By Grayson Zoller
For the first two periods of school, they’re working around the clock to get a show together. This is what the start of the morning looks like for the Eagle Zone News team.
These students are dedicated to providing a news broadcast and other video related projects each and every day.
They start by assigning roles at the beginning of a two-week schedule. The first and second period classes are divided among working for the daily broadcast or for their longer-form, feature story broadcast, Wingin’ It, which releases on social media.
Both the daily show and Wingin’ It are available at dhseagleseye.com.
For the EZN broadcasts, the roles are divided into script writing teams, the people who will be on camera, teleprompter operator (a teleprompter is a device that allows for a script to be read while maintaining eye contact with a camera), videographers, and a daily producer who picks the topics that will be covered by interview teams that day.
They edit the clips recorded by the newscasters, interviews, and anything else that needs to go into the show and put them together in iMovie to make one complete recording.
They’re able to get the show out every day before third period so that teachers can show it to their classes during fourth period.
On the other hand, there’s Wingin’ It. The longer form show takes longer to produce, and there have been 15 editions produced this year.
They cover three or four feature stories and tend to be around 10 minutes in length.
Another thing that the team has been working on is the Discover Delta series of videos, which are short, informative, public relations videos that promote the various departments available at the school. These were targeted for current eighth-graders to help them select schedules for next year.
But what do the students of the class think?
Senior Logan Drown has been on the EZN team since junior year. He decided to join because it sounded fun, and he’s been on the crew as an editor ever since.
His favorite thing he’s done with EZN is a skit related to the 2019 “Storm Area 51” phenomenon.
“It teaches you how to speak better and how to be more comfortable in front of people,” Drown said.
Senior Cody Howard joined the class this year because he had heard from friends that it was a fun class. His favorite part of the class is the Wingin’ It show.
A common thread between a lot of the EZN crew was their praise for the class and the recommendation to join it. Both Drown and Howard said the class is a fun time and highly recommend it.
Senior Mario Lopez also “100 percent recommends” taking the class, saying it’s really cool to be a part of it. One time he served as news anchor, sports anchor and weather anchor all in the same day.
Now that you know a little bit more about the school’s daily news show and what goes into it, maybe you have a little more appreciation for the effort these students are putting in each and every day.
