By: The Sketchtastic 7 (aka Paige Galloway, Ali Hunter, Jade Cowper, Shane Marshall, Mike Diamond, Rachel Mueller, Cameron MacDonald)

Mr. Ubriaco, Mr. Swain and Mrs. Ostrander, three advisors of the three different media centers at Galway High School, came together on October 15^th in order to discuss various aspects of the media and help the students learn about working together in order to promote and market our assigned products. One main goal of this conference was to continue to use the Footprint, GTV and Scores Up to help expand the Eagles Media Center (EMC³) outside of the school and into the community.

Throughout the conference we learned interviewing skills, tips on writing editorials, how to make captivating commercials and also intriguing documentaries that include a variety of photos that tell their own story. Students that went to the Columbia Scholastic Press conference in New York City last March, gave us insight on what they were taught during that conference. These students also composed several presentations to help educate us on certain media topics.

Karenna Martin and Lindsey Martin did a presentation on making documentaries that included an interesting video on a man who was obsessed with shoes. Karissa Harrison and Angelina Valente did their presentation on good interviewing techniques. They even portrayed two examples of an interview: one that represented an interview where the questions were thoughtful and allowed the interviewee to answer the questions at their leisure and another that was unfocused and very little information was received.  Karissa said that she “felt satisfied to be involved in trying to make EMC³ a larger product,” when she was asked how it felt to present in front of other students.

Students involved in GTV, Footprint and Scores Up were put into groups and were each assigned a business to promote. They had to follow certain steps in order to successfully complete their commercials. These steps include: brainstorming ideas (which some groups found hard to do), outline some of these ideas on a story board which also included descriptions of each shots that would be included in the commercial, making a slogan, filming their commercial and then editing their footage. Joe English thought the conference was “an extremely successful event” and “creating the advertisement was a really exciting and unique experience.”