On Thursday, November 16th, students from St. Mary Catholic Community School in Crown Point traveled to Chicago to visit the WGN Television Studio. Students were given a personal tour by news anchor Lourdes Duarte. The 13 student group, split over two crews, runs St. Mary's School news broadcast, WSMW, on a daily basis. As in years past the crews consists of sports reporters, weather specialists and crew anchors. This season new roles have been created for filming/sound engineers and film editors. Club Moderator Anthony Pagorek said, "I wanted to find roles for students that aren't comfortable being an on-camera personality. There are so many production roles and skills "behind the scenes" that I wanted to expose to our students to throughout the year."
Gaby Thorn said, "I had no idea of all the production and planning that goes into creating a show. My favorite part (of the trip) was learning the different roles of producers. I had no idea they get to attend movie premiers and interview celebrities as apart of their job. I love being an anchor, but that also sounds like a great job to have one day."
All members of the crew have an interest in television broadcasting and were excited about the opportunity to visit WGN. Samantha Noren said, “I dream of being an news anchor and to be able to walk around the set and sit at the broadcast desk was an amazing experience."
The student tour included visits to the assignment desk, sports room, the news editing suites, the weather center, and perhaps the most exciting, the newly renovated news studio of WGN. "As our weather reporter, it was awesome to see the weather center and get some time to play with the green screen. It was so much fun. We are going to find a way to add that to our shows in the future." said 5th Grader Georgia Cappas.
"Getting to ask Lourdes Duarte all kinds of questions was what 7th grader Emily Wake sited as the most fascinating part of tour. She said, “She was so nice and welcoming to our crew. We can't wait to use some of things we learned about in our future broadcasts."