MMI Awards Ceremony - University of Houston
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2024 MMI AWARDS

Congratulations to this year’s winners of the MMI Student Prize Competition!

 

2024 Awards

2024 MMI Student Prize Competition

Now in its fifth year, the MMI Student Prize Competition recognizes student work in media studies-related fields. Our competition is notable in having three different competition categories—Critical, Creative, and Applied—in order to recognize the variety of different media-related work on campus.

Student Prize Competition Winners


Keynote speaker

MyattPatrick Myatt

Patrick Myatt is an Executive Producer and Showrunner recognized for his work in television focused on the automotive industry. His current projects include the HBO Max hit series Texas Metal, which is in its seventh season, and Loud and Lifted, which has just wrapped season two. Patrick got his start interning with Hollywood heavyweight James Cameron's production company Lightstorm Entertainment. Afterwards, Patrick worked his way through other projects, eventually getting his first producing job on The Tom Green Show. After producing a large variety of other shows, he eventually found his niche in automotive programming. Patrick works to emphasize the characters behind their craft, and to inspire viewers to see beyond the process or projects and elevate the character’s story. Currently, he's developing other shows with his partner Dan Miller of Coachbuilt Content.

Jury

Gracie Chavez Gracie Chavez
UH Valenti grad and Houston-based musician, music impresario, and municipal official Gracie Chavez has been a prominent member of the local music scene for two decades. In the early 2000s, during the rise of Houston’s rap music scene to the global stage, Gracie was the in-house PR writer for Swisha House, Chamillionaire, and other influential rappers. In 2010, Gracie helped found Bombón, a popular Latin music collective of DJ/musicians and events based on cumbia, Houston rap and tropical bass. A DJ herself, Gracie's skills and taste-making selections on the decks earned invitations nationwide. In 2016 she was named one of Houston’s Best DJs, and music releases from the Bombón label exemplify the city of Houston's incredible diversity. Bombón Texas is also a dedicated advocate for women in music and their impact as community leaders.

Aside from being a music industry impresario, Gracie is also an accomplished communications specialist and marketing and advertising entrepreneur, co-founding web design studios early in her career and later in 2018 co-founding Rukaz Kultura, a multicultural marketing agency. Currently she has a pioneering role in the City of Houston's Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs. There, as a Music + Cultural Tourism Officer dedicated to advancing Houston’s music industry and tourism, Gracie helps design strategy and policy for municipal support of Houston musicians and the music industry as well as supports tourism across the state-certified cultural arts districts. In 2022, she drafted an ordinance and founded the first Houston Music Advisory Board which is made up of a diverse group of music industry stakeholders. She continues to lead the Music Board’s work in support of the local music community. She has lectured on music’s cultural influence and performed at art institutions like Contemporary Art Museum Houston and Houston Symphony.

Amy Feitelberg Amy Feitelberg

Amy Feitelberg is an award-winning photography director and creative producer based in California. She is currently a Photo Creative Lead at Airbnb and previously ran the Photo Creative at digital payment platform Square. While at Square, Amy generated the visuals across all platforms from social channels, web, paid media and out of home placements. She also founded an award winning, in-house brand magazine at Square called The Reader. She has been the photo director at Los Angeles and Outside magazines, a curator, and a creative producer. She is also a founding curator on the nonprofit creative team, Images For Humanity. Throughout her career, she has worked with the best photographers in the business and has spearheaded photo shoots all over the world. Her industry awards include a gold medal from the Society of Publication Designers for best photo essay. She recently won 2 Bronze medals from the American Advertising Awards for campaign work and she has received nods of excellence from Communication Arts and the American Photography Photo Annual.


Todd Green Todd Green

Todd Green is an award-winning filmmaker based in Houston. His feature film Avalanche won Best Comedy-Drama at the 2018 Manhattan Film Festival and is currently streaming online. after four years as a Senior Copywriter and Creative Director at a boutique content agency, Todd just this year launched Media TLG, a full-service digital content writing agency. A lifelong admirer of film and television, Todd always seeks to find positives in every written or recorded work.

