Cameron Johnston is a Creative Media Production major at the University of Oklahoma and is a member of the OU Esports and Co-Curricular Innovation (OU ECCI)’s Media team. He exemplifies learning from his major and being able to apply it outside of the curriculum via the Media Team.
Johnston grew up playing on the PS3 and DS and would continue playing on their successors. Some game series he highlighted were: “Shin Megami Tensei,” “Persona,” “Fallout,” “Elder Scrolls,” “Xenoblade Chronicles,” “Sly Cooper” and “Infamous.” Overall, he is open to most genres of games.
Johnston decided to attend OU because of the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication’s CMP program. As a CMP student, Johnston’s curriculum involves learning how to film and edit. Most projects involve filming a short movie. One of his projects is titled, “Mobopoly,” a game of Monopoly but with a mobster twist. He helped with the filming of the project and was one of the editors for it.
Johnston saw an ad for the OU Gaming Club’s Discord and joined it out of interest. Through the Discord server, he saw the application for the OU ECCI News & Media Team.
“I needed more experience with media stuff, like editing and stuff like that. So I saw the Media Team, and I joined that.”
On the Media Team, he would help film and edit videos. This includes interviews of people in OU ECCI and videos for the OU ESports YouTube channel. Recently, he helped with filming and editing some of the interviews of the OU XP 3.0 – Documentary, which you can check out.
The Media Team provided more projects for Johnston to edit, allowing him to put his skills to practice. When asked about what he got out of his time on OU Media, he replied:
“Editing experience. … I mainly learned from classes, but honestly, it’s good, it allows me to apply it more, and I’ve gotten better as an editor overall, as I’ve gone through the program.”
However, he was not solely a part of OU ECCI’s Media Team. Johnson has also been a part of OU Nightly. Commonly referred to as Nightly at the university, it is a newscast at Gaylord College where students can learn about broadcasting.
Johnston joined as a practicum for his major and stuck with Nightly for three semesters. He learned broadcasting from the production side, operating in different kinds of roles. He had his hands as a part of Live Shot Crew, aiding a reporter with live recording outside of the studio, operating audio and graphics, and technically being the director, whose job it is to control what is shown on broadcast.
From being part of a broadcast production, Johnston had some takeaways from the operations. One of them was how critical timing and execution can be in a newscast.
“An example from my own experience was from being an Audio operator, where turning the anchors’ mics on at the wrong time, the entire segment is derailed.”
While initially for class credit for his degree, Johnston kept going with OU Nightly. He enjoyed his time there, while meeting people and learning a lot about broadcast production.
Johnston has done a lot in his time here at OU. From working on projects for his classes and getting experience outside, through OU ECCI and OU Nightly, he is a case of learning through his degrees and putting his skills into practice. Whether it be broadcasting, filming or editing footage.
“It’s been fun. I enjoy my major a lot. Met a lot of cool people. I love editing. That’s what I want to do.”
