A/V PRODUCTION - Open to 9th-12th, no pre-req.

This class provides an introduction to the art and craft of movie and television production. Students will collaborate with others to learn the basics of screenwriting, shooting and editing video. Student filmmakers get hands on experience with HD cameras, and learn how to edit with FInal Cut Pro on Apple computers. This class is mandatory if you want to be on K-AHS.

ADV A/V PRODUCTION - Open to 10th-11th, MUST have passed AVP

Students take a deeper look into the technical aspects of A/V Production and learn more advanced editing techniques and camera equipment. This class envelops students in the fast paced world of television field production by involving students in the nationally recognized PBS Student Reporting Labs Project. Students will collaborate with others to create their own news segments with mentors from KLRU and KUT. They also learn studio production and work on multiple contests throughout the year as a class.

A/V PRACTICUM 1 - Open to seniors, MUST HAVE PASSED ADV. AVP. 

Students produce K-AHS on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday and friday. They also attend the Austin Film Festival and spend the year working on the Senior Thesis Film,  a short film shot on location outside of Austin.

A/V PRACTICUM 2 - Must have passed A/V PRACTICUM (first available 2014/15)

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Having been involved with the PBS Student Reporting Labs for the last year as a junior, it was a real treat to be able to tour the KLRU studio and view one of the tapings for Overheard with Evan Smith with Jim Lehrer as the guest. It was only a year ago when my teacher was showing me a video clip of Mr. Lehrer addressing me and my classmates about the journey we were about to take working with the PBS NewsHour Extra website. Having only seen a high school media studio it was mind blowing to walk around the maze of KLRU’s office to see studios the size of our classroom and a control board that looked like something off of a spaceship. It was not only the size that was impressive, but the staff of KLRU is truly amazing; being able to watch them in their element was enjoyable and enlightening. (See photos from the trip on K-AHS’s Flickr page)

The taping was my favorite part, listening to Jim Lehrer crack jokes about all of the politicians he’s interviewed was the highlight of my day. My parents were also jealous that I got to sit in on such an influential political figurehead which made the gloating that much more enjoyable. It was a learning experience as well. Being the youngest crowd there Overheard gave insight to the class about the inner workings of political interviews, a process that had never been explained to us.

Before the taping, Erika Aguilar gave us a tour of the KUT studio and showed us where they record bands, interviews, and eat bagels! (morning story meeting table). It felt really cool that we also had a story meeting table and did the same thing they did, bouncing ideas off each other as a team to get the best ideas on what to put on air.

The Austin Highs Media team is so lucky to have been able to work so closely with our mentors, KLRU’s Lynn Boswell and KUT’s Erika Aguilar with the Student Reporting Labs to create our own NewsHour Reports. The experience last year, producing our news stories, was very difficult, but well worth the stress. That year taught me how to be a serious journalism and media student and gave a voice to my classmates and I, a group of individuals whose point of view often gets over looked. That experience gave us a chance to see what it means to be a journalist, and to see all the hard work that goes into finding a story that is worth creating.

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Gil’s got a lot of cool things in his room; the high-tech computers, the studio, the VO room, not to mention all the cameras and mics, but the thing that seems the most prized and reserved is the Nintendo with its fun old games. To think about that is odd, we have all this cool technology around us and what do we want to do? We want to go retro.

Most likely this is due to the constant presence of the Nintendo with its allure of games that is reserved only for those who can achieve a score of a 100 for their six-weeks average. The interesting part is that it’s always there yet I don’t believe I have met anyone yet that has played it. The Nintendo seems to be Gil’s prize, his incentive for kids to work hard, and his reward to those that achieve perfection.

I have a Nintendo at home, but it’s not the same. It’s that satisfaction that you get from knowing that you earned it, to know that you are one of the few that can claim to have been allowed to play it. Myself, I am only 1 point away from that perfect score and that mystical privilege of being able to come in at lunch and play Nintendo on the big screen.  Fingers crossed, here’s hoping this blog will put my over that 1 point. I hear he has Duck Hunt!

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AHS Students!   This is for YOU!  Earn great prizes, promote local musicians and help Austin High School raise money...all at the same time.  Sign up, send a few emails and you’re there.  AHS get 55% of all sales and all of that money will go straight to our PTSA AHS General Fund to spend in areas of need.  GO MAROONS!

Bedrock is completely online.   It’s so easy.  Get involved now!

