Jacob Landis-Eigsti, a junior, was groggily sifting through his e-mail inbox before his 8 a.m. class a few weeks ago when he stumbled upon an email from the Broadcast Education Association (BEA). His music video “Beautiful,” the email said, had won second place in BEA's 2011 national competition—quite an achievement, considering that he was competing with about 1,000 other film students across the country.
Another music video of Landis-Eigsti's took first place in the state competition last year, so at the urging of his broadcasting professor, Seth Conley, Landis-Eigsti submitted a video this year to the equivalent national competition—and promptly forgot about it. Therefore, he was understandably surprised to learn that BEA was inviting him to Las Vegas in April, where he will accept a second-place award at one of the largest conventions in the country. Landis-Eigsti could do nothing but accept.
He made the music video “Beautiful” this past fall break, when musician and song-writer Phoebe Sharp flew up to Goshen from Tennessee for three days of singing and filming around Goshen. Landis-Eigsti and Sharp learned about each other through a mutual high school connection. Sharp is an independent artist who sings and plays the piano and guitar. Over fall break, Landis-Eigsti shot three music videos in three days, which meant that he worked three consecutive 18-hour days on these videos. Then he edited the videos and sent “Beautiful” off to BEA.
According to Landis-Eigsti, “Beautiful” is about “trying to find beauty in everyday life.” He said that the video “shows beauty in people, beauty in nature around us . . . like the stuff that we walk by that we don't really notice.”
Landis-Eigsti experimented with lighting a lot in the video. Many of the shots are filmed in nature, though there are also scenes in the theater. Jenna Grubaugh, a recent Goshen alum, did the choreography, and Brett Bridges, a senior, dances in the music video.
With every video he makes, Landis-Eigsti said, “I try to challenge myself—do something I've never done—and also evolve in my technique and story-telling process.”
Landis-Eigsti will travel to Las Vegas this April with Conley and communications professor Jason Samuel to accept his award at the BEA awards ceremony. He hopes that this trip will help him network and build up a list of clients for a future career in filming.
