Georgia State’s New Creative Media Industries Institute Equipped With Panasonic Gear

Georgia State University celebrated Homecoming Weekend with a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday marking the debut of the school’s $22.5 million media center, the Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII). Panasonic Media Entertainment Company (PMEC) will play an integral role in CMII through the provision of a broad array of professional video and display equipment, and through the company’s sponsorship of a marquee seminar series, “Bursts of Excellence,” featuring the filmmaking industry’s top talent.

Panasonic Media Entertainment Company specializes in creating technology solutions for the entertainment, integrated resorts, sports, and professional AV markets

With a multi-million-dollar grant from the Woodruff Foundation, CMII is being established to supplement GSU arts and media programs that are today training more than 4000 undergraduate majors anticipating careers in the entertainment and information industries. More than 1000 of these students are film and television production majors, with GSU offering the oldest, largest, and widest-ranging training model in Georgia.

CMII will be equipped with premier Panasonic cinema cameras, including the AU-EVA1 5.7K handheld cameras and VariCam LT 4K cameras, both fully capable of High Dynamic Range (HDR) capture. Other 4K and HD acquisition gear includes AG-UX180 UHD handhelds, AG-DVX200 4K 4/3-inch handhelds, and AJ-HPX380 AVC-ULTRA shoulder-mounts that, along with the AV-HS450N multi-format switcher, will be configured in flypack systems to cover the Bursts of Excellence seminars.

Additional Panasonic gear includes 65-inch 1080p LCD displays strategically placed throughout the building, and the PT-RZ970WU 10K lumen laser projector, which will operate in CMII’s 150-seat screening room.

“Our relationship with GSU’s spectacular CMII affords us the opportunity to work with some of the country’s best and brightest filmmaking students, and is emblematic of Panasonic’s commitment to the explosive Georgia production community and its educational institutes,” says Carter Hoskins, Director, PMEC.

GSU Professor of Practice Herb Kossover explained that, beyond the core craft training that has long been a strength of the university’s arts and media programming, the CMII model is to organize faculty-led teams that put advanced students to work on contracted work.

“CMII is like a beehive full of ‘maker space,’ where students can augment their classroom experience with self-directed film projects, or actually work for local businesses that will be renting out these spaces complete with Panasonic cameras,” says Kossover. “The corporate or nonprofit organization receives a professional work product and students gain invaluable real-world experience.”

Kossover, a veteran Director/Director of Photography who has worked on high-profile, award-winning projects with several VariCam models, added, “My experience with the current generation of VariCams, with their dual native ISOs (also a feature of the EVA1), is that the lighting package is simpler and the workflow quicker.

“I anticipate our students can learn more about eye, composition and real filmmaking with the VariCam LTs and EVA1s than with any other cameras on the market.”