Memoir

Mass Media Arts and Journalism

My nerves kicked in as we waited to start the Telethon.  I couldn’t believe that I, Kelsie Gestrich, was a part of such an important event.  It was 6:30 a.m. and one hundred tv productions students filled the small television studio.  As the lights were on, the room began to get hotter and hotter.  As the music played to start the show, the other hosts and I tried to dance to the music to work away our butterflies, but I knew only speaking would help them subside.  After I completed the beginning the show, my nerves were much more manageable.  The butterflies were still there, but to no degree that they were before.  During every interview, I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want this to end!’  I suddenly knew, this is the most life-changing experience of my life and I have to take full advantage of this opportunity.  The show ended up being a complete success.  There were minimal mistakes and our end result of raising $46,000 was more than ever raised in the past.  The writing of the script and rehearsals came together and made me realize the hard work was definitely worth the final product.

How was I supposed to know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life at the age of eighteen?  Luckily, my high school forced us to have a few possibilities just half way through our senior year.  As a graduation requirement, we are forced to job shadow a career that interested us, and create a 20 page project on this chosen career.  Lucky for me, I played a large role in my Television Productions classes and my teacher was able to contact Mike Clark, WTAE News Anchor, who allowed me to shadow a typical 11 o’clock newscast.  Some events took place throughout my senior year that convinced me to pursue a Communication major at Clarion University.

Deciding on a life-long career can be a stressful burden.  My parents have been wanting me to make a choice of a major for most of my high school career.  I was worried about making an irrational decision, causing me to someday hate my job.  I want to be able to wake up wanting to go to work everyday.  I wanted to make a college commitment  based on the major of my choice.  As my SAT scores came back from each testing date, I felt the time running out.  Stress began to take over my life, and my anxiety attacks came back to haunt me stronger than ever.  I toured many colleges throughout the summer before my senior year, but I was still unable to pick a school without knowing what I wanted to major in.  The decision has been brought up in conversation, but I had always said I had time to think about it before I needed to make a decision.  I knew the truth was I didn’t have much time if I wanted to apply early.  Once senior year rolled around, I realized I need to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life.

The first nerve-racking event that took place in my senior year was the Buy-A-Guy Auction.  This event is a fundraiser for Make-A-Wish that takes place every year.  Being a part of the National Honor Society, I was able to become a committee head for this auction.  The Buy-A-Guy Auction is an event where the senior boys dance and embarrass themselves by performing for those who attend.  This takes place in the evening and all are welcome to attend the humorous event.  Girls of any grade are allowed to bid after the performance and all of the money goes to the Make-A-Wish foundation.  This took hours of helping the boys create their dances and skits.  Many days after school were spent creating the opening act of all of the boys doing a dance together.  I was also in charge of writing the brochure which involved typing out each biography and creating pages that would be appealing to the audience.  One terrible day, I was finishing the brochure and a pop-up came onto the computer screen.  Being impatient, I clicked “ok” and little did I know, that click deleted everything on my flash drive, including the finished brochure.  After some tears and vulgar words, I began to write the brochure from scratch again.  Adding more hours into this hard work was something that I didn’t have time for.  Finally, the big day was here.  The auditorium was decorate with stars, containing each of the boys‘ pictures.  Streamers were hung from the stage as we tried to set the scene for “A Night Among the Stars.”  The bids ranged anywhere $100-$425 this year, with all of the money coming straight of out of the bidders’ pockets.  My stage fright kicked in as soon as the show started.  I was terrified that I would mess up what I had to say.  I ended the show, so my butterflies were getting stronger as the show progressed.  There was a large crowd, a lot of the people being my classmates.  Once I got onto the stage, I let loose and read everything as if I were a natural. There were a few stumbles here and there, but I considered it a job well done.  This experience didn’t end my stage fright, but I was definitely a more confident person after it.  For once, I didn’t let my long lasting anxiety get the best of me.  This event gave me experience in many different aspects of broadcasting and communications.

