EMST students, faculty win 2025 BEA Awards

Scripts written by four Entertainment and Media Studies students and Matthew Nolte Evans, assistant professor, earned high recognition at the 2025 Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Festival of Media Arts competition. This year’s festival received a total of 2,285 entries from over 300 participating universities.

Awards won by EMST students and faculty included:

Student Scriptwriting Competition, Short Narrative Film Category: 

• Sarah Posey & Nova Senkyrik, first place, “Shear Terror”

Original Television Series Pilot Category, Award of Excellence: 

• Katie Sawyer & Taylor Shults, Award of Excellence, “Scout’s Honor”

Faculty Scriptwriting Competition, Feature Narrative Category:

• Matthew Nolte Evans, Award of Excellence, “OSARIO”

BEA Academic Paper/Show Bible Competition: 

• Matthew Nolte Evans, first place, “The Devil’s Rust” Show Bible

Posey & Senkyrik’s “Shear Terror”

“Shear Terror,” a seven-minute narrative film, explores themes of vanity, people pleasing and blame within an absurdist landscape. The short film tells the story of extreme revenge for a bad haircut, drawing from contemporary influences and classic slasher films.

EMST students, Posey and Senkyrik credit Shira Chess for her guidance and encouragement during the scriptwriting process.

“From the moment I had the initial idea, I knew it was going to thrive as a campy, over-the-top thriller,” said Senykrik. “Sarah suggested we use the bad haircut itself as a jump scare and we knew we had to write this.”

Posey agreed: “We had an unspoken, mutual understanding from the get go that we were going to make ‘Shear Terror’ into something real and exciting. Winning a national award for our script just encourages us even more.”

Sawyer and Shults’ “Scout’s Honor”

“Scout’s Honor,” a 30-minute coming-of-age comedy series, challenges traditional gender roles through the lens of the Boy and Girl Scouts organizations. It follows two rival troops that are forced to work together as one co-ed troop as a result of funding cuts.

Sawyer and Shults credit Matthew Nolte Evans for providing guidance and advice. “Every step of the way he gave insightful and impactful feedback that truly shaped the project into what it is today,” said Shults.

Sawyer said she and Shults are honored to have their scripts recognized on the national level. “All of our late-night writing sessions really were worth it!”

Author: Lily Alarcon, lia52467@uga.edu