Many students at Rocklin High School don’t realize how much time and effort is put into the creation of the “Friday Show”. The advanced video production students spend numerous hours working on the show and come to school early every Friday to film it. Mr. O’Donnell oversees the students and directs the creation of the show.

In the advanced video production class, students are put into different roles. Junior CJ Shafer explains, “there’s the PSA Group, the VAPA group, there’s the crew that manages all of [the] gear, graphics, and anchors”.

Senior Audrey Guzman is the head of the whole show and is in charge of everyone. Her major role is editing the show. Guzman said, “People underestimate the amount of time it takes to actually do all that.” Because of her experience and skill, she is able to finish editing within an hour on Thursday night. Additionally, her exceptional talent made her come in second place in the regional film festival last year. Guzman said that “it’s really freeing to be able to write stories and develop them with your own kind of creativity.” Guzman also wishes to continue her filmmaker path through college and is applying as a film and media television production major.

CJ Shafer is an anchor along with junior Dom Fitzpatrick, junior Heather Morton, senior Aubrey Giles, junior Ethan Doufer, and junior K.C. Roberts. An anchor’s job is to be the face of the show and talk in front of the camera. Shafer enjoys her job as an anchor and said, “That’s what [she] does the most in [the] class, just talk. So might as well just put it to good use.” However, there are some difficulties that come with being an anchor. O’Donnell explains, “it can be intimidating because [they] are out there with people looking at them and we as humans judge.”

To make it less scary, O’Donnell encourages students to “get out of a sort of a defensive mode”. Shafer said, “The whole school is watching, so it is really nerve-racking.” To reduce the stress for the anchors, they try to have fun and go off script sometimes. This makes them feel more engaging and not so robotic. Shafer said, “The lemon shot was my favorite”.

“The whole school is watching, so it is really nerve-racking.”

– CJ Shafer

To come up with ideas for the “Friday Show”, all of the crew members come together and have a brainstorming session. Guzman explains, “[there is a] show board where we put all of our segments for each week in and assign people to each segment.” A challenging part of this system is that many students slack off and don’t finish their segment. O’Donnell states that “[he] wants all the kids to participate”. This became an issue because some students decided to take the class because they thought it would be easy.

Mr. O’Donnell is the video production teacher and director of the “Friday Show”. He teaches different variations of the class, such as Video Production l, Intermediate Video Production, Advanced Video Production, Film making, and Sports Media. Mr. O’Donnell was originally a history teacher. He taught AP World History for 13 years. O’Donnell said, “[he] loved doing video with [his] history classes and in sports.” Later, the video production department fell apart, and Mr. Stewart asked him if he was interested in taking over. O’Donnell has now been teaching video production for eight years, and enjoys it even though it didn’t happen as he planned. But the switch from teaching two very different classes was difficult for him to adjust to. O’Donnell explains, “99% of the kids in [his] AP class wanted to be there, so they’re driven. But in [his] elective class, there is no drive.” His biggest challenge is trying to engage and motivate all of his students. O’Donnell also said that “[he has] some kids who are just fantastic, but [he] can’t leave the rest of the students behind.”