Transcript
ML: This is Suite 1111, I'm My Ly, podcast editor for the Auburn Plainsman
ML: Auburn University is a college best known for its sports, mainly football, and engineering, and agriculture programs. But in the world of liberal arts, there are many underrepresented students. This week on suite 1111 we talked with students pursuing a degree in something else, media studies.
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ML: Lyra Burk is a junior in media studies but this was not her original plan when she came to Auburn. When she arrived in 2019, she was majoring in mechanical engineering, which she said did not make her happy and despite academic success in the major, she found that as a career it was extremely taxing for her. This semester is her first one after officially switching to media studies.
ML: Lyra discovered her passion for filmmaking while helping her girlfriend create a pilot for a TV show. It’s important to note the show is an animated series about dogs.
LB: “My girlfriend, who goes to Montevallo actually um was actually working on a script for a pilot TV show. And I helped her out with it. And the more that I helped out with it, the more I realized that I loved putting my energy into it. And everything just clicked so I switched over to media studies. Yeah, that's what that's what got me into it. This pilot, our show is called stray. It's a world set in the city of vic or victory city. It's centered around a main character Miro, all the characters in this world are dogs. They walk on two legs, and sometimes they work on four. But the tone of the show is very, I like to think of it as like Breaking Bad and Zootopia.”
ML: The Auburn New media club is a student-run group that gives media studies majors or even just students who love film a platform to create and learn the ins and outs of film making. This includes directing, acting, editing, and writing. Though the new media club has existed for years, this is the first semester they have been recognized by Auburn University as an official organization.
ML: When it comes to inspiration, I’ve realized aspiring filmmakers all have extremely diverse directors and writers they have chosen to be their coveted favorites.
LB: “The first one that comes to mind are the Wachowski sisters, who are the directors of the matrix is probably the one that you know. They've also made Sense 8, they've made a few others.I just I look up to them as a pair of directors that have made it in a Hollywood scene that it's just so dominated by men. It's actually really hard to get into the film industry as far as I've been able to tell if you're a female director like I am. And I just I just look up at what they do, because they do everything so well. And very artistically, and there have been a lot of very integrity and integrity with their work.”
ML: Lyra’s favorite movie is Disney's treasure planet 2002
LB: “One of my favorite movies is Treasure Planet by Disney, you might not have seen it. I don't think I have. It is such a gem. It is one of if not the last 2d animated film that Disney ever produced. And that's because Jeffrey Katzenberg is sort of very did the guys who were the head of the animation team kept asking him and asking him and asking him to make this film in the hands of visionary work for and eventually they just like fine, and that did it. And he sort of debuted it at a poor time for cinema. So it never became like really big and it did poorly in the box office. But it's essentially Treasure Island, but they soup it up. They make all the animation really cool. They show. It's like sci-fi mixed with Victorian-era like ships. It's so whimsical Beautiful. I love it so much for that reason. “
ML: Students in media studies all vary in what role they are interested in playing in the production of film. Lyra in particular loves writing.
LB: “I, I strive for a good sense of drama. I like to write dramas, I like to do a little bit of action. I'm kind of terrible at comedy, but my girlfriend handles it when she can. And I like my favorite show is Bojack horseman. A lot of people can't get past the first six episodes, and I hate things but you have to because it's so good. Also, like Breaking Bad In terms of animation that inspires like the the visual medium that I want to portray I, I get a lot of inspiration from Studio Ghibli films. Just the attention to detail and the way they use cinematography in the field of animation is so breathtaking for me”
ML: Much like Lyra and so many other media studies majors, their original plan coming to Auburn was not for the filmmaking major. Wesley Miller is a senior in media studies and when he first arrived in Auburn he had no idea what career he wanted to pursue. Wesley always loved movies and had an interest in creating them but never considered that he could make a career out of this passion. He spent his freshman year in the exploratory major which is designed to help students like him find their passion, which is where he discovered the media studies major.
ML: Wesley says favorite movie is Raiders of the lost ark (1981) which he described as a popcorn movie. A popcorn movie is defined as A motion picture without serious dramatic content, a weighty message, or intellectual depth, which serves simply as enjoyable entertainment.
WM: “These highbrow movies to make them seem sophisticated, right? But I think after a certain point, you realize, no Raiders of Lost Ark is the best movie ever. It's so much fun. Yeah. You don't have to be highbrow or sophisticated about it. It's just Yeah. Do you have fun watching this movie? The answer's yes.”
ML: A common theme between all media studies majors is the awareness of how difficult it is to break into the world of visual media especially in a city like Auburn where the opportunities to grow are very limited.
