Lights, Camera, Careers: UofL Film Showcase Features Students Building Professional Portfolios

April 14, 2025 

By Stephanie Godward, Communications and Marketing Director, College of Arts & Sciences 

Jai’Michael Anderson’s work towards achieving his goal of becoming a multimedia journalist will be featured this April 17 at the Communication Department’s Film Showcase, where a piece he created around last year’s Kentucky Derby will be presented.  

“The actual Derby was taking place and so there were a few trainers at Churchill Downs that we were able to talk to; we talked to Steve Asmussen and Kenny McPeek, who actually ended up winning the Derby with Mystic Dan,” Anderson said. “We discussed their past experiences with the Derby because I think they had both been close to winning before, as well as what they thought of their horses, their odds, and everything else. It was really fun.”  

Anderson is a junior communication major with a minor in public health, and also serves as the news editor at the Louisville Cardinal campus newspaper. As a native Louisvillian, it was a thrill to have the chance to create a story about the 150th Kentucky Derby, and to interview the trainers.  

“It was crazy because my mom used to work at the Derby Museum, so as a kid, I would be there sometimes on the weekends when she couldn't find anybody to watch me,” Anderson said. “So, during that class, my 8-year-old self was like, whoa, this is crazy!”  

While he has focused on writing and photography, delving into video is important to him in order to achieve his career goals. Anderson said the courses he has taken in the program have helped him to do just that, especially because they create opportunities for hands-on learning.  

“I think one of the best teachers is just straight up experience,” Anderson said. “It has helped me to make a lot of mistakes, view those mistakes, critique my videos, and learn from them rather than just attending lectures or reading a textbook for hours.” 

Chloe Ochs, a communication major with a minor in film studies who graduated in December 2024, is now Technical Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, serving as a Public Affairs Specialist doing photo & broadcast journalism for military affairs. Some of the creative work that she filmed and edited as a student will also be featured at the film showcase event.  

Crazy was the very first video she created at UofL. Inspired by the psychological twists of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, the film explores the experience of following and empathizing with a main character—only to discover they’ve been mentally ill all along.  

Ochs’s second film, Waiting on My Coffee, is a personal favorite and has garnered the most online attention. It was featured on film professor Ralph Merkel’s YouTube channel and has racked up over 37,000 views to date. Both pieces showcase her interest in complex storytelling and their emerging talent as a filmmaker. The third piece is called Teleport, showcasing again her desire to play with camera work. 

“I'm really interested in forcing a viewer's perspective, and so with that one, I tried to put the viewer in one setting and the goal was to try to make them forget that. I like playing tricks on the viewer. I think that is really my goal with creative work,” Ochs said.   

Ochs has been serving for more than eight years, seeing deployments to the Middle East and West Africa, taking full advantage of UofL’s distance education opportunities during time away. One of the most challenging aspects of the courses for Ochs was setting aside her prior experience to open herself to new lessons and experiences.  

“I already had a lot of experience in camera work and in video editing in my tool belt. I started when I joined the Air Force right out of high school and I've been working as a broadcast journalist for them for going on 9 years now. So, I did go into the minor with a lot of hands-on, practical experience, but I think there's something very, very valuable about going back to the basics and reestablishing the foundation of basic camera principles,” Ochs said. “I found it really valuable in the way that Ralph Merkel gave us so much creative freedom.” 

The Communication Department Film Showcase takes place at 6 PM on Thursday, April 17 at Speed Cinema in the Speed Art Museum.