Goucher Students Win Sparky Award!

Honorable Mention has been awarded to a film entitled Grow,  produced, written, filmed, and edited by Lyle Hawthorne '13 with music, "Colors all around me" (2009) by Hillary Chase.

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp3JM5JyUkY

Organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), the Sparky Awards contest calls on student entrants to illustrate in a short video the value of openly sharing ideas. Entrants are judged by a panel of new media experts, students, and librarians.The winning videos offer another glimpse of the compelling student perspective on how open sharing fosters creativity, innovation, and solves problems.

NOTE: You can vote for Grow in the Sparky People’s Choice Award. The winner will receive $500 plus a personalized award certificate. To vote, visit http://www.sparkyawards.org/.The deadline to vote for the Peoples' Choice Award is March 7, 2010.

Here is how Producer Lyle Hawthorne describes the project:

"The contest was brought to my attention by my supervisor, former Senior Academic Technology Specialist, Sarah Kiley. The first step in the creation of this film was the conducting of an extensive amount of research on the current free information sharing movement, (SPARC being one of the primary players). Ironically during my research I found a number of pages asking for a paid subscription in order to view articles on the free information movement. After speaking with one of the research librarians on the politics of open information databases verses paid subscription based sources, I had formed a basic idea in my head of the message I wanted to get across. Then all it took was some time thinking up a story, and putting it down in story board format. At that point, I had about two and half weeks left before the deadline. The hardest part in the creation of the film was finding enough people who were all free at the same given moment, given everyone's crazy schedules as first semester freshmen nearing finals. In the end I could not have done it without my wonderful friends who came through and helped turn an idea into this film." 

Who's Who in cast and crew:

Producer, Writer, Filmer, Editor:  Lyle Hawthorne is an undeclared communications and English double major.
The song "Colors all around me" was written and performed by his high school friend Hillary Chase.

Flower Girl: Julia Goffredi '13 is an undeclared Education Major.

Flower Boy: Ben Snyder is an undeclared communications and english double major.

Scientist: Jack Swallow

Umbrella Girl: Liz Wilson is studying international relations at Goucher College.  Before college, Liz attended Kingston High School, where she was involved in the theater program and appeared in "Fiddler on the Roof,' "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," "Man of La Mancha," and "The Sound of Music."  Liz will be seen in "Alice and Wonderland" at Goucher in the spring.

Book salesman: Mat McGrady.