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Shown in back, from left, are Robert Lundy, Daniel Myers, Daniel Ratigan, Ben Perrin, Blaze McCue, Annabelle Brackett, Mollie Cutchshaw, Jacob Thomasson, Kamrehn Sims, Griffin DeFoor; middle from left, Courtney Blalock, Alana Olson, Kayla Everett, Vanessa Nicholson; front row, Ollie Freeman. Not pictured are Bailey Hulsey, Gabe Talafous, Jackson Rowland. (Submitted photo)
Warrior TV recently won two national awards from the Student Television Network National Convention.
The students won first place in the silent film category and third place in sports highlights, said Kayla Everett, Warrior TV and audio/video technology and film instructor at White County High School.
“…It came up first place and everybody lost their heads. Everybody was screaming and yelling. They were super excited,” Everett said. “That’s the highest we’ve ever placed at STN as far as those competitions are concerned, so they were really proud of themselves.”
Warrior TV has entered the silent film category off and on throughout the years, Everett said. The categories entered depends on what the students are interested in. Everett noted Warrior TV has placed in sports highlight the past four years of the event, with last year’s canceled because of COVID-19.
The prompt for the silent film was “Don’t Lose Your Head,” and the students had a unique idea for it.
“The kids came up with a video about a girl who had gone grocery shopping and her head of cabbage had fallen out of her car,” Everett said. “Then the cabbage rolled and she was chasing it … and it lands in front of the cabbage stand.”
Before the competition, Everett said the students practiced a lot, which includes watching previous winners and talking about what the judges are looking for and at the rubric.
“For silent film, they’re always looking for very specific things and they’ve noticed that the ones that have one have typically been a play off of words,” Everett said. “Don’t lose your head could mean multiple things. They came up with that and wanted to do something really simple, but they wanted to do something simple really, really well.”
The silent short was filmed over a weekend at WCHS, Everett said. All of the students also competed in the Crazy 8’s competition.
“We were given eight hours to write, film, and edit a short film based on a given topic,” Everett said.
Other categories students competed in included short story, music video, commentary, personal vlog, movie trailer, and weather report, Everett said. Students on the sports highlight team were Jackson Rowland, Ollie Freeman, Gabe Talafous and Jacob Thomasson. The students on the silent film team were Gabe Talafous, Courtney Blalock and Alana Olson.
“We are extremely proud that our broadcast video students placed first in silent film and third in sports highlights,” WCHS Principal Mary Anne Collier. “We are excited for the continued success of this program.”