Through the Utah Digital Media Arts Festival, students are able to participate in a state-wide competition and show off their projects in a medium that doesn’t usually get much attention.

“We use computers to do our projects. It’s art projects but they’re not quite done traditionally. We’re using Photoshop, movie maker, we’re doing photography, we’re doing 3D animation- it’s more modern art. And then we insert it into the festival” festival participant Emily Ellis said.

All of the Digital Media entered projects into the festival, and a few even won prizes for their projects. Senior Nathan Rice won best in show for 3D animation for his project.

“I created a 90 second 3D animation about a robot trash can and a robot mailbox. People in the story don’t necessarily respect the robot trash can very much. People tend to like the robot mailbox. So the trash can gets jealous,” festival participant Nathan Rice said.

Although the students spent months creating their projects, many of them had been developing and fine-tuning their skills for years.

“It took about 3 months to create. But the whole process of creating it started way before that, because you have to learn all sorts of technical skills if you want to create an animated short in 3D,” Rice said.

The participants were not only able to enter their projects for awards and meet other digital media artists from across the state, but got to listen to keynote speakers with real-world applications.

“My favourite part would have to be the opening keynote speaker. He was talking about the importance of burning your portfolio.  He went across different points on how to well manage your time and to self-educate yourself. If you’re interested, then keep going. Learn the importance of being fast and communicating well. It was very good to hear those things, and to realize that I can make myself better, I don’t just have to wait around for someone to teach me,” Ellis said.

To see the winners of festival, the website will soon be updated with links to all of the projects.