A video produced by the University of Tennessee documenting a performance by UT Knoxville music students at Carnegie Hall has won the Silver Telly, the top national award for outstanding video production.
Russ Hollingsworth and Brad Lyle of UT’s video and photography services department in the Office of Communications & Marketing produced the video. The two spent time with students in rehearsals prior to the trip, and they traveled with the choir to New York City to capture their debut at the internationally known performance hall.
"We were able to do things like follow the students to Times Square at midnight," said Hollingsworth. "To capture the look on their faces, lit up with all the neon, was a great opportunity."
The Telly Awards are given annually, and are the premier national awards for cable TV commercials and programs, as well as video and film productions from the local, regional and national level. More than 14,000 entries are received each year.
"What great universities do is open the world to their students, and in this project, we showed a tangible example of that in action," said Tom Milligan, UT Knoxville vice chancellor for communications. "We’re proud to gain national recognition, but even more proud to be part of the university community that makes this sort of thing happen every day."
The video services department works with campus entities to support the university’s overall marketing and educational efforts, and in this case to support UT Knoxville’s Ready for the World initiative, which helped support the trip.
"Winning a Telly is a great accomplishment for Russ, Brad and our whole department," said Tom Owens, UT’s video and photography director. "We were proud to help create a record for these students of such an exciting trip, and to be honored for that work makes it even better."
Performing at Carnegie Hall is a high honor, and the choir from UT Knoxville, conducted by Associate Professor Angela Batey, was composed of members of a number of choral ensembles from throughout the School of Music.
According to Hollingsworth, shooting in New York City presented a number of unusual obstacles for him and Lyle — mostly a result of red tape.
"At one point we got thrown off of a double-decker tour bus," said Hollingsworth, adding that the company allowed them to continue once they explained the reason for their filming.
Navigating the maze of permits required to film in various places was dizzying, but Hollingsworth was satisfied in the end with his ability to get the essence of students’ experiences on the trip to the Big Apple.
The award-winning video is available online at the UT Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/UniversityTennessee and can be seen directly at http://www.utk.edu/go/5. It also can be seen on UTTV, UT Knoxville’s television channel (Comcast Digital Channel 194, Campus Cable Channel 65). For more on UT’s Video and Photography Center, visit http://videophoto.utk.edu.
