Filming on location
Minooka television students branch into political coverage
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| Tim Wright mans the camera in the in-house studio of Minooka TV at Minooka Community High School on Friday. Wright, along with five of his classmates, covered the Channahon State of the Village address on Thursday. (Herald photo by Heidi Terry-Litchfield) |
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Six of Trent Bontrager’s TV production students went on the road with their teacher Thursday to film the State of the Village address in Channahon.
Corey Davis, Taryn McCoy, Mario Quatraro, Carrie Rickmon, Nathan Sobey, and Tim Wright were six of the 12 students taking the class who were able to go.
Three students manned cameras as others participated in hooking up cables and audio and worked on the production of the event like any news crew would do.
“The class teaches basically how to do things with cameras,” said Davis. “Now when I watch TV or movies I know what is happening behind the scenes.”
While the class often tapes within the confines of their on air studio and within the school where they have complete control over the lighting and situation events like the State of the Village allows them hands on real world experience in the field.
“I like to use the camera; it’s my favorite job,” said Tim Wright. “Following the action (was the hardest part of the State of Village address) because I didn’t know how fast the people being introduced would move or where they would go.”
His job was to capture crowd reaction from the front of the speaking area.
Of the 12 students taking the class this year five hope to go into a career either in front of or behind the camera.
The class provides far more than just running a camera the students said.
All admitted they would not have gone to or watched a State of the Village address had it not been for their class.
Katie Martin, a member of the class, said there are a lot of life lessons learned in the class that is far more relaxed than her AP classes.
The students sitting around the table during the second period class are an unlikely group who respect one another and value each other’s input.
“Some of these kids would not be in the same classes outside my class,” said Bontrager. “Some are AP, some are football players, some are poms, one was even homecoming king.”
Two of the students, Nick Kettman and Sean Cole are involved in Neptune productions and claim it was their skills that helped sway the homecoming vote.
The two got together and shot promotions for Kettman similar to how they shoot promotions for the different teams and events taking place in the school for class.
When a team or individual is going to compete in a state competition the class gets together and produces a promotion to encourage support within the school.
The students are challenged to put together a script, perform and tape the promotion, and have it edited often times the same day.
The promotions are shown in house on the televisions placed throughout the school.
With 12 individual minds having 12 individual thoughts on what they should do the group said surprisingly there is very little contention between them.
“I’m the token person with the worst ideas,” said Martin. “We all throw ideas out there and when someone has a bad idea no one makes them feel bad because we all have bad ideas, and we all have good ideas.”
Visitors to the Village of Channahon Web site will be able to view the video once the class finished the editing process.
The students have been contacted about taping the Minooka’s State of the Village address as well.
