ASU senior garners national award

Communication student wins award for PSA.

By Kristin Larmore
LiveWire

Who would’ve thought someone could win an award by talking about Goldfish crackers?

The Broadcast Media Association (BEA) awarded senior Electronic Media Broadcasting major Allie E. Mccain first place in the 2009 Audio PSA category for her commercial “Gold fish.”

It features a young child saying her first word, much to the excitement of her parents, while eating the cheesy snack. 

Mccain’s win marks Appalachian State University’s third year in the top three in one of the production categories.

The BEA, an organization of professors, graduate students and professionals passionate about multimedia research and teaching, holds the international Festival Media of Arts. The annual festival, held this year in Las Vegas, displays a compilation of the best multimedia works submitted by faculty and students from 250 universities or schools.

The competition was stiff, as about 800 projects in total from all categories were submitted this year.

Mccain said the toughest part about the project wasn’t as much the actual work in the lab, but coming up with an idea for Steve Smith’s audio production class.

She recorded her two nieces, four and 18 months at the time, who served as the inspiration for her audio project while she was babysitting. The two girls were cooperative and easier to work with than Mccain thought.

“I was like, wow, that’s really good. You have a knack for this,” she said of her four year old niece when the child repeated, “Mommy, can I have a snack?”

Smith’s project required a 60 second PSA and commercial with a voiceover and sound effects. Mccain used the Adobe program in the audio lab to create the footstep and ringing sounds, but the chewing and banging on the table were recorded straight from her nieces.

“I feel like it’s kind of their project. They were the performers,” she said.

She also added a room tone to make it sound like all the voices were in the same room to avoid a light buzzing, which would highly sacrifice sound quality. It took about 15 to 18 hours to complete over a span of a few weeks.

Her commercial won based on the categories of professionalism, incorporation of creativity, technical and production achievement, as well as overall structure and timing.

Mccain thought the topic of her commercial was ironic, considering her long-term goals.

“It’s kind of funny because I want to do sports,” she said. “But, I guess it can prove I can produce things.”

Whether it’s behind the scenes or on air, the sports broadcaster said she’s going to “go big or go home.”

Mccain will receive her award at the Las Vegas Convention Center April 24.