Sunday, June 21, 2015

We can't all be the FACE!

In addition to the yearbook and a newspaper, which is published by our town's local newspaper, I advise The Hive, which is a daily broadcast of HHS announcements along with "That Friday Show," which is a feature package on...you guessed it...Fridays.  Yearbook is a lot of work, newspaper is a lot of work, broadcast..you get the idea.  I have found that, while recruiting students for my programs, by far, we have the most interest in The Hive.  Everyone wants to be a star, right?

Well, not everyone.

See, video production as a metaphor is a body, and even though the masses are drawn in because they want to be "The Face" of The Hive, there are many other important faculties that represent this body.

I would compare editing video to the mouth of the body.  This is because it is often through editing that we are able to bring out the message that we are trying to tell our audience. Some of my students are really fed by the creativity involved in editing video.  They love to sit down in front of a screen that the majority of the students in our school would not have any idea what to make of.  I think they are romanced by the power of Adobe, and she is a sexy beast, is she not?  Anyway, video editing is certainly fun and challenging, which makes it a great fit for a certain group of students who don't mind being the "mouth." I mean that in a good way!

But, even before video editing, there is the reporter, the one who goes out and gets the story, interviews the subjects, and has the sometimes difficult conversations.  These are the "feet" of the production team.  The ones who actually GO and gather the story and return with the bounty to be poured over.  The feet are critical to the team.

The students who get the least amount of glory for their efforts with regard to "the public" are probably "The Hands" of the production team.  These are the writers.  The ones who carefully craft just the right words together to tell the story in the best way possible.  The "hands" or writers, are almost never glory hounds.  They are the ones who love words.  They are just as energized by developing the perfect phrasing as you would imagine a sports fan after a winning point is scored.  It's the words that drive them, not the fame.  They are propelled by the thought of telling stories in a way that grabs and pulls the reader in.  They are the hands.

Lastly, in my experience there are a special group of students I like to refer to as "the heart." They are the ones who do it all.  When something goes wrong with an interview and your deadline is rocketing toward you, they are there.  They will do whatever it takes to pull off the impossible because they believe in the product and they identify as the product.  They want, not only to succeed, but for the brand to succeed as well.  They are all in.

So to those watching, we are much more than just a pretty face.  Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I had to say that!  We are a collective body of broadcast journalists all working together to produce the news, and we take this seriously!

Check out the following video where one of our "faces" asks for volunteers to help defecate for prom!  We are nothing, if not 100% professional.


2 comments:

  1. I love your analogy! It is so true that every person is important to the production. I will definitely use your examples to explain to my students this same concept.

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  2. As long as the video isn't of another promposal, I can get behind defecating for prom.

    Steve Elliott
    Arizona State University
    Phoenix

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