On Tuesday March 12, the Video Production Club went on a trip to participate in the Student Television Network (STN) convention that took place in Long Beach, California.
In addition to competing in video contests, the students went to tour the Warner Brothers Studio and visit the famous Hollywood sign, followed up by a visit to Huntington Beach.
VPC competed in a variety of video contests against other schools from across the nation.
“At STN we had 3 Crazy 8’s teams which were Vertical Short Film, Short Film, and Documentary. The award we received for Crazy 8’s was an Honorable Mention (5th Place) for our Vertical Short Film submission labeled “The Long Way Down,” junior VPC member Victoria Ruane said.
In addition, the Wildcat-TV morning show award earned a Silver Medal for being in the Silver Excellence Division of Morning Shows.
For most of the contests, students had 6-8 hours to film and edit their videos.
During the event students could create a variety of projects including commercials and movie trailers for their project. Hundreds of schools attended to compete in this.
“For our other contest we do, we had 8 different teams competing in Music Video, Sports Editing Promo, Personal Vlog, Short Film, Silent Film, Movie Trailer, Commercial, and lastly, Human Interest Feature Story,” Ruane explained.
The group filmed in public parks and showed them trading the pin with people. The group got to experiment with close ups of the pin and blurry shots
While making commercials with requirements given by the STN convention our team was able to make up our own story and film almost anywhere in the studio.
The trip was a blast for the students that competed in the STN Convention but how was the overall trip to long beach?
Senior member Dominique Baker says, “It’s pretty fun and you actually get to learn things. I would definitely recommend the trip for video students because there is a lot of valuable experience gained from competing.”
Ruane agrees and says she’s grown over the years through her experiences.
“The past 2 years I have competed on the Vertical Short Film team and both years we have won an award! It’s really rewarding receiving recognition after dedicating 8 hours of hard work into making a film. Going from my first year being Boom Operator (audio), to directing this years, is super amazing to me!”
After the convention the students got to have a day exploring Long Beach California and enjoying the time left that they had.
The night was planned to have a party between all the schools but was ultimately cancelled by a shooting that occured that very night.
The students remained fine and the trip stayed in motion.
Hayden Pugh says, “I recommend this trip to new students and anybody who hasn’t tried Wildcat news.”
“I think my most enjoyable moment was making videos with my brother and friends.”
With a pizza party celebration afterwards the students went to the beach to relax for the long trip that they had back.
After the trip to Long Beach the group still had enough time to make a trip to the observatory. At the observatory the group was able to see the giant telescope and the view the stars and constellations
With a relatively laid back plane experience and only, “Long on the way back,” says Dominique Baker the vacation comes to a close.
The trip to the California gave the team more experience on video production and how they can stretch out their interests and career paths
