardens Managing Director to Speak at Northwestern

By Jacob Nelson

Erica Daniels’ career reads like a wishlist for aspiring theatre professionals.

Before she joined Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater as Managing Director, she was the artistic director at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the president of theatricals at The Second City. Daniels also did the original casting for Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway Production of Airline Highway, The Broadway Production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and the original production of August, Osage County. (more…)

Minda Cerva Wants To Bring Original Works to the Stage


By Miya Williams

For Minda Cerva, all roads lead to theatre.

The MSLCE student wants to general manage and co-produce an original Broadway musical, helping to develop it from beginning inspiration to opening night.

“To have a true labor of love become a long-running critical and audience hit would be the penultimate dream,” she said. (more…)

MSLCE Students Learn Creative Industries Insights


By Lauren Vernea

During the Fall quarter, MSLCE students took the foundational course “Understanding Creative Industries.” This course taught the history and current status of the creative and cultural enterprises. Students learned how advertising, regulation, globalization, digitalization, and talent have affected popular media industries such as film and music.

The seminar style classes opened up the floor to fascinating discussions on the complexity of art and industry. Students from many artistic backgrounds such as opera, theater, and visual art found that their industries had much in common when it came to marketing research or above the line talent. Through in-class videos, we learned how the media regulation system came into place and how it differs between self-regulation and government involvement. (more…)

MSLCE Students Learn Legal Backgrounds of Creative Enterprises


By Scotty Stieber

The world of media and entertainment may look fun and polished to those not working behind the scenes, but there are countless legal hurdles to overcome for these creative products to come to life and hopefully generate money.

MSLCE students taking Rick Morris’ Arts and Entertainment Law and Ethics course this quarter delved into some of the essential components that keep the entertainment industries running. Having consulted for several media entities and his research in policy, regulation and law surrounding entertainment and technology, Morris is well-versed in the legalities of today’s rapidly shifting creative economy. From property acquisition, merchandising and talent contracts, to trademarking and intellectual property rights, students were exposed to a wide variety of material this fall. (more…)

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.
(more…)

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…)