WM: “So when you're going into a career like this, you have to realize from the get-go that it's very possible that you're not going to achieve your sort of endgame goal at the very end like they want to do. But like, in a perfect world, I would like to be writing and directing my own stuff. You know, something like, like I said, Paul, Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite directors working now. He writes and directs everything he does. So obviously, I realized that that's extremely unlikely to happen. So my sort of, like, lowest tier goal that I want to achieve is just any sort of job in the film industry, whether it's filmmaking, whether it's film criticism, which I'm also interested in because I like writing, I like writing on film, I like talking about them. So anything in that world I would be satisfied with, but obviously, if I'm going the distance, it would be writing it directly my own stuff”
ML: But the major is a fast-growing one with a strong sense of community
WM: “Because like, in that environment, you're suddenly surrounded by people with the same interests as you. And that interest is, like, inherently, they're all interested in something that they enjoy. It's not something that they think will make them successful, or that will give them a lot of money or anything. It's just something that they enjoy on a basic level, right? Because like before college, you know, a lot of people who want to be like, engineer or lawyer or doctor, and that's so objective and careerist, I guess. But when you get here, and you've suddenly surrounded by people with all these similar interests, it feels a lot more safer, I guess for a better word, like, Oh, I'm not the only one who's doing this maybe stupid thing of pursuing filmmaking.”
ML: When it comes to filmmaking, Wesley's favorite director of all time is Stanley Kubrick and according to him he respects all forms of film because he knows the difficult it is to showcase your work
WM:“I guess one thing I could say about filmmaking is not only is it hard on terms of like actually filming it, you know, the physical process of it, in terms of writing and directing something. It's really mentally taxing, like, putting something personal that you've written, putting it on the screen and showing it to other people that's so anxiety inducing. And as somebody who's Already anxious and like stressed out about stuff. It's just all the more mentally taxing. So again, when you see people, even if they may move you don't like you're like, I know what you went through mentally to do that”
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On Saturday Auburn won its first football game of the season against AKron scoring 60-10
Rob Taylor head coach of Auburn's wheelchair basketball team helped lead team USA to a gold medal in the Paralympics as an assistant coach
On Tuesday night The candidates for Miss Auburn were announced. The candidates are
Frances Hamilton, Peyton Hill, Asia Howard, Maddie Wellbaum and Carlee Yarbrough
As of Sept 3. East Alabama Medical Health had 91 patients hospitalized for covid 19 Which is one shy of the highest in January of 92.
ML: Carson Clemmons is a junior and he is double majoring in visual media and computer science. He doesn't have a primary favorite movie but if he had to choose he would say the Edge of Seventeen and if he was trying to impress someone he would also include The Shining according to him.
ML: His journey to becoming a media studies and computer science major was not an easy one
CC: “So beforehand, I was like, I like movies, stuff. I would like to do that for a job. And then, but I like knew that whatever I chose to do in college had to include some kind of engineering in some way. Like, basically, from the moment I was born, I was hearing jokes about how like, our degrees are useless or whatever. So at some point, I was like, Okay, I know, I want to do this. So I have to like, I don't know, basically, I just like wish my parents would say, Hey, I think this is what I want to do at college. And they're like, are you sure about that? You know, that doesn't work, right? And I was like, Well, I don't, I don't know, maybe it does work. And then computer science. I just kind of convinced myself with their help, that if I did computer science, I would be able to get out of computer science, use my, like, solid computer science degree to get some kind of career in the industry. And then I can work my way up to more creative stuff from there was the goal. And then I got into computer science. And I was like, hey, they're like building classes here that I would like to take. So then I added that as a second major, after many hours of arguing, “
ML: He hopes that the computer science degree will help him in the future in obtaining a job in the production of movies.
CC: “Yeah, ideally, I will never use my computer science degree in my entire life. I was given free rein right now. Like my parents, or God, or some the President say To me, and said, you get to pick whatever degree you want, I would drop the computer science in a heartbeat. But so far, none of those people have given me that freedom.”
ML: Much like Lyra and Wesley, Carson did not come to AUburn with the intent of being a visual media major
CC: "But I think something you'll find, I mean, you've talked to a lot of media people so far. Everyone I've talked to either came to Auburn for something else, or came to Auburn, not knowing what they were doing, and then chose media after. I haven't met a lot of people that came to Auburn, for media. And there's probably a reason for that. Like, I've enjoyed all my classes. I think they've been helpful. I love the clubs I'm in. But Auburn still isn't like a media school, like they wouldn't put that on the pamphlet. Right. And so I mean, we're trying, you know, we'd like to, as far as we're like, filling these organizations up, trying to get more funding. They're redoing our editing lab, which is cool. new computers and stuff. So hopefully they turn on. So I think we're getting there as the program grows. But as of right now in 2021, we may be laying the groundwork for a great film school. But right now, I'm not sure it's top in the nation for that
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