Elena Tran (12) and her team at the Studio 701 internship arrived at Abraxas High School at nine and immediately split up to film their respective assignments. Tran filmed in the school’s unique screen printing, and music classes.
“It was really cool to see kids actually print shirts and go through that process, or to see kids playing guitar,” Tran said. “Some were even creating music on a laptop, figuring out beats and stuff like that.”
Using the industry-level equipment that the interns are provided with, Tran shot B-roll: filler footage that runs in the space between interviews.
“I centered a lot of my shots around interactions between groups of students, or teachers working with students,” Tan said. “ I also think that [having] lots of angles helps as well, such as having shots that are over someone’s shoulder or in between objects [because it] creates something that’s more visually interesting.”
Tran’s love of filmmaking started when she was extremely young; Tran and her friends would stay up late at sleepovers, making iMovies on an iPad for hours. Her interest in telling stories was piqued, and it drove her to develop her filming, interviewing, and editing skills. In sixth grade, Tran decided to attend a film camp.
“[The film camp] was at a very basic level because we were 10, but it was definitely a big upgrade to how we were filming before,” Tran said. “Me and my friends [used to film] on a very clunky iPad, and we would make up zombie apocalypses and things like that.”
While in middle school, Tran acted in the drama program, and then, in ninth grade, joined Westview Newscast. All this cemented her love of filmmaking and eventually led her to be selected for the Studio 701 internship.
“It’s really similar to broadcast journalism at Westview, but for all of Poway Unified,” Tran said. “It’s industry-level equipment and we’re expected to act very professionally.”
Tran was one of eight students selected for a spot making the district’s broadcast. While two adults, teacher Ross Kallen and PUSD Chief Communications Officer Christine Peck, supervise, the students are responsible for creating the broadcast.
The program’s main focus is a series called “Excellence in Education,” showcasing interesting and noteworthy classes and programs at PUSD schools. Most recently, the students have been working on a piece about Abraxas High School.
To prepare for a shoot, the interns begin by discussing topics and narrowing down options for what schools they can cover, what programs they can include, and later, what teachers they can interview.
“For Abraxas, we called up the principal and chatted with him, saying, ‘We are looking for this [kind of story], would this be a good idea or class to showcase?’” Tran said.
After their research, Tran and the others create shot sheets—similar to storyboards—laying out what angles and topics the students need to film. They also make detailed plans of how the shooting day will go, splitting up the students into groups and assigning them different tasks.
“We have a giant spreadsheet of what time we get there, who’s in what team, where we’ll be, what time we meet back up for the interviews and all that,” Tran said.
Some students will film B-roll: the filler shots in between interviews that usually portray the campus or classrooms. Some are reporters who interview, some do camera work, and some are producers.
“We switch around roles every time we work on a new story so everyone has a chance to try out each job or position, so we have knowledge in all of these aspects,” Tran said.
On the day of the Abraxas shoot, November 15th, the students piled all the filming equipment into a car and met at the location, then dispersed to film their parts. Tran filmed B-roll for this shoot.
“Because I wasn’t interviewing, I didn’t know where we would go exactly with the story, so I had to cover a lot of different parts of the school and get a lot of footage, so when we got a specific story, we could fill it in and support it,” Tran said.
Once filming is complete, the students return to Rancho Bernardo High School to edit and assemble the broadcast, which will then be played in board meetings and posted on YouTube.
Tran said that being surrounded by other videojournalists like herself has been both a fun experience and one that offers opportunities for collaboration and growth.
“We’re all very interested in storytelling, and being able to work with people who have that same focus is energizing because you know that these people are on the same track as you,” Tran said.
Working closely with students from different schools, as well as being able to cover all 41 campuses in the district, has opened up a new world of stories for Tran, and she said that her time with Studio 701 has been both gratifying and comprehensive.
“There is so much more in our community; it’s huge,” Tran said. “These schools are all unique, and it’s fun being able to showcase each school’s specialty in a different way. Studio 701 helps us do that.”
