Cornerstone filmmakers had much to celebrate on Saturday, April 5.

The third annual MACE Awards took place at Celebration Cinema in a theater full of students of all majors and years. There they watched work completed in the last year, and heard a surprising announcement.

“We were able to secure a gift from an anonymous donor of a six-figure [donation] for the media department [to purchase] equipment,” Pete Muir said.

The news was met with enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

Muir later expressed his appreciation for the gift as he said, “[It’s] so generous, unbelievably generous.” Paul Baker and Dave Anderson headed the work in securing the donation, and it came at the right time, Muir said.

Soon Muir will be “looking at ways to utilize money,” he said. He plans to attend the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Conference with one purpose in mind. He will research what current technology is available as well as what it costs for the media department to stay in-step with industry standards.

Students involved in the winning films had two minutes to give their acceptance speeches, modeled after the Oscars.

Senior Brad Porter shared his appreciation for his roommates and girlfriend who have dealt with the time and space commitments of filmmaking.

Media students submitted work done within the last year in several categories. The winners included “Tetelestai” for Best New Film and Best Direction, a piece on the Writer’s Guild Strike for Best News or Documentary and “The Runner” won Best Promotional or Church Media.

“Rewind” won for Best Editing, “Pending Termination” won Best Cinematography and “Grudge Match” was voted Best Film.

Junior Rick “Alaska” Cornfield shared how they created a stage for “Grudge Match.”

“We re-created the gym mat floor with the backs of carpet remnants we found in the RBC [building on campus.] We got there, and a couple of our plans had already fallen through; we basically looked for what we had and put them down,” Cornfield said. “There were a lot of them and we ended up using all of them.”

Cornfield is a part of the larger group collectively known as Light Club, whose members were responsible for many of the entries and inserts throughout the night.

The people involved in the voting process included a combination of media faculty and student government representatives. Muir acknowledged that narrowing down entries was difficult. “There was spirited debate,” Muir said. “People see all different things in different movies.”

Muir ended the night with appreciation to everyone that attended. “If no one watches our films, it’s kind of a lonely existence,” Muir said. Thankfully, neither Muir nor the media students have to fear inadequate equipment for future filmmaking.