Freedom Area High School's Student Newspaper

FHS Press

Freedom Area High School's Student Newspaper

FHS Press

Freedom Area High School's Student Newspaper

FHS Press

DTV haters: behind the scenes

“3, 2, 1…. action! Every day here at Freedom High School starts out the same way. You arrive at school, go to your locker, pal around with your friends for a few minutes and go to class. At the beginning of second block, you are greeted with a different song of the day and an announcer asking you to rise for the pledge and pay attention to Dawg TV— DTV for short. DTV is a collaborative effort that is put together each day for the enjoyment of the student body. Unfortunately, like many of the organizations and clubs at Freedom, it is less than appreciated. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard negative comments in the halls or in the classrooms about DTV: “stupid” and “pointless” are those most often thrown around about the program. Hearing negativity in the halls of Freedom High School is nothing new. I have to admit that even I partake in a little negativity now and then. Unfortunately, this negativity is coming from people that have absolutely no knowledge of what it takes to actually put on a show. DTV is a daily effort among the students and teachers around the school. We as members of DawgTV have to gather all of the new emails and announcements and decide what will be in the show that day. After a combined effort from the producer and the computer operator, the announcements must be made. Visual images make the announcements more memorable and visually appealing to the kids. New announcements have to be made every day, and they must be exciting enough to catch the eye of the student. After handing out assignments to the students of DTV, they begin making the announcements. Photoshop, After Affects, and Sony Vegas are all abuzz with the daily news for FHS. Once these images are prepped and ready they are sent over to the computer operator of the day. They are responsible for putting the show together and in the right order by using a program called Visual Communicator. Once the show is up and ready to go, it goes through a trial run. We run all of the announcements, pictures, and videos to make sure that the show will be running smoothly. When all DTV members are sure that all of the kinks are worked out, we record the final show. After the show is prepped, rehearsed and recorded, all in 80 minutes, it is ready to be shown to the world. Just like any other team, club or organization, DTV is a collaborative effort that takes time and effort to make. I understand that it might not be cool for kids to actually have enthusiasm about something. I’m not asking you to jump up and down every time you see the DTV logo pop up on the screen, I just ask that you have a little more enthusiasm for the people that work hard to make a show for you.