A production crew member checks a camera during a location shoot for the HGTV series “Log Cabin Living” in Conifer. Two Conifer High School students got the chance to shadow the crew as part of their student media coursework. (Photo courtesy Forrest Czarnecki)
By Jack Maher, Multimedia Journalist, and Devan Crean, Marketing & Communications Specialist, Jeffco Public Schools
All school year long, the deadlines never stop for the staff of Conifer High School’s student newspaper, The Lobo Legend. That’s a good thing, since these young journalists have so much ambition to burn through. That applies not only to the student reporters, photographers, and editors, but to their adviser, Leslie Thompson, who also oversees Conifer’s yearbook, and the school’s broadcast news program, Lobo Trax.
“I think they’re going to learn best, and I think I’m going to learn best with them, when we’re thrown into the thick of things,” said Thompson.
Thompson is all about connections and networking, to get her students exposed to all kinds of storytelling.
“As I’ve [been on] this journey, I’ve made friends in a variety of industries and I’m going to keep calling on those friends and ask them if they will help these wonderful kids,” she explained.
That’s even if it’s not journalism with a big J.
Thanks to Thompson, two of her students, seniors Forrest Czarnecki and Ben Easton, were given the chance to shadow a TV production crew from HGTV’s “Log Cabin Living” series. The crew filmed an episode in Conifer, and one of the shoots involved the ice cream store, Liks, that Thompson happens to own.
“They were given the opportunity to sit in with the producers, go over the script, see how they did their scripting, look at it on the tablet, and hear them making decisions about everything that was going to happen,” said Thompson.
It was a phenomenal learning opportunity for these budding filmmakers.
“It definitely helped with seeing how they go about setting the cameras and interacting with each other and other people on the shoot,” explained Easton. “It’s not just one camera person setting up. They sync all their settings and the sound guy is constantly talking to them and letting them know if they’re microphones are working and all this other stuff.”
This bit of behind-the-scenes reality TV left the students impressed, and much wiser about what the process involves, but both seem firmly committed to staying their original career courses.
“Whether or not that’s the way they go, they got a slice of it,” said Thompson.
Watch the JPS-TV version of this story here.