During the past school year at Suffield High School, the Film and Video program celebrated several achievements of note. As the year came to a close, the hard-working Morning Update crew and anchors honored their graduating seniors who have provided strong leadership over the years as the school continues its distinct tradition of starting each day with a live news and information show for the school community. Segments include talk show clips, updates from our sports center, montages of school events and appearances from many different leaders of school groups. Each of the Morning Update crew members arrives early every day to put together and then present this complex show that requires at least eight crew members plus anchors and other positions to be run. Our seniors were Annika Gustafson, Sophia DiStefano, Ghost Feldmeier, Christina Vega, Anthony Pierce, Violet Fuller and Ianuria Mosneaga.
A periodic feature of the Morning Update show is public service announcements for a variety of purposes. One type is generated through safe driving initiatives, such as the CT DMV Teen Safe Driving video contest. This year, a number of high-quality public service announcements were produced by students in the TV Studio Production and Advanced Film and Video classes, and one of the videos even received an award from all videos submitted across Connecticut. Tyler Bishop and Maddox Tamayo won the honor for “Best Use of Dialogue” and were awarded a prize sponsored by Travelers Insurance at a ceremony in Hartford.
Maddox Tamayo and Tyler Bishop won the honor for “Best Use of Dialogue” award presented by Travelers Insurance Company.
For another genre of short form video created in advanced video production classes, students produce news features for the Connecticut Student News program run by Fox61. Suffield students have produced many stellar award-winning projects over the years, and this year added a number of excellent pieces selected for broadcast and which can easily be found by a quick online search.
Daniel Gleason created a very distinctive piece titled “Honoring Connecticut’s Sacrifices During the Civil War” that stemmed from his own profound interest in American history. Christina Vega, who received a number of awards for her communications skills during her senior year, crafted a portrait of Kent Memorial Library in “Suffield’s Library is the Beating Heart of the Community.”
There were two other Student News projects that were honored by being selected for broadcast and that revolved around outstanding programs right at Suffield High School. Daniel Craig and Thomas Roberts produced a feature on the Suffield High School band trip to Disney World last April, while Madelyn Richter produced a piece on the hallowed Suffield bi-annual tradition of Ag Expo.
For the new school year, students will continue to take advantage of these opportunities and more, including producing their own fiction shorts from original scripts. We look forward to a new year filled with a dynamic, diverse range of projects successfully produced by students in the film and video classes at Suffield High School.