NSLC Day #2

Hi All!
"Day 2 on the alien planet" as they say in Cheaper By the Dozen- reference anyone? Anyways so this morning I woke up early to get a Vanilla frappaccino at starbucks before breakfast. After that, we went to the American Film Institute in Silver Springs, MD where we saw a documentary and learnt about the art of producing documentaries. The angle of the camera, the tone of the interviewer, the music, the lighting - it all creates bias that is usually used to make the plotline more entertaining. The documentary we saw was about a man addicted to video gaming. It was how his life transformed as he set the highest gamescore for Donkey Kong or something - but it was really interesting to look at it from an analytical perspective.
After that, we ate lunch back on campus and started our classes. My broadcast journalism class is SO COOL. We started by each introducing ourselves and getting used to being in front of the camera, although others, and I, made it clear that we'd prefer to be behind the camera instead! So in the program, we have to pitch stories and film a news segment to be part of a greater newscast. A girl called Morgan and I are thinking of doing a story about Feminism - which is of course super newsworthy and everything. We're developing the pitch tonight via google docs and will work tomorrow during class to perfect it and start contacting sources. We don't have that much time to work on it - but I'm very excited nonetheless!
After our class, which lasted 3 hours, we had another "TA" session (which is like advisory) where we talked about skills important to being a leader, like listening, being approachable, dedication, commitment, etc. Then we talked about what specifically we would like to work on. I said I want to work on being a better listener and being more receptive to the ideas of others. After our TA session we had dinner and then split back into groups for our communications workshop.
Today I learnt about Public Relations - which is probably the best part of my day now that I think about it! We were given a prompt - my group's was "How do you incorporate press conferences, interviews, social media and commercials to sell Gatorade using a star athlete." We came up with a HUGE ELABORATE plan to use some soccer player as an advertising tool. He spoke about gatorade at press conferences and in interviews. He instagrammed gatorade...and most importantly I designed a killer commercial: picture a boy on the bleachers in the middle of a dirt field holding a soccer ball. He is forlorn and sad. Suddenly he reaches down and pulls out gatorade. He drinks it. AND BOOM the scenery goes black and white. There is pounding music and intense lighting. He is now the tall, huge, muscular star athlete that we know...he kicks, he scores! HE WINS THE WORLD CUP. In the midst of celebrating it flashes back to the little boy, who smiles as he swallows his gatorade. THEN A BLACK SCREEN COMES UP AND THE WORDS "live your potential" then #thejourneystartsnow fades in at the bottom. BUT THEN our teacher was like "oh surprise! your star athlete was arrested for a DUI. Its a PR crisis! What do you do?" And we had to solve that! Of course, I came up with a brilliant plan to play the "justin bieber" card, which is to publicly apologize through Saturday Night Live. Anyways so learning about PR was fun. Negative press is not always good press, but negative and positive press are almost always better than neutral press because that means no one cares! After the Public Relations workshop we ate ice cream and went to bed! I'm exhausted now - but I had a good day!

Love,
Phoebe