Robert Osborne Film Festival

Ok, this has to be one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me! Before the end of last semester I began to inquire about the Robert Osborne Classic Film Festival and possible PR volunteer opportunities. My journey led me to Pam Kohn who gave my name to Didi Dunphy, the committee chair for the Cocktails and Conversation With Robert Osborne fund raising event on March 7 to be held at Cine Movie Theatre and Barcafe.

If you have read my other posts you also know that I am also the account executive for Cine through Creative Consultants, which made me the perfect woman to help run the event but fate had one more trick up her sleeve. Turns out that Didi is unable to make to the event and is leaving town the week before, so who does that leave to run everything, ME!! I mean don’t get me wrong there will be plenty of people from Grady and other board members there to help, but this is so cool! It’s my responsibility to make sure that Mr. Osborne has everything he needs and to facilitate the evening.

Now would probably be a good time to explain that working at Turner Classic Movies(TCM) has always been my dream. I love TCM, in fact I did my entire PR Communications project on TCM last semester. For me meeting Robert Osborne is as cool as the time I got to meet Ryan Seacrest, and Ryan is not the official biographer of the Oscars, Robert Osborne is.

So I will be blogging updates and wish me luck!

Peabody Judging

I have just finished writing our committee(news radio) recommendations and non-recommendations for the national Peabody Board!

Being a student judge for the Peabody’s has been a really awesome experience thus far. Last night we had a 3 hour marathon listening in Dr. Griswold’s office to finish up before today. My friends keep asking me how we judge the entries, what is the criteria? Well there isn’t really, the mission of Peabody is to judge excellence on its own terms, not compared to anything else, when you hear an entry you just seem to know whether it’s Peabody worthy or not. Some entries are really great, some are very good but not quite great and then there are some really laughable ones.

Now I can’t wait for the awards ceremony in June at the Waldorf in NYC! How cool is it that we get to go and be a media escorts to the winners.

This semester has been so overwhelming that it is easy to forget all of the amazing things I get to be involved with because of UGA and the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Here’s to hoping that I get to escort a cool celebrity!

Career Fairs

As I attended the career fair on Wednesday a thought crossed my mind, career fairs are a lot like American Idol auditions. There we are dressed to impress, name tags on our lapels and our thirty second “about me” speeches ready to go.

The judges, aka the companies, stand behind their booth setups and wait for the best and the brightest to dazzle them. Some are like Simon and let you know you are not going to be hired, others are like Paula and can’t so no to anyone, and then there is my personal favorite the Randy Jackson’s of the world. The ones who try to impress you with how young, hip and cool they are by saying things “no way!” and “awesome”

Don’t get me wrong I think career fairs are great, in fact I learned a lot of the one I just attended. It just struck me a comical that even a college career fair can be likened unto American Idol. Instead of competing to be the next great singer we are competing for internships and jobs, at least William Hung doesn’t sing at the career fair.

I can hear Ryan Seacrest now, ” if you would like to vote for Kendel as the next PR professional call 1-866-pr rules now!”

Tradtional PR, not forgetting the basics

There really is no better feeling than the feeling of accomplishment. As I said in my first post I am an account executive for our student run PR firm Creative Consultants. My client is Cine Movie Theater in downtown Athens and throughout the year my team has been working to reintroduce Cine to the public and drive the business.

From the first client meeting we have talked about using social media to reach out to the college audience. We have a Facebook page, different members of the team Twitter about upcoming events and we email out a weekly schedule of movies to a listserv.

So when we set out to promote the week long screening of the final cut of Blade Runner starting Feb. 8 I immediately started thinking of social media tools, however it is important to not forget the basics of PR.

I wrote a press release and pitched the story idea to the variety editor of the Red and Black (the newspaper that serves UGA) and I got a response. A staff writer was assigned the story, the appropriate interviews were done, and the article should run on Feb 8.

I guess it really is all about balance. Social media is great, but having that tangible article in the paper is too! Don’t worry though, I plan to Twitter about it as well.

So this is blogging…

Well I am now an official part of the bloggosphere and I have no idea what to say.
First a little about myself. I am graduating this May with my degree in PR with an emphasis in film/theater from the University of Georgia. I am a member of PRSSA and Creative Consultants, a student run PR firm for business within the Athens community. I am a Creative Consultants account executive for Cine movie theater in downtown Athens. I am a George Foster Peabody student judge on the news radio committee, and I am doing volunteer PR work for the Robert Osborne Film Festival.

I genuinely love doing PR and learning about PR. I started this blog as an assignment for my Word Of Mouth Class with Dr. Russell and I have to admit that I am loving social media.

All of that being said, I feel like my life is in a total state of flux and it’s driving me crazy. I like plans, time lines and knowing what’s coming next. The last semester of your college career does not offer a whole lot certainty or stability. So I have decided that I am going to blog about my crazy last semester and my efforts to enter the professional PR world. So here goes nothing…