A TEAMWORK APPROACH EARNS TWO CHSTV STUDENTS NATIONAL RECOGNITION
CHSTV juniors Max Dana and Rory Gallagher have worked together on a variety of stories. A segment they produced in the spring of 2009 was honored by ABC reporter Bob Woodruff. Their story on how the local community is reaching out to veterans of the War in Iraq won both of these student journalists a trip to New York City where they met with Diane Sawyer on the set of Good Morning, America.
Max and Rory have paired up again to produce a piece on a Carlsbad High School student who is an avid spearfisherman.
In this Behind the Story segment, Rory and Max talk about how they find compelling story ideas and their process for bringing these segments to CHSTV.
Their latest story is about Carlsbad High School student Michael Vredenburgh. Michael had recently returned from a scuba diving trip to Mexico and when he shared with Max and Rory that he was also a spear fisher, they knew they had a story.
Michael had already revealed that he was a vegan, and this seemed to be a contradiction- here was a person opposed to eating animal products and yet he was also somebody who participated in a sport that involves killing fish.
Shooting on the beach in Southern California in the fall has its challenges.
According to Rory, "The number one difficulty would have to be when we were physically in the water filming. Not only was the water chilling to our bones, but there was difficulty seeing through the murky water."
Max Dana was the main photographer on this story. "The first thing we do when we film is get all the natural sound we can get. Then we focus more on the "before the action" video. In this story the natural sound and "before the action" video would be combined during the scene where Michael is getting all his spear-fishing gear
Michael Vrendenburgh on a Carlsbad beach
on. The we begin to focus on the actual actions themselves. In this case it would be Michael spear-fishing underwater and practicing his dives. This can also be part of an interview. We try to incorporate a "walkthrough" or a demonstration of what is actually happening in the story such as Michael showing us how to spearfish. Then the basic one on one interview. We used two cameras for this shoot. The non-underwater shots were filmed with a standard Sony HDR-HC7 camera. Now when we began shooting the underwater scenes, we used a rather inexpensive digital camera with a video
recording option. We had a small underwater housing for the digital camera and it worked out perfectly. The video was clear and of high quality," Max said. on. Then we begin to focus on the actual actions themselves. In this case it would be Michael spear-fishing underwater and practicing his dives. This can also be part of an interview. We try to incorporate a "walkthrough" or a demonstration of what is actually happening in the story such as Michael showing us how to spearfish. Then the basic one- on- one interview. We used two cameras for this shoot. The non-underwater shots were filmed with a standard Sony HDR-HC7 camera. Now when we began shooting the underwater scenes, we used a rather inexpensive digital camera with a video recording option. We had a small underwater housing for the digital camera and it worked out perfectly. The video was clear and of high quality," Max said.
To see the story this story on Michael Vrendenburgh, click on the video above.
Max and Rory are currently working on a special segment for the DVD educational release of CHSTV's Holocaust film, "We Must Remember." Their latest story is about Frederick, a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide. To see a pre-release version of their story, click below.
Frederick's Story- Surviving the Rwandan Genocide
CHSTV's popular "Q Restaurant Lancer of the Week" and "Knockout Pizzeria Player of the Week" segments continue to highlight the accomplishments of Carlsbad High School students. Parents, teachers, and students can nominate CHS students for these awards by e-mailing CHSTV staff at chstvlancerweek@aol.com (Lancer of the Week) or dougteach@aol.com (Player of the Week).
CHSTV is the broadcasting program at Carlsbad High School in Carlsbad, California.
