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About

Digital Media Connecticut (DMCT) takes a broad approach toward digital media. Over 5,500 monthly posts on social media reference the term within the state. Topics expand across multiple fields, including advertising/PR (15%), culture/society (8%), education (7%), and design/creativity (6%)*.

Four Focused Branches of Digital Media

Despite the term's broadness, DMCT focuses on four industry-centric branches of Digital Media; Interactive Media Design and Development, Motion Design and Animation, Marketing and Communications Design, and Film/Video production.

A biannual manifesto for Digital Media updates these branches based on current trends in Connecticut's industry. Click here to read the 2021 manifesto that provides detailed information on the four branches and their relationship to the workforce.

Monthly Social Posts in CT
Mentioning Digital Media

DMCT assumes an industry-centric view of Digital Media, with a commitment to support education in this field and retain talent in Connecticut. It pursues this commitment through the development and distribution of the following three items:

  • Industry Research
  • Training and Mentorship
  • Information and events

Any CT institution of higher education is welcome to participate in the collaboration free of charge. We ask for at least one faculty champion per organization to serve on our committee. This commitment requires attendance at quarterly meetings and support for DMCT programs. In exchange, the institution can access exclusive programming/information and share its voice across the DMCT network.

Please contact us if you are interested in joining the DMCT initiative. 

Advisory Board

Wayne Edwards

Wayne Edwards

Distinguished Lecturer
at University of New Haven
.
Read Bio

Wayne Edwards is an Emmy award winning production leader with over twenty years of experience in Broadcasting and Multi-media Production.

He is currently a Distinguished Lecturer at the University of New Haven teaching content production, live broadcasting, and journalism. During his time on campus, the university has won 7 New England Regional Emmys; he’s implemented a Sport Communication minor; developed Race, Gender, and Class in the media and Electronic News Gathering and Reporting courses.

Wayne’s career began at ESPN leading the live production of professional, collegiate, and amateur sport events. He produced multiplatform content in the roles of Feature Producer, Field Producer, and Post-production Editor. He also aided in the training and development of on-air personalities. Afterwards, he was part of the executive team that launched Back9Network, a golf lifestyle channel. Wayne continues to function as a freelance producer for various national and regional networks and is also a consultant in the creation of live multiplatform shows.

Andrea Wollensak

Andrea Wollensak

Professor of Art
at Connecticut College
.
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Andrea Wollensak is an artist/educator and Professor of Art at Connecticut College. Themes in her work explore place-based narratives on environment and community. Her work spans media from traditional and digital fabrication, to generative-interactive systems and includes collaborations with computer scientists, musicians, poets, and scientists.

Wollensak has exhibited internationally, most notably at the Göteborg International Biennial, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Brno Design Biennial Moravian Gallery, Akademie der Kunste Galleries in Berlin, University of West England at the Bristol Gallery, Center for Visual Art in Denver, Granoff Center Gallery at Brown University, and the Burchfield Penney Arts Center in Buffalo.

Selected awarded grants and artist residencies include Banff Centre for the Arts (1995), National Science Foundation (1999), Rockefeller Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy (2000), Weir Farm Art Center and National Park (2005), International Artist Studio Program in Sweden, (2007), Hafnarborg Art Museum, Iceland (2011), Connecticut Artist Fellowship (2005 and 2011), Connecticut Sea Grant (2021), and the Anchorage Museum (2021-22). She has presented her work at numerous conferences including ISEA, ACM SIGGRAPH, Generative Art, CAiiA, College Art Association, among others.

Wollensak’s creative and critical writings have appeared in numerous publications including Computers and Graphics, Zed, Visible Language, Artbyte, Parachute, Fuse, Walking and Mapping: Artists as Cartographers, by Karen O’Rourke [MIT Press, 2013], Acting Bodies and Social Networks, A Bridge Between Technology and Working Memory, edited by B. Pirani and I. Varga, chapter “Social Bodies and Locative Technologies” by Gianni Corino [UPA, 2010]. Wollensak received her BFA from University of Michigan (1983), MFA from Yale University (1990).

Barnes

Todd Barnes

Artistic Director
FTMA at Sacred Heart University
.
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Todd Barnes is an award-winning filmmaker with a law degree. In his 25+ years in the business, he has been an actor, director, producer, writer, and editor. His films have been awarded Best of Next at the Sundance Film Festival (Homewrecker), nominated for a Palm D’or at Cannes (My Blind Brother), and presented on the Showtime Network by Spike Lee (Engine Trouble).

Commercial clients include IBM, Adobe, Lenovo, Victorinox, Springer (DE), Maverick Publishing (UK), and Canal+ (FR). In his time as an entertainment attorney for Rudolph & Beer LLC in New York City, he worked with clients Britney Spears, Backstreet Boyz, N’Sync and the Wu-Tang Clan among many others.

