When Kyle Martin, ’07, an aspiring screenwriter and director, conceived the idea for A Male’s Guide to Break Room Romance, a comedy about dating, he still had to pitch it, write it, and oversee the 10 or so fellow Ball State students who acted, filmed, directed, and otherwise worked on it.

Producing those five minutes of video took hours—but in the end, it was all worth it.

“We got a lot of laughs,” Martin says about the movie screening for the other members of his yearlong Digital Entertainment Option Pilot (DEOP) workshop. “It made all the frustration worthwhile. It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world.”

The DEOP workshop, part of the Institute for Digital Entertainment and Education (IDEE), let telecommunications and theatre students put their creative ideas to work. They learned from industry experts how to use state-of-the-art cameras and technology to create webisodes and film shorts, but those lessons turned into actions when students got into production.

“It’s about learning as you go,” says Rodger Smith, associate professor of theatre and director of IDEE.

And then just going.