Three recent BYU graduates talk about the sacrifice and teamwork that went into creating award-winning advertising projects
The School of Communications AdLab celebrates three project winners in this year’s advertising journal CommArts, a tier-one journal in the creative and design field. The winning projects include a documentary, a video ad and an emoji design campaign.
Lionheart
Photo courtesy of Cam Tribe
“Lionheart” is a 16-minute documentary about two young men in Jamestown, Ghana, who are training to compete against each other in a boxing competition. The art director of the film, Cameron Tribe, graduated from BYU in April 2020. Tribe was inspired to create the project while serving his mission in Ghana, and he and his teammates went to Ghana for filming.
“To share that culture with my friends and see them love it as much as I do was very cool. We made great connections and met incredible people,” said Tribe. “The first couple of days we were in Jamestown, the people were standoffish towards us. Once we told them we were there to make a film about the boxing gym, a switch flipped in their minds. The people in Jamestown love and take pride in boxing.”
Tribe and his team spent two weeks in Ghana filming two young men for the film — Felix and Emmanuel. The documentary includes an original musical score created by Christian Darais, and every sound in the score is organic from Ghana.
Photo courtesy of Cam Tribe
One of the biggest challenges Tribe faced was not receiving any funding from BYU to work on the project. With the help of his teammates, Tribe overcame this hurdle and fundraised money to make the film.
“As a student, you can still put art out into the world even without funding from your school. I love the autonomy of “Lionheart” — it was a truly independent film,” said Tribe.
“Lionheart” also won awards during the Las Vegas and Brooklyn Film Festivals. View the full film at camtribe.com.
Lionheart
Cam Tribe | Director and Art Director
Stew Tribe | Writer
Connor Dean | Producer
Bentley Rawle | Director of Photography
Spencer Goff | AC / Camera Operator
Drew Tekulve | Colorist
Christian Darais | Audio / Original Music
Mikey Bready and Zach Olson | Editors
LA Times – Decisions
Connor Dean, a recent graduate from the School of Communications, worked with several of his best friends on the multi-award winning ad LA Times – Decisions. Dean worked as the producer of the ad, and the original idea came to Dean and his friends when they saw an article about Dr. Scott Warren, an Arizona State University professor, who was being charged with up to 20 years in prison for “harboring illegal people.”
“That phrase, ‘harboring illegal people,’ struck a nerve with us. Dr. Warren gave food, shelter and water to immigrants crossing the border illegally. To us, it was a modern-day good Samaritan story — a man choosing to go against prejudice to help save another life,” said Dean. “We began to think, what would we do in that situation?”
While Dean is honored to receive recognition from other creative professionals, for him the most important part of the project was sharing their message.
“I think I speak for my team when I say that this project wasn’t made to win awards; it was made to share an incredibly important message. That’s the kind of work that we want to make: the work that actually impacts the world for the better.”
LA Times – Decisions
Cam Tribe | Art Director
Connor Dean/Quinn Frehner/Enoch Lui | Writers
Jeff Sheets | Instructor
Handimojis
The Handimojis project is a concept created by BYU students where animated emojis have hands that can be used for sign language. As a writer for the project, Sam Carlson worked on brainstorming concept ideas, creating the digital solution and deciding what visuals the team wanted to use to tell the story in partnership with the words.
“The most meaningful experience for me wasn’t the completed project or the awards — it was the reception from the Deaf community,” said Carlson. “It was amazing to see how excited the Deaf community was about this technology. While this was just a concept, you could see how much it meant to them. That’s the power of inclusive innovation.”
Carlson is also grateful that the project is receiving this recognition because it means that others in the industry find merit in his idea and his team’s project.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better team. This project brought together a group of incredibly talented individuals. We all contributed equally to the project, but in specific ways,” said Carlson. “With no egos and plenty of collaboration, I truly felt like we were able to create something bigger than ourselves.”
Handimojis
Coni Ramirez | Art Director
Sam Carlson | Writer
Emily Ellis | Illustrator
Amanda Rasmussen | Photographer