On Saturday, Nov. 12, The Master’s University will be hosting a brand new media event titled, “Muse Conference: Media Through The Lens Of Scripture,” alongside a film festival open to high school and college students.
The conference is open to all creators and consumers of media who want to engage with media wisely and winsomely as believers in Christ.
Presentations by Dr. Abner Chou, Prof. Matt Green and Dr. Bob Dickson will explore the big questions of media. Does it matter? Can we trust it? And how do we engage? Dr. Grant Horner will provide a case study in applying these questions by examining the film “Inception.”
The conference will also feature two panel discussions with special guests who have firsthand experience of working in media: Jubilant Sykes, Grant Fonda, Darrell Harrison and John Sullivan.
The accompanying film festival will be an excellent opportunity for all students interested in the craft of filmmaking. Participants will receive a theme before racing to complete a film project within 144 hours. Projects will be screened in front of a live audience on Nov. 12, and judges will assign awards across 12 categories.
The recipients of the “Best Picture” award in the high school and college categories will each receive a $5,000 scholarship to TMU’s Cinema & Digital Arts program.
Though this will be TMU’s first time hosting this event, the idea has been a long time in coming:
“It was something that we’ve talked about for a long time,” says Prof. Matt Green, director of TMU’s CDA program. “We wanted to do a media conference. In the past there have been a lot of big faith media conferences here in Los Angeles, but they all went away just because there wasn’t anybody to spearhead them. And so we saw a void.”
But the topic of media is too big, and too important, for believers to be silent on.
“As Dr. Dickson always says, ‘The information currency of our day is media,’” Green says. “And so we are all asking, ‘How does my son or daughter — or how do I as a 50-year-old man or woman — engage with media? Should I engage with media?’ We wanted to address some of those issues, and then also be able to highlight some of the cool stuff we’re doing at the University.”
Dr. Bob Dickson will be one of several speakers at TMU’s Muse Conference this year.
That “cool stuff” includes the CDA program’s various media projects, all of which are either led or heavily worked on by TMU students. Conference attendees will get an inside look at one particularly exciting ongoing project on the life of Tyndale. Past projects include a slew of short films, as well as “The Man From Nowhere,” TMU’s first feature-length film.
Green is enthusiastic about the opportunity this conference presents.
“I think it will be great for bringing in awareness,” he says. “People don’t know that we do this stuff in our CDA program at Master’s. And also, it will help show people that media is not something to be scared of. It’s just a tool that can be used for good or bad. As Christ-followers, there are many of us who have been gifted in the arts, and so we need to utilize media in a way that brings honor and glory to God and contributes to the kingdom.”
To learn more about the Muse Conference and to register, see this page.
