March 26th

BIG CHANGES IN 2009: Busy days at MTS. There is lots of talk about the changes that are scheduled to happen next year and lots of anxiety about what that means for our students. As you may know, MTS is combining its two major high schools. Next fall, MTS Technology High School will be absorbed by MTS ComArts High School (name to be announced). The schools will be housed at the Lake Street/Minnehaha Avenue campus near the Lake Street Target store.

What does this mean for students of the Video Arts, Graphic Design, and Music & Sound departments? A major improvement. As of now, all of our Digital Media Academy classes will be held in their current locations; students will take core classes at the Minnehaha Campus and transport to the DMA for their academy classes. Additionally, with the changes in the structure of the school and the greater flexibility in scheduling, students will have less conflicts in scheduling the Academy courses that they are interested in. We are developing a plan to strengthen the feeling of "membership" to the academy and the DMA campus will be a big step in this direction.

EDU FILM FESTIVAL, MAY 15th & 16th: The MTS sponsored EDU Film Fest is getting closer and closer. Co-founder Rick Hansen and I are working hard to make the festival truly amazing this year. This is quickly becoming a major event in Minnesota, with activities spanning two days and kids convening from all over the state. Check out our website for more info (www.edufilmfest.org), or join our face book page (link to the right --->) for updates on EDU events, as well as film screenings, contests, and all kinds of Minnesota film events.

STUDENT SCREENPLAYS PUBLISHED: We are very proud to announce that the second edition of The Last Draft is published and available to purchase online at LuLu Publishing. The Last Draft is a compilation of some of the screenplays written by Video Arts Students during the 2007 - 2009 school years.

These are some really great scripts and I'm very proud of the work of the students involved. Screenwriting is not as easy as it may seem. There are very stringent formatting and grammatical rules. It takes hard work to learn them and then apply them to a creative project. I'm really proud to present this book to the public. Who knows, maybe someone outside of the district will read one of these scripts and want to shoot it!

MCTC INTERN: In one last piece of news, I would like to introduce you to Yarrow Benrud. He is a graduate of South High School in Minneapolis and is just finishing up his two year program at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Yarrow is studying Video Production and Screenwriting at MCTC and took advantage of the "Power of You" program, a Minneapolis program that provides free tuition to MCTC for the first two years of his/her education - to any student who graduates from a Minneapolis High School (including MTS!).

Yarrow will be working as an intern for .EDU/Sight Unseen Film Festivals and the ComArts Video Arts Department. He sat in on class on Wednesday and was quickly involved in a complicated shoot with our video students. Stop by and visit with him sometime, he's a great (if temporary) addition to the department.

That's it for today - keep the B-ball team in mind - They are about to play their first game of the state tournament. Let's hope for success! TW