2023 MMI AWARDS

Congratulations to this year’s winners of the MMI Teaching and Student Prize Competition!

To view the entire 2023 award ceremony, see here.

Vimeo Video MMI 2023 Award Ceremony


2023 MMI Student Prize Competition

Now in its fourth year, the MMI Student Prize Competition recognizes student work in media studies-related fields. Our competition is notable in having three different competition categories—Critical Studies, Creative, and Applied Technologies—in order to recognize the variety of different media-related work on campus.

For a montage of all of this year’s submissions, view here: 2023 MMI Student Prize Ceremony montage

Vimeo Video MMI 2023 Montage

Student Prize Competition Winners

 

Keynote speaker

BallesterosMatt Ballesteros

Founder and CEO of gaming and multimedia creator, Six Foot

Jury

Kamron Kamron Javadi
Brand manager, digital strategist, and founder of top-rated Los Angeles-based digital marketing company Bump.

Craig Lindsey Craig Lindsey

Film critic and journalist, Texas Observer, Houston Press​, CultureMap Houston, and the Houston Chronicle.

Janet Janet Chen

Janet Chen (she/her) film and multimedia maker, producer and educator; member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia and steering committee member for A-Doc (Asian American Documentary Network)

2022 MMI AWARDS

Congratulations to this year’s winners of the MMI Teaching and Student Prize Competition!

To view the entire 2022 award ceremony, see here.

Vimeo Video MMI 2022 Award Ceremony


2022 MMI Teaching Prize for Innovative Uses of Media

Created in 2020 in response to the sudden and mass shift to remote learning, the MMI Teaching Prize for Innovative Uses of Media recognizes our faculty and instructors for their efforts and achievements they made in adapting course content and practice. Courses were evaluated on innovation, appeal, accessibility, pedagogical efficacy, and community building. The superb work of these faculty and instructors maintained learning excellence while adapting to various platforms and contingencies. They also add to a growing list of best practices, as hybrid learning environments remain a major aspect of college and university life.

Winners

Full-time faculty, tenured and tenure track

    • CLASS: Melody Yunzi Li, CHNS 3343: Chinese Popular Culture
    • McGovern: Rob Smith, MUSI 4101: New Music Ensemble

Full-time faculty, non-tenure track

    • CLASS: Jing Zhang, CHNS 1501: Elementary Chinese
    • McGovern: N/A

Part-time instructors

    • CLASS: Jing Liu, JAPN 2311:  Intermediate Japanese
    • McGovern: Mark Chen, ART 3374: Computer Imaging

Teaching Prize Jury

  • Beckham Dossett, Associate Dean of the Kathrine G. McGovern College of Arts
  • Erin Hansen, School of Music
  • Eunjeong Lee, Department of English
  • Julie Tolliver, Department of Modern & Classical Languages
  • Joshua Unikel, School of Art
  • Toni Valle, School of Theatre & Dance


2022 MMI Student Prize Competition

Now in its third year, the MMI Student Prize Competition recognizes student work in media studies-related fields. Our competition is notable in having three different competition categories—Critical, Creative, and Applied—in order to recognize the variety of different media-related work on campus. This year the former “Best in Show” category was also reconceived as a Special Jury prize.

For a montage of all of this year’s submissions, view here.

Student Prize Competition Winners

Critical: “Feeding the Third Ward,” a podcast episode by Jovan Slaughter

jovan-slaughter.png


Creative: “Miguelito,” an original script by Aixa Tovar

Miguelito PDF


Applied: “Sexual Harassment in the Workplace,” an educational interview by Angeline Abrera

sex-harassment-workplace-image.jpg

Jury Selection: “Pectin,” a videoessay/memoir short film by Brittny Ray-Crowell

pectin-image.jpg

 

Student Prize Competition Jury

Amir Amir Aboulela
Veteran actor Amir Aboulela has appeared in episodes of Pretty Little Liars, Charmed, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Born in Egypt and raised in Texas, Amir is a graduate of the UT-Arlington. In 1998, Amir had a key part in Bill Condon’s Academy Award-winning film, God's and Monsters, as Boris Karloff's Frankenstein—a role for which Amir still receives fan mail.

