Missouri State’s media, journalism and film department may have another award winner on its hands. The department’s second Web series, “A Little Help,” has received four nominations from the 2015 LA Web Series Festival, or LAWEBFEST, to be held April 2-5, 2015, in Los Angeles.

Nominations

LAWEBFEST announced the nominations last week, revealing that “A Little Help” will compete in the following categories:

• Outstanding Student Series (creator Kevin Shabel / produced Deborah Larson, Cibee Jaime, Nich Peltz)
• Outstanding Actor – Student Series (William Bixby)
• Outstanding Actor – Student Series (David Greathouse)
• Outstanding Theme Song (David Greathouse, composer)[general pool]

According to the LAWEBFEST website, each series is anonymously judged by industry and non-industry professionals.

About ‘A Little Help’

Although produced by media, journalism and film, “A Little Help” was an interdisciplinary effort across the College of Arts and Letters, from digital film and media production, electronic arts and graphic design, to journalism, communication, and public relations.

The series follows comedian Ringo who hopes to pursue his dreams in New York City, but his efforts are thwarted by his dysfunctional friends and family, including his pot-smoking parents.

A group of students, led by screenwriting graduate student Kevin Shabel and digital film senior Nich Peltz, wrote the script, while MSU students, faculty and staff joined community actors to comprise the cast. After more than 250 hours of post-production that also involved a team of students, faculty and staff, the series was launched in July 2014.

About MJF’s Web series model

In an effort to provide more real-world experiences for their students, professors Diana Dru Botsford and Deborah L. Larson collaborated to utilize the Instructional Scaffolding model to create a Web series, the first of which debuted in 2013 with the time-traveling epic, “Epilogue.” That series went on to win numerous awards, including a second place Emmy in the series category of the 34th College Television Awards.