Talent scout: Promax/BDA promotes student design talent.(Knowledge & Career)

In an attempt to locate new broadcast design and promo talent, Promax/BDA, an association for creatives in electronic media marketing, promotion, and design, is holding its second Making the Cut contest, which offers students a chance to showcase their skills in front of a television audience.

The first contest, announced early last year, challenged students to create a non-traditional trailer for The CW that captured the essence of one of the network's specified shows. The winner, Stacy Young, was announced this past June at the Promax/BDA show in New York. As a result, she got the nod to intern for The CW, working on network promos.

This year's Making the Cut II promises more competition. The contest began earlier, this past December, giving students even more time to ready their submissions. Like last year, students will have the opportunity to submit promo entries, no longer than 90 seconds, for this year's eligible CW shows: Supernatural, Gossip Girl, and Smallville. The CW provides program footage from the three shows, but the participants are encouraged to use their imaginations, their own live-action footage, and other visual tools available to them. Once again, the winner will be revealed at the annual Promax/BDA show.

Making the Cut is part of Promax/BDA's ongoing educational initiative, an effort headed by Promax/BDA committee chair Kim Rosenblum, senior VP creative at TV Land. She says the idea is to engage students by introducing them to the broadcast design and promo industry, and the association that represents it.

User-Generated Content

The contest is meant to encourage unsung talent enrolled in formal design schools. However, anyone with the proper skills and concept may enter. Non-professionals making promos for network programs? Does this seem kind of YouTube-driven, or like some form of video graffiti? "User-generated content is already an art form," stresses Rosenblum. "Last year, several national commercials, including some featured during the Super Bowl, were created from user-generated content. Increasingly, marketers are calling on consumers to help define their brands, turning to user-generated content to convey their brands' attributes and develop marketing messages."

Anthony Armenise, The CW's senior creative executive of on-air promotion, concurs. "We encourage the use of live action because we recognize that our demographic and fan base are trailblazers in this new world of user-generated content over multiple media platforms. The ...