Alumni Spotlight — Madelyn (Kime) Wilkime
2010 Cinema and Photography — College of Mass Communication and Media Arts
When you travel, if you wear something with the SIU brand on it you will inevitably run into another alumni.
Saluki pride also extends into the professional sphere, where alumni find each other on a regular basis and often times hold open the doors of opportunity for each other. For Madelyn Wilkime, a chance encounter with another alumni changed the trajectory of her career.
After graduation, photography major Wilkime found work in Los Angeles as a photography studio manager. After a year and a half, she was looking to further her career with a different photography studio when she ran into alumnus, Carli Moloney.
“Carli had been working in an art department, and invited me to come work on one of her projects to see how I liked it. I ended up cleaning up fake blood and dressing the set for a promo for the show “Children’s Hospital.”
Wilkime said she loved the work.
“After that I was hooked, so I left the company I worked for and started freelancing in art department,” Wilkime said.
Art departments are responsible for providing the visual aspects of filmmaking, including everything on a set, as well as the set itself.
Wilkime currently freelances as a Production Designer, which is essentially the director of the art department, on music videos, web series, shorts and commercials, where she interacts with Directors and Directors of Photography (DP) to help create the artistic look of those projects.
“A typical day during the prep of a project means working with your Set Decorator to create mood boards to share with the Director, and making 3-D floor plans in sketch-up to share with the Director, DP and producer,” Wilkime said.
Wilkime says that when a set is ready, the PD and Set Decorator will do a walk through together to make sure the right look has been established and everything will function as needed for the scene.
“For example, if an actress needs to run into a room and start rummaging through a trunk, we will make sure the path is clear and the trunk is dressed and easy to open,” Wilkime said.
Wilkime’s regular day job, however, is as a “set dresser” for the shows Animal Kingdom and Shameless, which are union jobs and grant her health care and a certain guaranteed pay.
“Set Dressers pickup and load in all the items on a set. If it’s a living room, we would load practicals, like couches, rugs, armchairs, art work, lamps, as well as small items like TV remotes and family picture frames. We will also strike all this and return it when the company is done shooting,” Wilkime said.
Wilkime and her husband, Tim Wilkime, who is also an SIU alumni, live in Alhambra, just outside the east Los Angeles city line. They are also working on a short sci-fi film together.
“The short I’m doing with Tim is self-funded, which I made possible by the work I am doing on those shows, and will allow me showcase some aspects of my design work I’ve felt like I have not gotten to yet,” Wilkime said.
Wilkime said she ended up choosing SIU Carbondale as the photography program had more to offer her that other colleges in Illinois, and was more affordable than Colombia in Chicago. She met Tim her freshman year.
“Tim and I met when I was a freshman and he was a sophomore. There is even a video documenting the day we met as we were helping our friend Tom Lareau film an ID for alt.news 26:46,” Wilkime said.
Wilkime lived in Kellogg dorm as a freshman and a Junior and said her favorite thing about her time on campus was the beautiful nature surrounding the school.
“Garden of the Gods and Shawnee National Forest were an incredible backdrop,” she said.
Alumni Spotlight celebrates our Saluki Alumni and their memories of their time at SIU Carbondale. We focus on a different Alumni each week, and publish the feature on Wednesday afternoons on our Blog, and our Facebook and Twitter pages.
If you’d like to be the focus of this weekly feature, or nominate someone to be featured, please get in touch with the SIU Alumni Association, or email us at alumni.siu.edu.
