Being professional in a digital world can be tricky. From producing a portfolio to styling a website, it’s easy to get lost. UAB Digital Media wants to take the guess work out of it for you. We are offering a free website and professional headshots by one of our photography Fellows to prepare you for the digital world.

All you have to do is show us how you use digital media. Share your pictures, video, text, websites, and/or social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with the hashtag #digimeuab. We will collect our favorites and announce a winner at our Digital Gallery event on December 5.

Sound awesome? We thought so.

Rules:

• Show us how you use digital media in your everyday life.
• Hashtag your work (pictures, video, web, social media, or text) #digimeuab on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
• Make sure your work is public so we can see it.
• Follow or like us so we can reach you.
• Tag us in your post (optional).
• Only UAB Students are eligible for prizes.

Prizes:

• First Place: free website and headshots
• Second Place: free headshots
• Honorable Mention: shout out on all our platforms

When Communications instructor Alan Franks approached us with the idea to capture the annual Gurney Derby with as much equipment as we could carry, we were all in.

The Specs

18 students
8 cameras
1 drone (The Dragonfly)
1 jib
1 dolly
1 slider
3 GoPros
8 SD cards
5 hours editing

The Gurney Derby is UAB’s most unique event and our oldest homecoming tradition. At breakneck speed, contestants race down a blocked-off street on campus holding tight to their medical gurneys. The appearance of six-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson made this year’s event special. (He’s the one with the flag.)

This collaboration between UAB Digital Media and the Department of Communication Studies was the first official partnered shoot we’ve done, and it was a blast.



We used the race as an opportunity to let our students of all experience levels get hands-on with the cameras. Alan’s students are taking *visual media courses offered in the Department of Communication Studies, and our interns and fellows represent a mix of majors.

I was stationed at the pedestrian bridge, and looking down at the team, I saw students at every corner, just inches away from the action.

After the Derby, we brought all the equipment back to the studio where Chris Humphries downloaded the footage and began editing. Just one day later, we have a video to show for it.

The equipment and labs we use for our work are funded jointly by media-based client work, the College of Arts and Sciences, and a handful of departments that teach digital media courses, including the Department of Communication Studies. This funding puts the best equipment in our students’ hands and provides funding for our paid student positions.

My hope is that we give our students a chance to shoot in a media-dense environment, with a big team surrounding them, the best equipment available, and some unique moments to capture.

I saw students who just met work together as if they’d been on the same crew for months. That’s what I love about my job - watching students’ passion for digital media be the tie that brings them together to learn, teach, capture, and craft.

A big thank you to Alan Franks for the idea and to our student team for making it happen.

*Interested in learning how to produce videos like this one? Enroll in Alan Franks' courses in the Department of Communication Studies:
Visual Media Production I - CMST 283
Visual Media Production II - CMST 383
Visual Media Production III - CMST 483

OK, guys. Awesome news. You’re officially reading the words of the sparkly new media fellow: me -- the one and only Jared Jones. (Yes, you heard it here first.) How exciting! After working hard with the team as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed intern, I landed myself a fellowship.

Last year's fellows knocked out killer videos such as the promo for TEDxBirmingham (which won a national Addy award), created music for one of the new UAB ad campaign videos, and launched Knowledge Jam, to name a few accomplishments. This year's fellows have a high standard to beat, but I think we've got the chops.

Meet my fellow Fellows:

Tierra Andrews, a graphic design major, is an ambassador for Squarespace and Adobe. 
Tyler Harris, a graphic design/individual film studies major, has an Instagram account with 45,000 (yes, that’s three zeroes) followers. 
Ben Jones is a Broadcasting major who has released two albums that you can pick up on iTunes, Amazon or Rhapsody. 
James Cody, a music technology major, composes original music for our video projects such as the UAB TRIO video. (Hear that guitar in the video? That’s him.) 
Jeanette Vasquez, a graphic design major, just finished a full-time summer internship with Intermark, and she won two Addy awards for her previous work. 
A member of the Digital Media team since its inception and the first two-time Media Fellow, Matt Drummond, business management major, specializes in shooting with GoPro cameras and The DragonFly. 
Jessica Chriesman, psychology/film double major, worked with Scrollworks, a non-profit music school that gives low-cost music lessons to Birmingham-area kids, and is a master at coordinating shoots and meeting deadlines. 
Matthew Henton, film major, is an awesome videographer who wants to produce music one day. He recently worked on set for the St. Paul and the Broken Bones music video. 
Jeremy Nelson, Information Systems major, loves developmental research, and uses his coding skills to build web apps and work on websites.
Razaq Kadri, an art studio major focusing in graphic design and photography, lived in Nigeria until age 23 which gives him a unique perspective on his design and video work. 
Tyler Furgerson, accounting and information systems major, brings business-savvy and a strategy-intensive approach to his work. 
And me, Jared Jones, public relations major. I’m going to utilize my seven years in self-taught photography to spice up the social media campaign.

With so many creative professionals, it’s no wonder we all pick up an extra skillset or two along the way. In a week or so, one of the graphic design majors is going to show me how to use Adobe Illustrator so I can get a leg-up on visual design. And I’ll show her how to make her Instagram posts even more dynamic.

The lab (my new home) is an incubator for our skills to grow, and I’m here for the ride.