CMU-TV has won a Heartland Emmy for their production, in conjunction with the Grand Junction Rockies, of the 2018 Pioneer Baseball League (PBL) vs. Northwest League (NWL) All-Star Game held on August 7, 2018.
This is the first Student Achievement Emmy for Colorado Mesa University.
CMU-TV produces all 38 home game for the Grand Junction Rockies for broadcast on KGJT-TV and MLB.com. The nine students that helped produce the Emmy award-winning PBL VS. NWL game included Director Quaid Hamilton, Graphic Operator Holly Hernandez, Replay Operator Nathan Montgomery, Production Specialist Bryce Langley, Editor Lane Lacrone and Camera Operators Ryan Burke, Megan Garchar, Brian Kilman and Zach Tentis.
The students were dedicated to running a professional-grade production so thorough planning was done prior to the big game. Extra planning went into this game because students could not have assistance from any faculty advisors during the production in order to qualify for the Heartland Emmy.
“We came in on our own time and made all the graphics,” CMU-TV Student Director Quaid Hamilton said, “So transitions, graphics statistics, we kind of made all that stuff.”
With the help of their Faculty Advisor and Instructor of Mass Communication Greg Mikolai the CMU-TV crew spent games in earlier in the season learning to fix any issues that they may encounter during the big game.
After the big game was over, there was still work to be done. The film was edited into a 30-minute clip with a maximum of five cuts. CMU-TV’s entry was up against entries from Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado all states within the boundary of the Heartlands Emmy, the Heartlands is one of 19 Emmy chapters.
All their hard work paid off when the production won the “Outstanding Student Achievement: Sports - Live Event’” Emmy award. The production was judged by professionals in the television industry and the Emmy was awarded on July 20 at a gala event in Denver.
“This is actually in some ways more gratifying to win this one for the students than winning either of those two that I won for my documentary because this was a true group effort,” said Mikolai. “It was wonderful to see the students do such a great job on the Pioneer All-star Game and to see them be professionals.”
CMU-TV plans to make this an annual tradition in order to give students every year a chance to add an Emmy to their list of accomplishments. They have already submitted work this year to be judged for the next Heartlands Emmys and look forward to possibly bringing home another win for Colorado Mesa University.