News

St. Michael High School added multimedia and broadcasting to its already well-rounded list of class electives over the 2021-2022 school year. Now in its second semester, the class is well underway with event livestreams and a preliminary YouTube broadcasting channel.

Multimedia class teacher Brittany Watkins ‘97, says that this elective has been in the works for a couple of years now, having gained its footing from when St. Michael first began streaming and announcing at home football games in 2020. “When we started live streaming some of our sporting events and Coach Craig Saylor took on announcing at the home football games, we immediately began talking about how to get the student body involved,” explains Mrs. Watkins. “We knew we wanted to expand the whole process to include more and give our students the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of production and broadcasting.”

Mrs. Watkins, who majored in Mass Communications at Southeastern, has five years of experience with the news station industry from Channel 9 as well as LPB. She explains that the newly implemented multimedia curriculum is based off of her professional experiences as well as content that is taught in college courses.

Already this year the class has been able to live stream numerous sporting events as well as every school liturgy. A Halloween spirit video and hype video for fall sports has also been created. The first school-wide broadcast for the student body was released last month. “They are learning the basics right now,” mentions Mrs. Watkins. “The goal next year is to come out the gate running and produce regularly scheduled broadcasts, stream as many events as we can, and begin building a wide database of video content to pull from.” The class is also expected to begin helping with school-published videos as well as video editing and content next school year. “By next year, my current students will have had a full year of fundamentals under their belt, and we will have better equipment. The second-year students will be more comfortable in front of the camera, and they will be able to teach the new students that join the class,” she explains. “I want them to all learn from each other and to be extremely hands-on next year.”

Junior Angelique Deville admits she has always been interested in videography, so she was excited to hear that St. Michael was adding this elective. “I have always been interested in multimedia production and I thought this class could teach me a lot,” she explains. “I think these are good skills to have for the future. We are learning how to get certain shots, how to edit videos, and all the rules of news broadcasting. Because of this foundation, we will have the skills to succeed in certain college courses and we will also be able to make videos on our own.”

St. Michael’s multimedia elective, open to sophomores through seniors, has already proven to have a multitude of applications for students involved in the class. A remodeled broadcasting room is in the works for next school year with help from the school’s annual auction proceeds. A multimedia cub, open to any student who might be interested in the basics, will also come to fruition next year. Meanwhile, you can check out and subscribe to the class’s private YouTube channel by watching their first broadcast here.