Lester Gretsch Lester Gretsch
Trilingual, Emmy award-winning communications professional Lester Gretsch is currently serving as Chief Communications Officer for Spring ISD. Lester is also a prominent former local sports anchor and executive. At Univision, he developed the station's Sunday-evening sports show, Contacto Deportivo Extra, into a ratings driver. The program was also selected as the Best Sportscast in Texas in 2018 and 2021. Prior to that, Lester was Senior Director of Communications and Broadcasting for the Houston Dynamo, where he led media coverage for our local pro soccer team. He also helped support the launch of Houston Dash, the women’s pro team.

Danielle Seid Danielle Seid
Scholar and filmmaker Danielle Seid teaches courses in film, television, and media at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Originally from San Diego, Danielle grew up devouring indie films and spending time at the local movie theater, where her grandfather screened imported Hong Kong films. Danielle earned her PhD from the University of Oregon and has previously taught at Baruch College, of the City University of New York. Widely published widely in academic journals and many other venues, Danielle writes about topics ranging from cooking web series, Asian American women’s TV representation, trans media, and the orphan documentary film Forever Chinatown (directed by her grandparents).

Keynote speaker

michelle-mower.jpgMichelle Mower

Michelle Mower is an acclaimed writer, producer and director whose work has been featured on Lifetime, Apple TV+, Amazon and many other notable platforms. Her debut feature film The Preacher’s Daughter, starring Desperate Housewives Andrea Bowen, garnered Lifetime's highest ratings in 2012. From there, Mower went on to lead, write and direct two more telefilms for the network - A Woman Betrayed (2013) and The Preacher’s Sin (2015). Mower produced and co-directed the 2018 docu-series titled Dayna Steele: Rock the 36 and the dark teen comedy The Never List starring Fivel Stewart, Jonathan Bennett and featuring Booboo Stewart. The Never List was released theatrically across the U.S. in December 2020. Most recently, Mower directed A Sister’s Deadly Pledge, which will be airing on Lifetime in Fall, 2022. Mower will next direct the feature film Running From Horses, a coming-of-age tale about a female horse racing jockey. 

Deeply involved in the film community in Texas, this past year she was part of the successful efforts to save the historic River Oaks Theatre. She also formerly served on the boards of Texas Motion Picture Alliance (TXMPA), Women In Film and Television Houston (WiFT-H) and Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP). Currently, she sits on the board of 4th Wall Theatre Company and on the advisory boards for University of Houston’s Valenti School of Communication, Texas Southern University’s School of Communication and Houston Community College Film & TV Department.

 

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2021 MMI AWARDS

Congratulations to the 2021 award winners!

Student Prize

Critical Studies ... Daniel Kennedy, "Relax Your Face, Clint"

Creative Work .... Patrick Grady, Stalin Santiago, and Melissa Uriarte: "How to be Joiful in a World Full of Knowledge?​"

Honorable Mention ... Giovanni Singleton, "Cracked: The Dirt of IT"

Applied ... no winner selected

Best in Show ... Patrick Grady, Stalin Santiago, and Melissa Uriarte: "How to be Joiful in a World Full of Knowledge?"

To view the complete award ceremony, click here.


Keynote Speaker

Filmmaker, Vicki Wight
(The Lost Husband, 2020)


Jury

  • Brian Belovarac .... Film distributor, Janus Films and the Criterion Collection
  • Yoon Kim .... UH Assistant Professor of Graphic Design
  • Rick Quan .... Emmy award-winning news anchor

To view the montage of student entries, click here.

2019 MMI AWARDS

Congratulations to the winners of our inaugural Student Prize Competition!

Critical Studies ........... Shannon Duncan, Modern Day Slavery
Creative Work ............ Taylor Andreozzi, The Lemon of Pink
Applied Technology ..... Walter Barta, Digital Monology

Thank you to our jury and keynote speaker!

Keynote Speaker: Filmmaker Jenny Waldo (director, The Preacher's Daughter)

Jury:

To view the complete award ceremony, click here.

Here is a montage of some of the student entries.