Every year, the Bryant High School broadcast class hosts a live stream where they interact with students, play games and have different segments to entertain the community. The six hour long stream, known as the Broadcast Extravaganza, is a Bryant tradition which is hosted before the Christmas break. Michael Westbrook, the adviser for broadcast, introduced the idea four years ago.
“The reason why we started it here was for two reasons: one, to showcase our campus and our community. That’s kind of our tagline,” Westbrook said. “The next reason we do this is for our second and third-year students to demonstrate how they have been learning.”
Junior Isai Perez joined broadcast two years ago and is the technical director. He is in charge of everything behind the scenes, from controlling the camera to making sure everyone knows where to go.
“We’re setting up cameras, still getting all our scripts right and just script-writing games together, and I have been with our advisor,” Perez said. “We are checking out cameras [to] make sure we know where to switch and what segments we are doing, what commercials are playing and just making sure everything runs smoothly.”
(Nadia Masoud )
Working both on screen and behind the scenes, Senior Chelsea Jensen has helped produce the extravaganza for two years now. Jensen anchors for two hours and then produces for another two hours, making sure everyone is prepared.
“I am anchoring two of the hours, so for two hours straight I am on camera. Not just me; I am kind of leading that hour, and then I am also producing two different hours,” Jensen said. “The hours I am producing, I have to make sure everything is in line, all [of] the interviews are set up, everyone knows what they are doing, everyone knows where in the classroom they are going to do it. That kind of thing.”
Senior Taylor Dischinger does an annual baking segment where she decorates different types of dessert every year varying from cupcakes to brownies and, this year, cookies. It’s her last year being a part of the extravaganza and she’s treating it as her farewell.
“It’s special to me. Like I said, it’s my third year in the program and it’s like our big thing. We do competitions and stuff but I mean it ’s six hours of live streaming. Everything we do is live, it’s all happening now,” Dischinger said. “It’s special just for me because I’ve been [a] part of it and now it’s kind of like my goodbye.”
The Broadcast Extravaganza, which also acts as a fundraiser for the Hornet Media program, sold $2,600 in ads to play during the show. At the time of writing has 637 views on YouTube, demonstrating the work of 23 media students with 75 BHS staff and community members participating
