Students from Missouri State University’s Department of Communication, Media, Journalism and Film have won a 2024 Student Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS)—Mid-America for an episode of their documentary, “Discovering Dickerson Park Zoo.”

Episode 3, “Medicine of Dickerson Park Zoo” not only won the Student Emmy for Best College Non-Fiction Long Form, it also won second place from the Missouri Broadcast Education Association in the Video Documentary category.

Another episode, “Education of Dickerson Park Zoo,” was nominated for a Student Emmy for Best College Non-Fiction Short Form.

The entire documentary is a nine-episode web series filmed and edited by students taught by Jon Mabee, associate professor of film and television.

Mabee co-directed the documentary, along with Autumn Girgin, a recent graduate of the MFA in Dramatic Writing program. Mabee was also one of the producers.

“The National Academy of Arts and Sciences-Mid America Emmy competition is one of the most prestigious of the awards festivals that we compete in, since they are judged by professionals in the industry,” said CMJF department head Dr. Deborah Larson. “With two wins and one nomination this year, our students showed how we can compete at this level.”

“This also speaks volumes about our faculty who mentor them and the production and journalism programs we offer to our students,” Larson added.

“Real world” project based on client need

The zoo documentary project came about when Mabee, who has worked with the Dickerson Park Zoo on other projects, agreed to help the zoo create content to celebrate its 100th birthday.

This was an opportunity for students to be involved in “real-world applications” that reflect content taught in CMJF courses, Mabee said.

During the project, Mabee supervised roughly two dozen students, some of whom were enrolled in his Client-Based Video Production (MED 385) and Editing for Film & TV (MED 466) courses.

Total production time was about 20 weeks, Mabee estimated, with about three weeks devoted to actual filming. The project began in March 2023 and concluded in December.

[Read more…] about MSU students win Emmy Award for documentary