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Media production students attend Sundance Film Festival. Learn to embrace the blank spaces between successes.

Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) film maker Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy, Short Term 12) spoke to MEL students attending this week’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, at the Sundance Windrider Institute. Cretton encouraged them to embrace the fear in the blank spaces between failure and success. “All the blank space in between the list of my movies is filled with failure,” said Cretton. “Anxiety about making content is good – as long as it doesn’t stop you. There is power in nervousness! Everybody in the room is rooting for you.”

A trip to Sundance Film Festival provides Media Production students at University of Northwestern – St. Paul, exposure to current industry experts and filmmakers and other students studying filmmaking from all over the country. It’s a huge highlight for many Northwestern students hoping to break into the world of filmmaking.

MEL media production students out on the town in Park City, Utah, at the Sundance Film Festival. January 2023.

This year’s crew, led by Professor Mark Seignious (Media Production), Professor Ann Sorenson (Film/Broadcasting) and administrative and events coordinator, Melissa Clutter, includes the following students:

  • Audrey Nehring (MEP – Film & Video, ‘22)
  • Morgan Wiebold (MEP – Film & Video, ’24)
  • Elliana Naegelen (MEP – Film & Video, ‘24)
  • Josh Anderson (MEP – Film & Video, ‘23)
  • Raeann Goetz (MEP – Film & Video/Public Relations, ‘24)
  • Hannah Martin (MEP – Film & Video/Bible, ‘23)

Any interested student is eligible to participate in theMEL.media workshops offered in film, video storytelling, public relations and radio. Follow us on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at themel.media.