Classroom Close-up, NJ: Make A SplashThe Moody's Mega Math Challenge
Synopsis:
Moody's Mega Math (M3) Challenge is a high school math competition that spotlights applied mathematics as a powerful problem-solving tool, as a viable and exciting profession, and as a vital contributor to advances in an increasingly technical society. In the 2009 competition, students are tasked with evaluating whether the stimulus package will in fact stimulate the U.S. economy. The six final teams present their solutions to a panel PhD-level applied mathematicians in New York as they compete for over $80,000 in scholarship prizes.
Producer's Commentary:
This mini-documentary about the 2009 M3 Challenge resulted from a package I produced for the 2008-09 season of the NJN Public Television series, Classroom Close-up, NJ that focused an individual team from the prior year's contest. The competition organizer, The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), was pleased with the story and asked if I could produce a series of videos that they could make available on their new website. So in addition to the five-minute documentary, I also created a 90 second version along with highlight reels for each of the teams, the judges, and the award ceremony.
SIAM had already contracted a camera crew to tape the presentations and I was able to use that crew to film the interviews I needed. Making use of every available moment, we managed to squeeze in nearly 40 interviews between before, between, and after the presentations. A SIAM staff member took the great candid photos that appear throughout the piece. The only additional elements were a few stock shots and the b-roll of the challenge website. Post-production was completed on Avid Media Composer and the soundtrack was scored in SonicFire Pro.
In addition to a happy client, the documentary received Platinum honors in the 2009 AVA Awards, an international awards competition sponsored and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP) that recognizes outstanding achievement in audio-visual programs.