Emmys Foundation chooses mass media professor Jim Dufek as faculty fellow

Dr. Jim Dufek, professor of mass media at Southeast Missouri State University, received a rare honor by being one of 20 professionals chosen to go to Los Angeles by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation, the foundation that created the Emmy Awards, for a faculty seminar.

The foundation's faculty seminar provides educators the "opportunity to see how primetime entertainment works behind-the-scenes," according to emmysfoundation.org.

"I submitted my papers and I was accepted as a faculty fellow," Dufek said. Twenty faculty around the country were accepted to be fellows. They fly us out, they put us up in a hotel and then the entire week is documented in a full three-ring binder of activities. Every hour of every day almost is divided into meeting professionals. So the seminar fellows are a variety of faculty from around the country that are given this opportunity to meet people in the television industry. We took tours of major production studios, Warner Brothers and Paramount, and then we met faculty professionals from the industry."

Dufek explained that the board of governors of the academy reviewed each application while he and the rest of the fellows thought that it was foundation members.

"You apply and you have to go through letters and vita and stuff. Then they have, I think, a three-month bidding process to see who is eligible," Dufek said. "Then the board of governors meet and they choose the 20 because when I went to one of the functions I met one of the board of governors and she says 'Oh I know who you are.'

'How do you know who I am?,' Dufek replied. "She said. 'Oh I went through your papers. I know who you are.'"

Dufek applied to be a fellow for this year's seminar during the summer and was accepted two months before the seminar. Dufek remained in contact with the foundation on a weekly basis until he left for the trip.

During the seminar Dufek had the opportunity to meet and make contacts with many Hollywood producers and go on a few sets.

"I think my favorite [part] was being able to be on set. We were on set with John Schafter, who does all of the production design for 'Big Bang,' 'Two and a Half Men,' 'Mike and Molly,' He did the design work for Conan [O' Brien], for Arsenio [Hall], he did the design work for the Republican National Convention, for the Emmy's," Dufek said.

"He was just doing the design work for the American Music Awards, and he was telling us about needing to design something for Katy Perry. He was telling us that they had an entire thing designed for Katy Perry where she wanted things to come down, and it was a week before it started, this is the week we were there, he said she wanted to do something completely different. She wanted a Japanese theme. It was on last week, and I turned it on and watched, and he explained in detail what he wanted to do, and then I watched it as it just came and unfolded. That was pretty cool."