SCA students launch Showcase publication

For the USC School of Cinematic Arts Undergraduate Student Council, Showcase could not be a more fitting title for its newly-launched digital magazine that went live on Tumblr last November, compiling students’ creative works and projects all onto one interactive platform.

“We began to realize that although there are amazing student works being created around the clock at SCA, there was really no central location to find them,” Showcase’s website states. “We were eager to create a platform for students to share the works they created during the semester with their peers in all divisions of SCA!”

Former SCA Undergraduate Student Council President Raphael Rosalen, a senior majoring in cinema and media studies, said that he has always been fascinated with the way that media affects society and defines the way humans think about themselves. Last September, in an effort to unite the undergraduate students within SCA as well as students of different majors, he and his team got right to work launching Showcase.

“We were always trying to find a project that could do that,” Rosalen said. “And we had an idea earlier last year to make a magazine and … we came up with this idea of creating a website for the magazine — kind of like a magazine in the format of a website — and we started imagining how that would look like.”

The council aims to release a new issue at the end of each semester. The inaugural edition features an array of different kinds of student content, including film, quizzes and interactive media.

To garner more interest and publicity for the publication and provide a networking platform for SCA students, the council hosted a launch party in December once the first issue was published on their Tumblr site.

TJ Ryan, a sophomore majoring in film production, has been recently appointed SCA Undergraduate Student Council president for this semester. Ryan found the projects that students contributed to the first issue were not only creative but also impressive.

“Personally, I think a favorite of mine was an animation project that the student did where she took different candies and animated them into these really interesting intricate patterns and movements,” Ryan said.

With its inaugural edition published, the council is anticipating a successful second issue this April.

According to Ryan, the SCA major representatives within the council have the important job of reaching out to students in their specific major and seeking out projects for publication.