Southeastern Louisiana University

Southeastern Channel wins four Telly awards

Contact: Christina Chapple

8/20/07

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Caption …

The Southeastern Channel, the educational cable television access channel for Southeastern Louisiana University, recently won four national Telly Awards for promotional spot animation and editing. From left, are Steve Zaffuto, who won two Bronze Telly's for animation of "Native Sounds" and "Current Events" promos, Southeastern Channel General Manager Rick Settoon, and Josh Kapusinski, who won a first-place Silver Telly for animation and a Bronze Telly for editing the "Florida Parish Chronicles" promo.

     Promotional spots for “The Florida Parish Chronicles”, “Native Sounds” and “Current Events” won first-place Silver and second-place Bronze Telly Awards for Southeastern Louisiana University’s educational cable channel airing on Charter Cable Channel 18.

     The Telly Awards is the premier competition honoring local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, and video and film productions. The Telly Awards showcase the best work of television stations, production companies, cable operators and advertising agencies throughout the world. The 28th annual awards competition received more than 13,000 entries nationally and internationally. 

     “The Florida Parish Chronicles” promo took a first-place Silver Telly for animation and a second-place Bronze Telly for editing. The promo was conceptualized, designed, produced and edited by channel staff member Josh Kapusinski.

     A promotional spot for “Native Sounds,” a program spotlighting regional blues artists, and the “Current Events” spot, which promotes a variety of national news, news talk, educational, and public affairs programs airing on the channel, both received a Bronze Telly in the animation category. Both spots were conceptualized, designed, produced and edited by Steve Zaffuto, the channel’s operations manager.

     “It’s a great honor for the Southeastern Channel to win these international Telly Awards as it reflects the high quality of our production,” said channel General Manager Rick Settoon.  “The recognition of Steve and Josh is much-deserved. Their editing, graphics and animation achieve major network-level quality. It’s the fruit of their hard work, cutting-edge talent, and high artistic and technical standards.”

     Kapusinski’s “Florida Parish Chronicles” promo previously won a 2006 Emmy Award in the Suncoast Region, which represents the southeastern United States. The spot uses two-dimensional animation in which figures from old drawings and sketches are cut out and then manipulated in a three-dimensional space, a map of Louisiana. The map itself took many days to re-create.

     “The color scheme was also important in designing the spot,” Kapusinski said. “Aside from there being the delicate mix of color and black and white, I made the map with lighter, pastel tones to have the attention go to the black and white figures, which are of higher contrast, and therefore, stand out.”

     The result of the innovative, ambitious project is a unique appearance.

     “When people see something different, they usually remember it. And I think that makes this particular spot very effective,” Kapusinski said.

     Zaffuto’s “Native Sounds” and “Current Events” spots were a result of his own experimentation with combining “flat” two-dimensional graphics with stylized three-dimensional elements and, according to Zaffuto, “manipulating them in a manner that hopefully creates the impression of a seamless progression of events.”

     “It’s already rewarding to work in an environment where you have the freedom to explore and perfect new graphics techniques and concepts,” Zaffuto said.  “Gaining recognition for that type of work is really a bonus.”

     The Southeastern Channel has won more than 40 national and international awards since went on air four years ago. The channel can be seen on Charter Cable Channel 18 in Tangipahoa, St. Tammany and Livingston parishes; Channel 17 in Washington Parish; and online at www.selu.edu/tv.