Busy Little Bee...

Although I'm not dressing up as a bumblebee for Halloween, I'm thinking it may have been a better choice. I feel like a "busy bee" trying to catch up after the college's fall break. Now it's back to the grind, and there's no stopping now.

My first accomplishment of the week was passing my Radio Advertising Bureau Final Exam with a score of 90 out of 100. I'm waiting to hear back from them on how to obtain my physical diploma, but it feels great to be a certified Radio Marketing Professional.

Secondly, I am working on my alumni presentation for capstone. My alumni, Stevi Nelson, graduated last year and is currently working in television sales at WTAE in Pittsburgh. We are close friends, and actually were sales partners in class while she attended Westminster. She's an idol to me because it's rare that a TV station hires a salesperson with no professional experience, but she obviously made an impression right out of college. Hopefully she can give me some tips from what she did to land me my dream job in a few months.

Finally, I have started the internship hunt for next semester. Earlier this week, I sent out applications to three stations in Pittsburgh for sales internships - 105.9 The X, WPXI-TV, and Stevi's employer, WTAE-TV. I hope to send out a few more internship applications before all is said and done, but I feel any of those three experiences would be very beneficial to me.

It's no secret that senior year is in full swing, but I'm hoping all of this hard work through classes, networking, and additional work off campus will position me at the top of employers lists in April and May.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

But in New Castle, it's been looking that way since September. That's because the New Castle Regional Ballet has been rehearsing since then for their 21st annual Nutcracker performance.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Debbie Parou, the artistic director for the ballet. She has over thirty years of dancing experience founded the company 20 years ago as a non-profit organization to promote quality ballet training and to present performances for the New Castle area. Parou also helped the company become a member of Regional Dance America/Northeast in 1990 as it's currently a full performing accredited company.

That's where I come into the picture. I'm creating a :30 commercial to promote the Nutcracker performances which will take place December 1st and 2nd at the Scottish Rite Cathedral in New Castle. The spot will consist of still pictures and graphics with some visual effects and a voice track. I think the beginning will be a mini montage with the voice track and graphics combined saying and showing three words about the performance that Parou conveyed to me during our meeting. The rest will mostly describe the high level of performance and how the audience will be wrapped into that feeling.

I'm looking forward to helping the New Castle Regional Ballet promote this always popular event and facing the challenge of creating a commercial with limited resources. For more information on the New Castle Regional Ballet, click here.

My other passion...

As indicated in my profile, my two passions are baseball and broadcasting. However, in all reality, I have a passion for all sports, with football coming in at number two on the list. That's why last night was a great experience as I shot highlights during the Mars versus Neshannock football. Although most of the highlights came from the Mars side, it was still an exciting game for me to shoot since it was my first time going behind the camera shooting sports highlights. However, I did capture the only Neshannock touchdown while shooting in the second quarter.

My supervisor was John Mikulas, a videographer with Channel 21 WFMJ in Youngstown, Ohio. He really knows the ins and outs of shooting, and is an excellent teacher. I learned the basics like starting on the quarterback and zooming out to a medium shot with him and the two guards, but he also gave us tips about shooting in general. For example, if you're shooting anything with music, never stop rolling because when you take the tape for editing, it will be difficult at best to match up different parts of music if it cuts out at any point.

It was nice to try something new in the field, and I feel like John Mikulas would always be available in the future for help or advice if needed.