I had an amazing opportunity to job-shadow Mike Clark, WTAE News Anchor, for my senior project.  This project is mandatory for graduation at Plum Senior High School.  My experience began with interviewing Mike Clark in the studio as I sat in the new anchors’ seats.  We then walked to the news room where anchors and reporters busily wrote their stories for their newscast.  At this point, I was able to help Wendy Bell write her news story that went straight to the teleprompter about Steve Jobs’ death previously that day.  We helped Mike Clark put on his make-up as time got closer to 11:00.  For the first half of the show, I was able to sit in the freezing cold studio while the newscast was being done.  The humor and personality shown during the breaks is what made me love my experience so much more.  I also got to sit in the producers’ area during the second half of the newscast, seeing the hard work that is put into the show behind the scenes.  This experience showed that news anchors are not just the pretty faces on television, they write and create every story that is reported on the live newscast everyday.  I gained a lot of respect for the hard work that news anchors go through to help the local community become informed.

In December, I was lucky enough to become a host of Plum Borough’s 12th Annual Make-A-Wish Telethon. For the Telethon, I was chosen to be a host, which involved interviewing local celebrities and producing the show alongside my 7 other co-hosts.  The work of writing the scripts took weeks.  After the scripts were written, it was our job to contact each person we were interviewing to inform them of what we would be asking them. Finally, we had rehearsal after rehearsal to memorize and make the show as perfect as possible.  Many nights of memorizing lines and no sleep went into the actual live show that was broadcasted throughout Pittsburgh.   We worked together with the help of the students to raise money throughout our school district.  Many fundraisers are held each year for the telethon’s donation to Make-A-Wish.  All of the fundraisers throughout Plum Borough added up the total to $46,000.  This was the largest amount that Plum has ever raised for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and I was more than proud to play such a large role in this donation.

The final event that helped in my decision was the 3rd Annual Lip Dub that Plum High School has been doing for the Pittsburgh Penguins.  The Lip Dub is put onto YouTube and also played at the Penguin games.  A lip dub is a video that uses lip syncing and audio dubbing.  The final product is meant to look like a music video.  The video is filmed while listening to a song then dubbing over the audio with the original audio from the song.  This was a single, unedited shot that traveled through the various halls and classrooms of our high school.  Since I was involved in the other television production events, I was chosen to be a producer in the Lip Dub shot throughout our school.  With this position, I was able to choose the songs used throughout this video.  I was also able to map out the positions of where the students would stand in the school.  After all of the students‘ positions were chosen, the students were in charge of choreographing their section of this video.  I walked behind the camera and produced as it was filmed.  It took three attempts, but we finally got a great shot.  I contacted Miss Pennsylvania 2011 and 96.1 Kiss radio hosts to be a part of our Lip Dub.  I was able to network throughout this experience which will give me an advantage when I am looking for a job.  The Lip Dub was viewed by hundreds of thousands, and talked about on all Pittsburgh news channels and some local radio shows.  The editing of the Lip Dub took hours of continuous hard work, but the end result was worth it all.

Choosing a college and career can be a hard decision.  The Television Productions classes that I was a part of for three year at my high school introduced me to a completely different career field that I never expected myself pursuing.  I first began the classes because I thought it would be cool to be on my school’s announcements.  I never planned on enjoying the class as much as I did.  With my teacher’s influence, I was able to job shadow Mike Clark.  I went into the job shadow unsure if I would enjoy the broadcasting field.  Leaving my experience, I knew that I wanted to pursue broadcasting.  Just having the once-in-a-life time experience of watching the behind the scenes action of a newscast gave me an idea of the hard work that goes into producing a great show.  I had always enjoyed my TV Productions courses, but now I am ready to continue my communications education after high school.  Based on my research and experiences, I plan to take all of the necessary steps to become a successful news anchor.  The experiences that I have gone through have taught me to never give up on what I want.  I have had four main events that have influenced my life forever.  These events have shown me the passion I have for broadcasting and producing important events.  I am hoping throughout my years at college, I will be able to solidify my passion for Broadcast Journalism.