Tiger Talk? Tigers don’t talk, but our students at OA definitely do, so Tiger Productions has given them a reason to!
Prior to this year, the way Oliver Ames students would get their news on the school was through the Daily News email updates. However, as times have gotten busier, or we’ve gotten lazier, it has become apparent that we needed a new way in addition to the Daily News to get updates on the school. To come in and explain Tiger Productions’ part in that is Oliver Ames’s very own media instructor and the faculty advisor for Tiger Talk, Stephen Souza.
Now the question to be asked; what really is Tiger Talk and what do they cover? “Tiger talk is basically that Daily News email you get turned into a news segment. We do the announcements, we talk about clubs, sports scores, and special achievements. We want to make it a kind of must-watch weekly thing if you want to catch up with all things OA”.
The idea for Tiger Talk all started when Mrs. Kenney and Mrs. Marani both realized that lacking method of communication throughout the school. Originally, according to Mr. Souza, the clubs were supposed to send in a video reading out announcements and news. That was when Mr. Sousa became involved with the goal to take their idea a step further.
“What we do is encourage different clubs to get involved by having them come down and anchor the news to just read those things and then at the end they get to highlight their own club”.
While the idea sounds great, how specifically did they get students who stay silent in breakout rooms for fifteen minutes to volunteer to be taped for the whole school to see? Turns out it’s been no issue at all!
“Mrs. Kenney and Mrs. Marani put together a sign-up sheet for all the clubs. So far we’re certainly booked for the end of the year and possibly January. So we’re looking for late winter and early spring now. But the more that this gets traction and the more people watch it the more people will want to do it”.
With the goal of creating more traction for Tiger Talk ideas of having the weekly video played in advisory was thrown around as well as adding new segments for the production. With advisory being 35 minutes every Wednesday –the same day Tiger Talk comes out– during the hybrid model it is logically the perfect setup for advisories to present the videos. However once again considering the teenage mind there was the concern that if forced to watch the students might not like it as much as opposed to making the decision themselves.
“I suppose it could have some backlash which is why I think keeping it to a 10-minute segment is wise. In advisory, there are definitely some times when you go and you’re like ‘what are we doing here? We’re just like hanging out for 35 minutes’. It could get kind of boring and old after a while, but it’s better to use this medium and deliver it this way versus only having the Daily News email if it is being ignored”.
Because the whole purpose of creating Tiger Talk was to provide our community with better access to school news, learning the process that went into creating this for them is something that we were interested in finding out.
“It took a couple of weeks for us to set it up, we did a trial run the first week just to see how it would work and it came out pretty good. We’re pursuing the idea of getting it out on all of our social media pages as well as ECAT. Right now Easton Community Access Television has put it –Tiger Talk– up on their YouTube. So not only will students in the school see it, but parents in the community can see it or anyone that’s interested in supporting the school”.
Now while finding out the original process to get the idea running was great, there are also grounds for wondering how many hours typically go into creating these episodes. The steps for filming said episodes go prepping to find all the information and figuring out who does what role. Then filming the episode alone is said to take upwards of an hour. Finally, Mr. Souza discusses how he takes roughly four to six whole hours to edit one video. The most insane part is that they have to get all of this done in under 48 hours. Luckily for Mr. Souza, that is not too much of an issue due to his passion for film and the community response.
“I’ve always loved filmmaking I think that’s what drew me here, I’ve been teaching for a number of years so the fact that I took two things that I love –teaching and filmmaking– is awesome. Also, we’re getting great feedback from people in the hallways”.
Tiger Talk is benefitting Tiger Productions just as much as it is benefitting the community by helping the club fulfill Mr. Souza’s goals for the club as a whole and the individuals as well. Tiger Production benefits from this because it is bringing more eyes to the club and it gives the students opportunities to refine their own skills.
“My ultimate goal is to get them to produce it by themselves. Once they get the skills to do that on their own they’re going to have the skills to get to the next stuff. I would love to be able to help more students get to that next level so hopefully, this will shine a light on that –the club–. I want this to be presented as if you were tuning into the news, it just happens to be completely focused on Oliver Ames”.