After a lifelong passion for sports and media production, Andrea Uglietta wins first place at UURAF with a series of short films on improving parenting
On April 10 2019, the 21st annual University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF) was held to showcase undergraduate research at MSU. Andrea Uglietta, a hockey player with a lifelong commitment to sports and sports media, took first in the Digital Media category for her filmmaking work with Senior Teaching Specialist Amol Pavangadkar and other producers. Together they created a series of short films detailing the work of PMTO. The program aims to help parents strengthen families and prevent the development of conduct problems in children.
Film production was not Uglietta’s first passion. She started off by shooting around hockey pucks at the age of five. This evolved into a 4 year hockey career at MSU and a major in Media and Information. She yearned to capture the very sport she cared about.
“I immediately started looking for jobs in sports production when coming to State as a freshman, and got involved with positions at BTN Student U and Spartan Vision that deepened my passion for sports media.” Uglietta said. “I have always wanted to go into the sports field.”
However, the work that earned her the win at UURAF came at Pavangadkar’s suggestion. She cites him as a large part of her success.
“My professor [Pavangadkar] was a huge inspiration for me. He helped broaden my work from just sports oriented media to pre-production research, participating in professional shoots and post production. I was also really inspired to work on this project because I knew that the parenting program we were creating videos to promote would be a very beneficial program overall,” Uglietta said.
Uglietta took advantage of her time here at MSU by exploring every option she could in order to grow and learn. Through getting hands-on experience with her professors and the Media & Information Department, gaining experience in a pre-production setting and working in a professional atmosphere, she built a foundation for any opportunities she wants to tackle in the future. Uglietta looks forward to continuing her work in sports media.
By John Castro