By Zachary Hyman
Sam Bailey and Sam Lee, the two minds behind OpenTV’s webseries You’re So Talented, came this past week to speak with Prof. Christian’s Digital Television class. Bailey and Lee frequently work together as the creative production duo Our Names Are Sam and they had a lot to teach us about the challenges of making indie content in Chicago. (more…)
By John Matthew Simon
“Fail faster to succeed sooner,” said David Schonthal, a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management, on a chilly winter Saturday as he quoted David Kelley, the founder of the award-winning design firm IDEO where Schonthal is also a business designer.
For a group of graduate students in need of caffeine, this notion of accepting failure as a means to advance themselves and their ideas’ was and remains truly terrifying and exciting. Why so? (more…)
By Victoria Morris
On Feb. 3, Northwestern’s School of Communication and WTTW Chicago hosted a panel discussion of the new PBS drama series “Mercy Street”.
“Mercy Street”, a big move for PBS, is its first fictional program in over a decade. It’s designed to complement the popular dramatic series it imports from Britain like “Call the Midwife” and “Downton Abbey”. Executive producer David Zucker, and executive producer and head writer David Zabel discussed the creation of the show. (more…)
By Benjamin Levine
The MSLCE program recently paid a visit to one of Chicago’s most unique cultural destinations, the National Museum of Mexican Art.
Opened to the public in 1987, the museum was the vision of Pilsen local Carlos Tortolero, a public school teacher at the time, who organized a group of fellow educators to create a space for exhibiting fine art from Mexican culture while also serving the community through a commitment to accessibility and education. (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
While earning his undergraduate degree in film at Northwestern, MSLCE student Win Winter worked on a few movies that were shot and produced by students. The experience taught him a valuable lesson: he doesn’t want to be an editor.
“I don’t know if I want to do editing and be cooped up in a studio for hours and hours,” he said, “So I thought the MSLCE program would be able to help me branch out from that and take a more leadership position.” (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
Harry Gottlieb has been through a lot in his career. His company, Jellyvision, made some of the biggest hit computer games of the ‘90s. His company has also almost gone out of business three times.
So when he was asked at the MSLCE Speaker Series event last Thursday to briefly describe his professional path, he responded, “Brief is the only part that’s going to be hard for me.”
Before Gottlieb was making computer games like You Don’t Know Jack and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, he was a teenager interested in making fun, educational movies about dull subjects. (more…)
By Benjamin Levine
The MSLCE program consistently brings in industry professionals as guest speakers to augment and expand upon the principles taught in class. Professor Daniel Gruber (above) hosted seasoned TV guru Hank Price during his Business Models in the Creative Enterprises class to help the cohort understand how to take a failed business model and turn it into something fresh.
Price framed his discussion around his current project at WVTM 13 in Birmingham, Alabama where he was taken on as president and general manager to fix the struggling station’s declining ratings. (more…)
By Miya Williams
“I want to 
find what will make newspapers viable again,” said MSLCE student Jessica Neary.
While some publications like the New York Times are exploring new ways to stay relevant and profitable, Neary contends that no one has quite figured it out.
“As far as online goes, I think everyone is struggling,” she said.
Neary wants to close the gap between journalism and design. She believes examining the way people read online and how information is presented can help newspapers survive.
The University of Montana grad wrote for her college newspaper but soon discovered that she hated writing. Thankfully, she found her passion with design. Neary was the paper’s page designer for two years followed by two years as a design editor. “I loved the whole atmosphere of the newsroom with design,” she said. (more…)
by Colin DeKuiper
A mission statement isn’t usually the first statement that you are told to write as you begin your career, but it should be. Although you are unlikely to use it publicly, it is the one sentence that will inform all the other professional materials you produce. It provides the “why” and “how” of what you do. (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
Linling Navarro has set her sights high: she wants to be a pop star.
“The end goal is to become a professional singer, performing in huge venues, touring, selling albums,” the MSLCE student said.
It’s an ambitious goal, and one she’s been already working towards for years. As a Northwestern undergrad studying vocal performance and opera, Navarro looked for opportunities to perform crossover songs that drew on both her classical and pop/R&B preferences. She performed with the Northwestern Community Ensemble Choir, a group she says she “fell deeply in love with.”
Then, when she graduated, she decided MSLCE would be a great way for her to become even more prepared to enter the music industry. (more…)
