{"id":14321,"date":"2015-03-26T12:38:17","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T16:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/news\/article.php?ArticleID=14321"},"modified":"2018-09-06T14:48:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T18:48:50","slug":"14321_business-italian-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/2015\/03\/26\/14321_business-italian-style\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Italian Style – NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"

When in Montclair, do business as the Italians do! In fall 2014, 18 Montclair State University students from the Business Italian course and two students from the University\u2019s School of Communication and Media were able to do just that with the groundbreaking \u201cBusiness Italian Style<\/a>\u201d project.<\/p>\n

The students enjoyed a unique opportunity to link their study of Italian language and culture to New York City-based \u201cMade in Italy\u201d businesses by preparing, conducting, producing and editing interviews with prominent Italian entrepreneurs and creators in the design, fashion, art and food worlds. The result: four subtitled video interviews and related articles published in the daily Italian language online newspaper, La Voce di New York<\/a><\/em>, that have received more than 100,000 views since they were published in February 2015.<\/p>\n

View student videos and articles on La Voce<\/em>, focusing on design<\/a>, fashion<\/a>, art<\/a> and food<\/a>.
\n
\nAn Interdisciplinary Project<\/strong><\/p>\n

Montclair State\u2019s Italian Program<\/a>, housed in the Department of Spanish and Italian,\u00a0 is ranked as the largest in New Jersey and the fifth largest in the country by the most recent Modern Language Association survey.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur program is interested in devising innovative ways of teaching and doing research that align with today\u2019s globalized world,\u201d says Teresa Fiore, associate professor and Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies<\/a>, who spearheaded \u201cBusiness Italian Style.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought of asking people in various professional fields about the role of Italian language and culture in their work,\u201d Fiore recalls. She reached out to Maurita Cardone, deputy editor of La Voce di New York<\/em>, which focuses on Italian and Italian-American news and culture, about circulating brief video interviews online. \u201cWhen my department colleague Enza Antenos made her Business Italian class available to the project and when Giuseppe Malpasso, a filmmaker from Art Motion Picture agreed to provide feedback on filming, everything fell into place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students, who were divided into four topic teams \u2013 design, fashion, art and food \u2013 attended preparatory workshops led by Cardone and Malpasso, before researching their topics. Under the guidance of Antenos, they then crafted sets of questions in Italian for interviewees in each sector, who were chosen by Cardone. The interviews were conducted over two days in both New York City and New Jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe project gave us the chance to be in places that we would not otherwise have access to like prominent designer Gaetano Pesce\u2019s one-of-a-kind studio,\u201d says Italian major Emilia D\u2019Albero. \u201cThe project was incredibly engaging and really opened me up to new opportunities that I had never thought existed. As an Italian-American I was proud to see the culture of my ancestors\u2019 homeland represented so strongly in one of the world\u2019s most important cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Made In Italy<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe way Italians do business is very similar all over the world,\u201d says Italian major and Milan, Italy, native Serena Pederiali. \u201cFor me, the biggest benefit of this project was getting involved with businesses that spread and believe in the \u2018Made in Italy\u2019 brand, which stands for quality, creativity, artisanship, style and innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each group of students created a subtitled video and an article in Italian that were published in La Voce<\/em> on consecutive weeks during February. In interviewing designer Gaetano Pesce and Federico Materazzi, the vice president of Poltrona Frau Americas, the design team explored the influence of Italian design, while the food team learned about imported and freshly prepared Italian foods through interviews with Sabbia Auriti from the N Beverage Group and Eolo and Pastai Restaurant owner Melissa Daka.<\/p>\n

Art team students talked with Highline Art director Cecilia Alemani and Center of Modern Italian Art director Laura Mattioloi about the role of modern and contemporary Italian art in the U.S. Fashion designer Tiziano Zorzan and Alberto Milani, CEO of Buccellati Americas, shared insights about Italian style and its adaptability to the American market with the fashion team.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness Italian Style\u201d is a hit.\u00a0 \u201cThe four-part series as a whole received more than 40,000 views on La Voce<\/em> by the second week in March,\u201d says Antenos, an expert in foreign language learning and technology. \u201cThe immediacy of the delivery mode and the wide online dissemination among an ever-broadening audience makes the project so much more meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, journalists and educators who are interested in using a similar format for stories and courses in Italian studies have been in touch.<\/p>\n

Filmmaking Italian Style<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following the advice of Malpasso, student filmmakers Omar Portilla \u201914 and Jarrett Strenner did the bulk of the filming.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got involved in this project because as a major in television and digital media who has been taking Italian courses as part of my minor, I thought it would expand my knowledge in both fields,\u201d says Strenner, who helped in both the production and post-production aspects of the project. \u201cOn the production side, I helped film some of the interviews and footage. Then, when it came to post-production, I became the person doing all the final edits to the video.\u201d He also came away with a newfound respect for the challenges of subtitling during the post-production process.<\/p>\n

Italian major Angelene Agresta, who hopes to become a professional subtitler, subtitled the video interviews. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy, but it was definitely my favorite part of the project. When translating, you need to take into account how many words need to be put onto the screen and for how long,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s important that you subtitle concisely so as not to lose the audience\u2019s attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

D\u2019Albero, who graduated in January 2015, hopes to become a translator. She gained invaluable experience by helping to transcribe, subtitle and edit the interviews. She also translated the food and art articles from Italian into English for La Voce<\/em>.
\n
\nReal-World Learning<\/strong><\/p>\n

To Fiore and Antenos, two of the most important goals of the project were to provide students with an innovative real-world learning experience and a dynamic approach to learning a language. \u201cLearning to work as part of a team was as important to the students, as having the opportunity to interact with professionals,\u201d Fiore says.<\/p>\n

Strenner particularly appreciated the hands-on learning experience. \u201cFor me, this project gave me more experience in working on and producing a video in a more professional setting and on a professional deadline,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cI entered this project with only the knowledge of the Italian language. I didn\u2019t know anything about Italian or American business, interviewing, film editing or journalism. I feel like this project and class has allowed me to get my foot in the door,\u201d says Agresta. \u201cI don\u2019t know where it will lead me in the future, but I feel that it\u2019s definitely a start of something big.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students team up with leading NYC-based \u201cMade in Italy\u201d businesses for media project<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":114321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,17,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-20_chss-news","category-230_inserra","category-88_italian-news-and-events","category-235_school-of-communication-and-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208941,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14321\/revisions\/208941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/inserra-chair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}