(June 14, 2007) — Throughout May and June, Cinematography students were busy with projects. While the majority of the class worked on a fi lm project, a group of students worked on an alternative project. These students were asked by Cinematography teacher Matthew Stroup to work on an important project entitled the Distinguished Schools Awards Project , a slideshow recognizing the academic achievements of California Distinguished Schools. The slideshow was shown at a ceremony held May 18 for these schools in the Disneyland Convention Center. Students used their creativity and CDs to create the slideshow. Each CD had four pictures from the distinguished schools. One of the four pictures was of the school building and three pictures were of students, staff and special occasions at the school. Each student who worked on the project received 60 CDs. Some students worked on both the Cinematography film project and the slideshow project, and these students received only 20 CDs to work with. “I worked on both projects because I like Cinematography projects and filming,” said junior Joshua Kirkwood. The CDs were shipped to Sacramento from all the schools and one bulk of all the CDs were then sent to Stroup. The students chose two pictures from each CD and then added effects to the pictures such as zooming, rotating and panning using a program called Final Cut Pro. They also added transitions, which are special effects between the pictures. Although each student worked on the project individually, they all exported a QuickTime movie to Stroup, who collected the animation and effects and burned it to a fi nal DVD after further editing. Each student also had individual jobs. Juniors Susan Bryant, Walter Cano, Thomas Grigorian, Joshua Kirkwood, Ani Mkrtchyan, Serli Nazarian and Divis Shahbaz edited the show. Senior Zare Aivazian created the music for the show. Juniors Bella Arutyunyan, Germine Gevondyan, Monika Hairapetian and sophomore Ani Kazaryan coordinated the production. Junior Khoren Mirzakhanian made the motion graphics and sophomore Lilit Beglarian created the animation. “I liked the sense of accomplishment from finishing such an important project,” said junior Serli Nazarian. “It took some time to make but I am also glad that I was able to help out.” Stroup and five students went to Disneyland and prepared for the ceremony the day before. Although they also helped out with building the stage and fixing the lighting, the students did not attend the ceremony. According to Stroup, some people who did attend from the 171 schools said that they enjoyed the slideshow.