1.  Go to www.WeAreBedrock.com and select your school
2. Create your profile (or use Facebook to log in)
3. Fire up your emails and start selling music and earning prizes 

What’s in it for you?  GREAT PRIZES! You earn points for each download you sell, then trade your points for great prizes: 

• Epiphone acoustic and electric guitars
• Visa cash cards & iTunes download cards
• ACL Festival 3-day passes 
• Soul headphones by Ludacris
• Gift cards for yummy food 
• The top selling student from school wins a $500 cash scholarship!

Want to get even more involved?  Join the Bedrock Elite Team...An interested team of students gets to work directly with Bedrock. You’ll receive extra points in your account to use for awesome prizes, and hands-on experience in the music business!  Interested?   Please send an email to Hello@WeAreBedrock.com. Include your name, contact & school.

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2012 Varsity Class

Alec Berg

Lunch at Mekong River

Director Bruce Robinson & Johnny Depp

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            There are so many ways that one can come into high school. So many feelings. There’s the kid who doesn’t even care, the dork, the skater, the one with 500 packages of loose-leaf paper, and there’s the perfectionist. I’ve always considered myself to be in the middle of the last two. Some freshmen are scared to death while there are the other ones who are ready to stomp into the hallway yelling, “Come at me, bro!” (Whilst yelling the year they graduate. . .)

            Coming into freshman year, I was excited. I was ready to learn. I was ready to experience new things. I had my ups and downs but the most exciting part was finding my way, and trying to figure out what I wanted to do throughout the rest of my high school career.

            I joined the Theatre Arts, hoping to be the highest ranked thespian by senior year. But as the class progressed I felt like it wasn’t the right thing for me. So I talked around, wondering what other exciting things I could get into. And then it hit me. K-AHS. I scurried around frantically, asking an insane amount of questions about how I could get a spot as an anchor, a producer -- anything.

            Over the summer all I could think about was landing myself in the best classes I could find. When I received my schedule I was thoroughly disappointed. BIM and Aerobics? Who even took those classes? I immediately talked to the counselor. When we got to her office she listed out all the empty electives I could take. I almost leaped to her computer myself trying to find Audio/Video Production on her list. At first glance, all the classes were full. All of a sudden she spotted one more A/V class that had one more seat. Was it meant to be, or what?

            My first day was quite interesting. I thought to myself ‘hey, I like the vibe. The teacher is awesome. I think this will be a great year.’ As the weeks went on, the curriculum was getting a little bit harder. I actually had to use my brain.

            I think my biggest flaw was trying to be a teacher’s pet. That’s how I’ve grown up, how I’ve always been with my teachers. I try to suck up; I try to be better than the person sitting next to me. But this year it just didn’t seem to work that way. I always come off as someone I’m not. I’m always asking questions; not only because I truly do need help, but also because I like the reassurance that a teacher gives, even when I ask something pretty self explanatory.

            In A/V production, I’ve noticed it the most. Sometimes I really am just annoying, and sometimes it’s simply that I feel so insecure in that certain social environment (I hope that makes sense.) Either way, I always feel like I’m doing something wrong, that I can never get anything right. But I can promise you right now that when I’m in my comfort zone, I’m nothing like that.

            Recently, I haven’t felt like myself, I haven’t shown my full potential. We all mess up, and we all make mistakes. We all have the bad impression we leave on someone. But there’s room to grow. Things can change. We all change. I hope that I can grow to learn to be more efficient, to work my best, and to be a good person. I’m hoping that by the end of this class I will have matured. I hope that I can show everybody who I am and what I really am trying to accomplish. And I hope that I make the top 24 cass ranking, because trust me. I really want that spot on K-AHS.

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This year I decided to take AV Production. This is a weighted class
that you must take to get on the K-AHS tv program. A group of friends
and I decided to take this class because we were really interested in
movies and making funny shorts. My friends and I look forward to being
on K-AHS in two years. It has only been six weeks so far in the school
year and so far I already love the class. The tests are kind of hard
but it is well worth it. I have already learned more than I could have
imagined about the background of how characters are made and the way
real screenplay writers make their films. We also get to watch lots of
movies and compare them with the scripts and see if we imagined the
same thing that was in the movie. The activities in class are also
really fun because a lot of them have to do with watching films and
even writing your own.  Currently we are working in pairs on a script
of a short film that we are supposed to write. In this project we have
already written treatments and come up with our own characters that we
can use. This is a really neat and hard process that is also really
fun at the same time. Everyone in the class is working on a script for
the short film, the idea had to be something that could be filmed on
school grounds. When everyone is done with their scripts Mr. Garcia is
going to read all of them and decide which idea was the best, with the
best characters and written the best. After he determines which one is
the best he will choose it to be the one we use as a class. As a class
we are going to make a short film that will actually be filmed at
Austin High by Austin High students. There is a lot to look forward to
besides this project and I am very excited for learning all the ways
of a screenplay writer a director and a camera man. If you have any
interest at all with cameras, writing, movies or even just learning
new things in general I highly recommend this class because you will
love it.

