CSN’s Media Programs Are Having a Moment — the Industry Is Taking Notice
It was three days of cameras, creativity, and career-defining conversations. But MediaFest 2026 turned out to be more than just a festival. It was a preview of what CSN’s media programs are quietly, and not so quietly, building into something remarkable.
MediaFest 2026: Three Days, Real Industry Access
From March 31 through April 2, the Henderson campus came alive with industry professionals, packed sessions, and the kind of energy that happens when talented students realize the path forward is closer than they thought. Representatives from Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, RED, Fox 5, NBC Las Vegas, and the Vegas Golden Knights showed up not just to speak, but to demonstrate, share real work, and pull back the curtain on what working in graphics, video, and photography actually looks like.
The sessions were hands-on and honest. Cinematographer Matthew Carmen broke down RED camera workflows and color science. Matt Irving walked through cinematic lighting technique. Chris Jones, senior video producer for the Vegas Golden Knights, gave attendees an inside look at professional sports production. Jonathan Scott, producer and host of Insomniac Television on NBC Las Vegas, and Gene Sugano of Fox 5 and Gene’s Garage TV rounded out a video track that felt less like a lecture series and more like a masterclass from people actively doing the work.
CSN instructors held their own alongside the industry guests. Chuck Lohman led a session on paint speaker bounce photography, while other faculty opened up their creative and technical processes in ways that reminded students that their professors aren’t just teachers. They’re practitioners.
The Short Film Showcase
Tuesday night brought one of the festival’s most anticipated moments: the CSN Short Film Showcase. Student filmmakers screened their work, then sat with the audience to talk about their craft, what they learned along the way, and what they’d tell someone just starting out. It was the kind of conversation you can’t manufacture.
25 Emmy Nominations and Counting
Right around the same time MediaFest was wrapping up, another piece of news was making the rounds internally. CSN’s Videography and Film Program had just received 25 Student Emmy nominations from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Pacific Southwest Chapter. Twenty-five! That’s nearly the program’s own national record of 26 nominations set back in 2017.
The nominated films span fiction, non-fiction, writing, cinematography, editing, directing, and on-screen talent, a sweep of categories that reflects the full range of what students in this program are learning to do. Films like “Buried: Palestine & the Need for Media Literacy,” “CADENCE,” “Elotero,” “Legend Has It: The Gatson,” “Behind The Door,” and “The Attic” earned multiple nominations across categories, with student names like Christina Dietrich, Hisonni Johnson, Ziad Doumani, Nicholas Villafuerte, and Adam Thomas appearing more than once on the nominee list.
A Professor, a Documentary, and a Student Who’s Winning Everything
And then there’s Professor John Aliano, whose fingerprints are all over this program’s success. His documentary “Being Adolph Gasser” — a film about 91-year-old Adolph Gasser, one of the world’s foremost camera repairmen, a World War II veteran, inventor, and best friend of photographer Ansel Adams — has been picked up for worldwide distribution by Indie Rights and is now available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video. Watch it here, or search “Being Adolph Gasser” directly on Amazon Prime Video.
The film has won Best Director at the Rainier Film Festival in Seattle and the Trailblazer Award at the DOCUTAH International Film Festival in St. George, Utah, where the other Trailblazer Award went posthumously to Christopher Reeve for “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.” The company Aliano’s work is keeping speaks for itself.
But perhaps the detail that says the most about what’s happening at CSN right now is this: at that same DOCUTAH festival, Aliano’s former student Hisonni Johnson won Best Student Film for a short documentary he made in Aliano’s CSN Documentary II class. Johnson’s film has now won six film festivals and earned him a spot among the top five finalists in the prestigious international Tyler Perry Dream Collective competition. Teacher and student, winning top awards at the same festival. That doesn’t happen often.
Eric Garner, director of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development at CSN, put it plainly: “This is exactly the kind of achievement that showcases the excellence of CSN’s faculty and reinforces the depth of talent within our academic programs.”
See It Live, Stream It Now
The Student Emmy Awards ceremony is Saturday, May 2, at the Charleston campus library. Come out and cheer on your classmates.
“Being Adolph Gasser” screens locally on Sunday, May 3, at Regal Aliante Theaters inside the Aliante Casino and Hotel in North Las Vegas as part of the Indie Vegas Film Festival.
Between MediaFest, 25 Emmy nominations, a documentary earning international recognition, and a student whose work is turning heads from St. George to Tyler Perry’s desk, CSN’s media programs aren’t just preparing students for the industry. They’re producing people the industry is already paying attention to.
What a moment! Kudos!
