A Behind the Scenes Look at Summit’s Newsblast: A High School Elective
Written by Journalism Activities/Newsblast student, Jenna H.
Jenna is a freshman at The Summit Prep taking the Journalism Activities Class as one of her electives (and also the Newsblast elective). This semester the Journalism Activities class is focusing on social media, blogging, and vlogging.
A white piece of paper on a clipboard is held up in front of the camera. A loud clap is heard, followed by someone saying the timestamp. The anchor on the left glances down at the script, suddenly bursting into fits of laughter. The recording is stopped, the cameraman chuckles, and the piece of paper is held up again.
Video Newsblast is a high school elective held every Thursday morning by Mr. Keech. In this class, students create a daily newscast for The Summit, keeping everyone up-to-date on what’s happening. Still new to the filming and editing process, students on the Newsblast crew are very excited as to how the Newsblast will grow over the course of the year. Many projects are working on expanding the student’s skillset in the filming and editing department. The high schoolers and Mr. Keech put in a great amount of time and effort into their work, especially for only a three minute video.
“Newsblast is one of my favorite electives. This class gives me the chance to use my creative skills at school and do something that I already enjoy doing,” says Verity.
The following is a basic rundown on how a typical Newsblast class goes:
Our class begins with the students listening to Mr. Keech, who usually discusses the day’s objectives. We begin to research, looking through the Raven Report and The Summit website, scouring for information to put in our broadcast. Students begin to put the information in writing, wording out a script.
Once the script is polished, we’re off! As a group, we designate who’s doing what. Students connect the microphones, place the lighting, and set the scene. A few are on screen, others film and clap for audio syncage, some gather clips around the school to go with our segments.
It may take anywhere from a couple of minutes to a whole class period to film, depending on how giggly the anchors are that day, and what all we need to do. The bloopers and mess-ups are one of the things that make the class so enjoyable. We’re still getting the hang of memorizing our lines and not being camera-shy, but students all have an end-goal, and they always have a good time reaching it.
our editing software looks like.
After filming, the clips are shared onto Mr. Keech’s computer. Some edit as we rearrange Mr. Keech’s room. The editing is the most challenging part. Creating captions, synching everything, and coloring backgrounds are just some of the things done in the editing process. It’s a long process, but there’s always a quality finished product.
As our grasp on our technology expands, the Newsblast team hopes that our broadcast will too. A Newsblast video is released every week, and a lot of hard work goes into it! Please check it out on The Summit Facebook page, on the Upper School Blog, on Youtube, or on Twitter!