Tanner Mauro
7th period

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This video is so true. When I was in high school I thought I was going to be the next big thing! I knew I was creative and smart and I had great self confidence in my creative abilities. But when I started to make videos, they never came out on screen the way that I had imagined them in my head. And yeah it was a little discouraging. I started to think that all I needed was the right equipment, a really good camera and a cool computer. This is like a kid thinking that all he needs to be a good basketball player is a new pair of Jordans. It sounds silly, but its true. I wish someone had told me that it would be years before I made anything descent enough to show anybody and have my name be attached to it. Had I known this, I would have made film after film and just worked constantly, knowing that I was getting better all the time, and that one day, I would get to the level of where I wanted to be.

To be good at anything, you have to practice. Practice, practice and practice some more. It's the best way to learn. To learn, by doing, and then by doing it over again.

So don't sit around waiting to get your hands on a camera. Shoot something on your iphone, write scripts at home using celtx, get together with your friends and make something. You will learn something every time you do. I promise

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Sad to say, the opposite happened. They were deflated. Some that were really into the class and and knew that it was what it was, moved on from it, but others never recovered. They would sit there. Staring at the computer screen. Their work that was once excellent was now mediocre at best. Exit surveys at the end of the class all read the same. "not being able to use music blows mr. g!"

We had explored getting a lisence at one point, but it was so confusing and BMI was going to bill us depending on how many youtube hits we received. I couldnt ever get a quote from them, and therefore I could never request money to pay for a lisence. BMI never returned calls. I guess a high school that wants to stay on the up and up is too small time for them.

The teacher in me wants the kids to be prepared for the world. To know copywrite law and work within it. But the teacher in me also wants the students to have fun, and to be ENGAGED!.

At this years meeting with the incoming senior class they begged and pleaded again. I asked them what they wanted, an onlince presence? or to put music on the show. I knew the answer, but we still went through the pros and cons of each.

Who knows? maybe we will get a lisence at some point. Until then, the show will only live within the classrooms! So keep your eyes peeled. Theres no watching the show again from the comfy confines of your computer.

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I'm not going to tell you everything that is in this package because it would be redundant but I will tell you what experience we learned. Last semester all the sources were found by ourselves or looked up by our mentors. This semester all our sources were referred to us by our mentors. Gil always told us that this business of film and journalism is all about connections but now we have a greater breadth of exactly what he means. If we did not have the connections of our mentors and all those extended by them we would have gotten no where like trying to throw ice cubes at the sun. Make new friends, keep the old, and don't burn any bridges, don't write a story you don't care about because if you don't care no one else will.

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See the full gallery on Posterous

photos by Alissa Ziemiansky

But we did it! We went to Marfa this past weekend and shot some scenes for our 30 minute short film called, "ART FILM" starring Brazos Bell and Laura Laufer. We worked really hard and had a ton of fun. What an experience for everyone involved.  We survived the grass fire and it came 100 yards within our vehicle as we were leaving town. We barely made it out before they shut the highway down. The kids were bummed because they wanted to stay an extra day of course. A highlight of the trip was being able to shoot on location at the Chinati Museum, a personal mecca of mine. It's the first time they have let anyone do it, and allowed for it since we were students. One of the greatest things about this trip was to see the students work so hard. 14 hour shooting days, with 30 minute meals. Seeing the kids take charge and come together as a team through all their conflicts was awesome to witness as a teacher. As the Line Producer for the film, I was going to bed at 2 or 3 and getting up at 6. I was also the PA so to speak. I cleaned equipment every night, charged batteries, organized props and camera bags. I did all that so that they could grab and go as soon as they woke up AT 7:30AM. We shot two units in order to get it all in and we had only one technical failure in that an xlr cable went bad. No problem as we had a backup. We still have to shoot a few scenes in the school. Coach Guttman is playing the role of myself, the Media Teacher. We can't wait to shoot those scenes and are excited to work with a "real" actor. 

