Megan Reed, Campus Carrier News Editor
Viking Fusion has been recognized by the Broadcast Education Association’s (BEA) Festival of Media Arts for the second consecutive year.
The animated video “The Calculus Priority Dispute” received second place in the national competition’s Two-Year/Small College Video Production category.
The video, which tells the story of a dispute between two 17th century mathematicians, is a collaboration between Eric McDowell, professor and department chair of mathematics, senior Josy Roman, studio assistant coordinator for Viking Fusion, and senior Michael Baldvins, executive director for Viking Fusion.
McDowell developed the idea and wrote the song for the video, while Roman and Baldvins produced the video.
McDowell said he became interested in the history of calculus after reading “e: The Story of a Number” by Eli Maor and decided to write a song about it. He approached Viking Fusion last spring with the idea of creating a music video. McDowell said he gave Roman and Baldvins “creative license” to make the video.
“What they came up with is phenomenal,” McDowell said.
“The Calculus Priority Dispute” is the first video that Viking Fusion has created which has been completely animated, Steven Hames, Viking Fusion advisor, said.
Baldvins said Roman did most of the pre-production work, including the storyboard, and she split the production work with him. Baldvins said he created the art assets for the video, including the 3-D backgrounds and props. The video combined 2-D and 3-D animation, and alumnus Nathan Sutton (13) helped with animation for the characters in the video.
Hames said the animation style was modeled after the British comedy group Monty Python.
“The Calculus Priority Dispute” was McDowell’s fifth collaboration with Viking Fusion. He has also contributed to “Roll Call,” “Derivative Rag,” “Jammy Pants” and “Mr. Mathman.”
“Roll Call,” another collaboration between Roman and McDowell, won second place with BEA last year.
The video will be shown at BEA’s annual convention in Las Vegas, Nev. in April.