Newscast revived for new school year
Westview newscast anchors Deb Flores (12) and Anthony Bourus (12) receive feedback from Executive Producer Erika Dukovich (12). Now a 4th period class, the cast consists of 22 students editing and creating a 15-minute production consisting of seven segments. The newscast premieres today during homeroom.
As David Altman (12) connected his video camera to his computer, he kept his fingers crossed hoping that this time, his video footages would produce some kind of sound. Not wanting to reformat all the videos that other people had tried so hard to produce, Altman had to rely on his video-editing skills to give the videos their voices back.
These videos, written, filmed and edited by 22 students, were part of the first episode of Westview News (WVN), which debuts today.
“Having the newscast is something that Mrs. Kastner has been wanting for a long time and I wanted a class to teach beyond just my drama classes, so we sent out an email and had any students who were interested come and join,” adviser Doug Smith said.
The WVN staff consists of actors, technical producers and writers interested in keeping students updated with news.
Because there are seven segments, including a sports scene to cover the fall sports and a local music scene to cover all the local bands and venues, people with various interests were needed.
“We have a mesh of students who are all interested in different things, but they’ve come together to focus on just this one newscast,” Altman said. “And [we] all joined staff not only because it sounded interesting to them, but also because it’s a creative outlet for them.”
For the first episode, there was a special scene to commemorate 9/11.
“It was pretty important that we highlight 9/11 because it wasn’t something that we could just ignore,” Smith said. “In doing that segment, the reporters got some tremendous interviews from students on how they remembered that day.”
Having students from diverse groups on campus allows for a variety of ideas.
In the first days of school, the staff members gathered to suggest ideas for any segment, whether it be about sports, music or staff members.
“It’s a Socratic environment,” Altman said. “It’s a democratic process, so every idea that we’ve thrown out, almost every person in the class had some kind of contribution to it.”
With these ideas, the producers of each segment meet with three or four other staff members and together, they write a storyboard.
After the writing comes the filming process. The reporters set out across campus to interview students about current events, ASB activities and students’ basic interests. All this is filmed with a video camera brought by one of the staff members. Because WVN lacks any funding, the members have to volunteer their equipment from home.
In order to raise money for cameras, microphones and more equipment, WVN has thought about running commercials whether it be between shots or at the end of the newscast. But because homeroom is only 15 minutes long and episodes are planned to run for most of that time, the staff wants to look to other sources for money.
“We started with ideas and a lot of enthusiasm, but no equipment,” Smith said. “We know that the Westview Foundation is supporting technology this year, so we hope that we can be on their ‘shopping list’ for technology to help us become successful.”
In order to help achieve this success, WVN is looking for a fresh perspective on everyday school activities.
“We’ll start out with basic school news at first,” Altman said. “But as we progress through the year, it’ll get harder to think of ideas, especially with The Nexus, so we’re going to try to cover things that they don’t cover.”
In coming weeks, WVN plans on producing an episode every two weeks, eventually turning into a weekly event.
“Our long-term goal is to get that weekly broadcast, and be able to do it live,” Smith said. “If you can get a live broadcast, that’s true television news.”
During the past three weeks in developing the first episode, many of the WVN members learned their roles on staff, as well as their responsibilities.
“The first time you do something like this, it’s a tremendous learning curve,” Smith said. “Everybody has different interests: some people want to write, some want to interview and some want to edit film. Because we’re so new, we have to make those discoveries.”
By using the interests of members on staff, WVN hopes to appeal to students with similar passions.
“We want to make a newscast where people are interested in what’s going on at school,” Altman said. “We not only want to make it watchable, but also interesting, where students have some kind of reason to watch. We are going to cover everybody’s and anybody’s interests.”
The anchors, Deb Flores (12) and Anthony Bourus (12), were selected through an open audition process. The two will introduce each segment from the studio of the theater.
“People who do a good newscast, especially anchors, are talented not only because they keep you informed, but also because they have an ability to keep you interested,” Altman said. “We as a staff, are hoping to become that type of newscast for Westview students.”