We could not have done it without our amazing chaperones. Cassandra Wilson and Jennifer Reeb prepared all of the meals for the kids, and they were awesome meals, like breakfast tacos, and gumbo! They made coffee too, and even had vegetarian alternatives! Abby Mandel played a role and when she wasn't acting, she was moving the production van and shooting vans out of the scene, or driving a van in endless circles as we had to constantly film transition shots. I think she spent most of the trip in a van. But she never complained, and was always willing to shoot the scene again. Carmen Williams went into town countless times to pick up cold water or hunt down solutions for problems that came up on set. She made herself available day or night to drive any student who had a few hours off who wanted to go check something out, even if it meant going back to the same place over and over with just one kid in the van. She did it, with a smile. The kids fell in love with her. And filling a last minute spot was Alissa Ziemianski with our partner Austin Film Festival. She sits on our advisory comitee and as the Director of Marketing and Youth Outreach for AFF, she stepped up to the plate to play the role of the "art teacher" when our original actress fell through. I literally called her the night before we left, and AFF was there as always for the kids.

Stay tuned! We will be having a premiere at the end of the year in the PAC, red carpet and all, (we really hope there is room in the budget for the red carpet)

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So i turned to page 370 and saw the picture above.

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So the Oscars just came and went. One category that I am really into is sound design. I looooove great sound design. I can usually pick the winner each year if I have seen the nominated films. I wanted to share a few cool vids that I ran across in the twittersphere last night. Click here to check out an interview with the sound team behind this year's Oscar winner, INCEPTION and to see a few featurettes about the soundwork that went into the movie as well as a mini-doc on how a foley artist works.

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           Almost everybody wants to be on K-AHS.  Who wouldn’t love introducing the first announcement?  However due to this tight competition, an elective class like Audio Video Production can become the opposite of a blow off class.  A lot of effort goes into getting to class on time, behaving, getting good grades and squeezing into the top 25 spots, which will lead to the Advanced A/V Production class, Otherwise knowns as first year junior varsity k-ahs, (JV K-AHS for short)

            Thankfully, open note quizzes make life a whole lot easier.  The only catch is that you have to take great notes if you want to get a 100.  I might go a little bit overboard on this part, due to my rainbow notes written all in markers as you can see in the picture, but it really does help me out.  Also, when I am editing and cannot remember a certain key my notes are always something nice to look back on.

            One other slight annoyance for K-AHS hopefuls is that you have to achieve a perfect attendance. OK, its not like you have to, but you loose points from your rating score if you are ever tardy, even if its just once, JUST ONCE!  It really is an absolutely wonderful walk from the portables all the way up three flights of stairs to Gil’s room.  I understand that being physically fit is important, but try doing that in a hall filled with thousands of high school students.  It’s nearly impossible, but somehow when I walk in the class, seconds before the tardy bell rings, everybody already seems to have arrived before me.  Despite the infinite obstacles I face on my way to Room 334, I manage to always be on time. 

Though note taking and avoiding tardiness are proven to require more exertion than being an office aid, it is not all work and no play.  The work and lessons we do are fun, especially when we get to go out and film with the cameras by ourselves.  You wouldn’t think it, but filming requires so much imagination and creativity.  Even with a whole group of classmates, new and original ideas are difficult to come up with.  One of the most enjoyable parts of the class is seeing what is inside your friends’ brains.  Pitching ideas for intros led to some slightly strange responses including cat suits and running over fish…we didn’t end up going with those ideas, not to say that they weren’t brilliant.

            In the end, the things we do for K-AHS are all worth it.  Taking notes and avoiding tardiness amount to almost nothing compared to the things we get done when we are in class.  I do not regret taking A/V Production, even if I don’t make it into K-AHS.  The friends I made and all the new things I learned will definitely not be forgotten.

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A/V production is open to all grades next year. It is the introductory course for the AHS media arts classes. Learn everything there is to know about making movies and have a fun time shooting and editing video. This course is the first step to getting on K-AHS, the school television show. See Gil in room 334 for details and check out the syllabus below.

av_sylibus.pdf Download this file

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Stacy Ballard, Grace Potter, and Christina Baselice were awarded first place in the Travis County Teen Dating Violence PSA Competition. This is the second year in a row that AHS has won first place in the competetion. This is Grace Potters second first place win for this year and Stacy and Christina's first. Next up is the Clean Air PSA competition! The girls will be treated to dinner by Z Tejas at the awards reception to be held January 26th were they will be awarded thier prizes yet to be determined. Their PSA will run on cable TV throughout the year. Congrats Ladies!

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At the begining of the last Six weeks of the 2010 fall semester, The Advanced A/V Production Class at Austin high was blessed with an oportunity that is for most student journalists, a once in a life time chance... to get a package onto the PBS News Hour program. Gil introduced us to his friends Lynn Boswell  and Erica Aguillar who are both professional journalists and set the expectations for the coming year. We would be working with The PBS NewsHour to make packages. So Gil split the class into groups, which we picked ourselves, from which we were to make a package concerning either immigration or the economy, but with a student's perspective.

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