Digital media students test skills outside the classroom
Miaira Jennings, a rising senior at Tulane University, is spending her summer at CBS studios in Los Angeles as an intern on the set of the popular entertainment talk show "OMG! Insider."
Tulane digital media production student Miaira Jennings on the set of "OMG! Insider" with host Michael Yo. (Photo from Miaira Jennings)
“I love television and I really want to be in this industry,” says Jennings, a native of Riverside, Calif. who also serves as producer and on-air personality for the student-produced show TUBE News. “In our digital media program, we work with two types of editing software. Avid is one of the programs we use and it's the same program used at CBS.”
As one of six summer interns on the OMG! set, Jennings isn't editing for prime time television just yet. Still, she sees the opportunity to observe professional writers, directors, producers and hosts as a chance to learn how things work behind the scenes. Likewise, Tulane student Sabrina Rudolph also is a CBS intern on the nearby set of "Entertainment Tonight."
Mary Blue, director of the digital media program, says she is excited to see students taking what they learn and putting it to use beyond the classroom. New funding will soon add to what the program offers as Blue begins implementing a $120,000 Louisiana Board of Regents Enhancement Grant over the next few months.
“The grant will be used to add a center for designing, composing and recording digital audio for film, video and multimedia to the digital media production program,” says Blue. “It will allow students to make even higher quality films with Dolby 5.1 surround sound and to score their own film.”