In 1979, Brian Barnes (father) brought home a Betamax video recorder and his sons, Brad and Todd, have been making movies ever since. Brad has become a Professor at NYU, Columbia and USC in Los Angeles. Todd is a Professor at Sacred Heart University and the Artistic Director of Connecticut’s only graduate film school (FTMA).

Todd was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, received his BA from Middlebury College in Vermont and got his JD from Boston College in Massachusetts. He lives in Fairfield with his lovely wife Kim and two sons, Augie and Maverick. He is thinking about getting a dog.

Julie

Julie Casper Roth

Assistant Professor
of Film and Television
at Norwalk Community College
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Julie is an award-winning filmmaker interested in hidden histories, the unseen, and the ignored. Her documentary and experimental work has been screened nationally and internationally. She is a two-time finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, the recipient of a NYSCA Individual Artist grant, the recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship in Video, and a recipient of the College Art Association Professional Development Fellowship. Julie attended Smith College and received her MFA from the University at Albany. She has taught documentary production at the University at Albany and Skidmore College, and she is currently an Assistant Professor of Film and Television at Norwalk Community College.

Elena

Dr. Elena Bertozzi

Professor & Director, Game Design &
Development, Chair, Visual & Performing Arts
at Quinnipiac University
Read Bio

Dr. Elena Bertozzi is the co-founder of SolitonZ Games, Director & Professor of Game Design and Development, and Chair of Visual and Performing Arts at Quinnipiac University. Her work focuses on using play to communicate information, often about sensitive topics, that empower players to make pro-health choices. Her current work is on a game to address vaccine hesitancy.

As a professor, Elena has developed numerous courses in the developing field of game design. In addition to practical coding and design courses, she seeks to provide a foundational understanding of games that is grounded in theory and in a historical understanding of the importance of play in the development of culture. Students are encouraged to engage critically with texts and play experiences and produce analytical writing and games that demonstrate their developing expertise. This analysis specifically includes thinking about the way that play can establish and reinforce power structures that exclude historically marginalized groups. The playground also provides a fertile environment for pushing back against these structures and experimenting with ways they can be opposed and dismantled.

As a game designer and developer, she works with teams of physicians, scientists, artists, and programmers to make games that help people help themselves. These games often intersect with research interests in the areas of gender, technology, and sexuality.

Karen Ritzenhoff

Dr. Karen A. Ritzenhoff

Professor in the
Department of Communication
at Central Connecticut State University
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Dr. Karen A. Ritzenhoff is a Professor in the Department of Communication at Central Connecticut State University where she is also affiliated with the cinema studies and honors program. She teaches classes in visual communication, film and media studies, documentary and women & film. Ritzenhoff is co-Chair of the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.

She has published several coedited volumes on war films and also studies Stanley Kubrick. Her most recent publications are Mediated Terrorism in the 21. Century (2021) with Elena Caoduro and Karen Randell as well as Afrofuturism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity, and the Re-Making of Blackness (2021) with Renée T. White.

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Frank Blythe

Director, Cinematic Production Management.
at Quinnipiac University
.
Read Bio

Bio coming soon.

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Dr. Matthew Worwood

Director, Digital Media CT and Professor, Digital Media Design at University of Connecticut
Read Bio

Matthew Worwood is a professor of Digital Media Design at the University of Connecticut. He also leads Digital Media CT, a statewide collaborative dedicated to furthering Digital Media education in Connecticut. Matthew's research focuses on teacher creativity and design thinking inside the context of teaching and learning. He has also published on design-based practices that influence the development and implementation of technological solutions in education.

Matthew blogs at DadsforCreativity.com and co-hosts the Fueling Creativity podcast. He is also an active contributor to Creativity and Education and produces the occasional low-budget documentary film. Matthew currently serves on the Advisory board at St Gregory the Great Elementary School in Danbury, CT; and runs a professional learning website called Teacher's Innovation Studio.

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JC Barone, PhD

Professor
at Western Connecticut State University
.
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Dr. JC Barone has been an active producer/director and educator for over 20 years and the recipient of numerous awards for his work including the Communicator Award of Distinction, the Videographer Award of Distinction, and six Telly Awards. His documentary work has been screened at various festivals and a museum exhibition. JC is a recipient of the Connecticut State Universities System-wide top Teaching Award. He was selected as a Teaching Fellow at the Television Academy, L.A., and serves as a competition judge for the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. JC is a full-time professor of Communication & Media Arts at Western Connecticut State University where he teaches digital media production. His teaching focuses on the connection of academia with industry and the community.

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Albert Kim

Professor
at Manchester Community College
.
Read Bio

Bio coming soon.

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Nicki Chavoya

Professional in Residence
University of New Haven
.
Read Bio

Bio coming soon.

Are you working in higher education? and would like to join or learn more about the collaborative? Contact us here!

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CT Office of Film, Television, and Digital Media