Land Grant Films, East Tennessee PBS JobPop! Series Wins Four National Telly Awards
![](https://jem.utk.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/JobPop_Student_2023-1.jpg)
Alumnus Seth Reynolds filming Tennessee Valley Authority’s robot dog Spot fora JobPop! video on becoming a programmer.
Land Grant Films and East Tennessee PBS won four national Telly Awards for JobPop!, an innovative video series targeted at third through sixth graders and aimed at workforce development.
Land Grant Films is a documentary production program in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s College of Communication and Information, which provides students real-world experience in documentary storytelling while supporting local nonprofit organizations.
“The Tellys are professional awards, so we were competing with organizations like The Disney Channel and Hearst Media,” Professor and Director of Land Grant Films Nick Geidner said. “Our project, which is crewed primarily by CCI students, being so well honored by the Tellys really demonstrates the level and quality of students that we have.”
Land Grant Films and East Tennessee PBS won a Gold Telly in the children’s television (individual segment) category for its JobPop! video on becoming a programmer. They also won a Silver Telly in that category for another video focused on becoming a machinist. The video features UT engineering professor Tony Schmitz and was shot at the Machine Tool Research Center in the Tickle College of Engineering.
Land Grant Films and East Tennessee PBS also won two more Silver Tellys for JobPop! in the children television series and education and discovery series categories.
Six students, along with Geidner, were credited for the wins. This includes recent alumni Seth Reynolds, Brent Palmer, Haley Hodges, Isabella Mangano, Kelly Alley, and current psychology major Peter Emerson.
Geidner said five new students have since joined the team to continue working on videos as part of the series.
JobPop! introduces children to jobs and careers they may find interesting and explains what each profession does. The series has covered jobs in various fields, including librarians, solar technicians, welders, meteorologists, and computer programmers. Students with Land Grant Films produce the videos, which range from sixty to ninety seconds in length.
PBS shares the videos and develops extra educational supplements that accompany each video for teachers or parents to use with their kids.
JobPop! helps UT students develop the fundamental skills needed to work in a wide variety of video production jobs, including documentary and commercial video production. Geidner said JobPop! students gain experience in every part of the video production process.
“The students working on this project have not just gotten invaluable video production experience, they have had an impact on their community,” Geidner said. “JobPop! is a workforce development program designed to help kids be better prepared for the workforce of the future. As such, JobPop! is being used in classrooms and other educational settings, along with airing on East Tennessee PBS.”
Land Grant Films, East Tennessee PBS JobPop! Series Wins Four National Telly Awards written by Ernest Rollins and originally published on the College of Communication & Information site.