Just For Laughs

It was the last new show of 2011, and the staff of "HTV Magazine" decided it was as good a time as any to step out of their journalism shoes and try some humor.

Students split into production teams of two, three, or four and began brainstorming segments.  That was less of a problem than the actual creation of those segments.

"There was a lot of planning and looking for the right location or setting.  More things we could control than on a journalism project, so it took us longer the prepare than usual," said senior Morgan Wilson.

In addition to a great deal of pre-production work, the staff had to remember the show was supposed to be full of satire, parody, or just plain "crazy" content.  Nothing serious.  For Sarah Thomas, who did one of the program's two commentaries, that was a challenge.

"My commentary was about something that has been on my mind, but it was not full of laughs.  We did our best to insert some humor, but as it turned out, it was less over-the-top than the rest of the show," she said.  Another commentary by Paige Moffis utilized freshmen Media I students in the various cut-aways.

The show's craziest piece was actually part of the closing credits.  Jessica Larson combined a bunch of random sounds made by the staff, and created a weird soundtrack that accompanied the scroll of student names.  Another off-the-wall feature was a pitch for "E-Baby" that utilized a couple of faculty members plus dolls used by the Child Development classes at HHS.

One of the most polished segments is a satire of the trailer for "Social Network," the popular motion picture about the origin of Facebook.  Chandler Reed, Nick Nutting and Brad Thomas turned their version into a promo for a movie about MySpace coming to grips with Facebook's overwhelming popularity.

A cooking show by Mariah Volz and Ryan Lindsey added some visual humor, a dancing-in-the-halls piece, and a mock commercial about a "bully app" were some of the other features that rounded out the show.

Senior Adam Vigil oversaw production of the show's spot-on news parody.  The story he and Jodie Putman created documented upcoming expansion of the Hillcrest football facilities.  Complete with an aerial diagram of the changes, the story actually fooled several viewers who thought the student center, library, and choir rooms actually were being eliminated to make more room for football.

"A good satire has the look of a real news story, and Adam did a great job," said Reed.