MADISON MURPHY, Class of 2006
Madison Murphy graduated from BHS in 2006 after completing multiple films in the BHS Video Production Program. These included a documentary entitled Special Successes, about the special education program at BHS, which went on to be selected for the Young People's Film and Video Festival. After graduating, Madison attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. She will start her senior year this fall 2009 as a Film and Media Studies major with an emphasis on production, and a Sociology minor.
At Occidental, Madison has participated in many different critical theory and production classes. During her sophomore year, she produced two senior thesis films. Over the past three years Madison has worked on twelve different student productions in a variety of roles including producer, director, and editor. This past spring, Madison helped coordinate the Oxy Film Festival on campus. She is a campus tour and a co-director of Delevan Drive, a program that works with special education students to complete art projects each week.
Interested in critical film theory as well as production, Madison presented her paper, Miss Jane Austen Fan, 269 Videos and Counting: An Examination of Jane Austen Fan Videos on YouTube at the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research this past fall. In the spring of her junior year, she completed a project entitled Embodying a Dirty Dancing Cinderella: The Celebration and Expansion of the Cinderella Myth through Wedding Dance Videos on YouTube examining wedding dance videos posted by couples, who mimic the iconic last dance in Dirty Dancing. This fall Madison will pursue honors for her senior comprehensives, completing both a short film and a thirty page paper focused on the Cinderella Myth in fan romance videos posted on YouTube.
Madison is living in Los Angeles for the summer. She worked as a development intern at Laura Ziskin Productions, housed at Sony Studios for two months before being accepted into the competitive Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Internship Program in Casting. Through this internship, Madison is working in both a commercial and theatrical casting office.
After graduation next May, Madison plans to take a year off of school to intern at various production companies before applying for a Marshall Fellowship and/or applying to grad schools to earn her MFA in Film Production. Madison plans on working as a producer in film and television. "The BHS Video Department is an amazing place to learn the skills to make quality productions. I am SO GLAD that my education in film production started at BHS. Anyone who gets to learn from Mr. Lawrence is extremely lucky!"
