Telethon features Brian McBride among others

The RBHS telethon is taking place this upcoming Saturday, October 23. The RBEF has been hosting an annual telethon every year to raise money for clubs and the school since 1989. This year they hope to raise $25,000.

The telethon will be broadcast on RBTV and will have skits and musical performances. Catch these events live: Men’s Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble, Poms, Riverside Repertory Dance Company, Dancing with the Staff, Madrigals, and the bands Velocity and Kings of the Nighttime World. The telethon will be taking place in the auditorium and the RBTV studio.

This year there will be an auction for goods. Chicago Fire player Brian McBride will have autographed cleats from his tenure with the English Premiere league. There will also be many more gifts for purchase. 

Gary Prokes, who will be heading the television operation said, “I’m very positive (about the telethon). We are usually pretty close or we exceed the goal.”

RBTV successful at CTEC

On May 1^st RBTV attended the Chicagoland Television Educators Council (CTEC) Video Festival and walked away with some hardware. Eight of their original programs won an award with the big award going to Sophomores George Suchy and Colton Arnold’s “Late Hour” taking 1^st place in the talk show category. RBTV also had many 2^nd place finishes including Sophomores Dan Pignato and Nick Anderson in the Training Category with the cooking show “Cook This” and Senior Bryan Smaller in the Movie Trailer category “Rewind”.

RBTV also did well in the PSA category. Senior Jette Pleasant took 2^nd with “Breathe”, Smaller and Senior Ryan Chodora took 3^rd place, and Senior Max Weiss took 5^th place. The Smaller and Senior Jackie Glosniak led RB 16 News also took 3^rd place in the news program category.

Broadcast Journalism teacher Patty Sarkady was very pleased with RBTV’s success.

“We had stiff competition this year because more schools were competing. This is the best we’ve done since we started participating with the awards. We were very pleased with the results, but more importantly proud of the students,” Sarkady said.

Sarkady, who runs RB 16 News, was particularly proud of the news show.

“We (RB 16 News) haven’t placed since 2007, but we had a solid team this year. News is always the toughest category because we only submit one show where for other categories we had multiple shows in the running. We are really honored to place this year.” Sarkady said. 

Besides for the CTEC Video Festival, RBTV, specifically Pleasant, also had success at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Chicago/Midwest Chapter awards. She received two Crystal Pillar awards. One of the awards was in the Long Form category (nonfiction) for her documentary “Whisper of the Woods”. The other award was in the Writing category for the script of a different documentary “Adventures Abroad”.

This is the ninth award for Pleasant and her third Crystal Pillar. Although she has also won several CTEC awards, the Crystal Pillars are more meaningful.

“Crystal Pillars are the biggest television awards there are at the high school level, so it was a big honor to win two in one year,” Pleasant said.

Pleasant is also proud to have won awards for both her documentary itself as well as her writing.

“It was amazing to be awarded in both categories because they represent very different areas of TV.” she said.

With eight different shows winning awards, this is the most successful year for RBTV ever at the CTEC Video Festival. With two first place awards at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Chicago/Midwest Chapter awards, this is the most successful they have ever been.

Telethon skips a school year

Year after year, the annual RBEF Telethon proves itself to be a well-received and highly successful endeavor. Last year alone, the telethon raised over $27,000 in donations, money which went on to directly benefit the students of RB. In light of its past accomplishments, many were surprised to learn that there would be no telethon for the duration of the 09-10 school term.

The previous telethon took place in February of 2009, and because there cannot be two telethons in the same year, the next telethon will not take place until fall of 2010.

“I was more shocked than anything else,” remarked senior Bryan Smaller, “That was my initial reaction. After thinking about it more and more I realized that I wouldn’t be able to be there for the telethon next year. I wish I could have known beforehand that last year was going to be my last telethon. I never felt like I really had a last one.”

TV production student, Jackie Glosniak, mirrored Smaller in her disappointment. “I understand why they chose not to have it this year,” said Glosniak, “but I’m still upset that I won’t be able to be a part of the telethon as a senior. It would have been nice to have a ‘farewell’ telethon.”

The telethon not only gives television production students a chance to say goodbye to RBTV, but it also gives students of all kinds a chance to receive grants for a diverse range of extracurricular activities and programs.

All the money that is raised through the telethon is given back to the students of RB in the form of RBEF grants. Students who require extra funding for a specific program or workshop can fill out a grant application and receive payment to cover their expenses.
 
In this way, the telethon is a source for creating a plethora of opportunities and enriching experiences for high school students. Fortunately, an alternative method for raising money to cover the student grants is already in order.

Mailings will go out to previous telethon donors just before Thanksgiving asking them to pledge their support. Whether these efforts will raise a sum of money equal to what the telethon usually brings in is hard to say, but if all goes according to plan, money for the grants should be available this spring.

Although the telethon will undoubtedly be missed this year not only by those who actively participate in it, but by those who tune in and donate, television production teacher Gary Prokes maintains a positive outlook.

“I think that if the students have gotten to experience one telethon, anything else is really just a bonus,” commented Prokes, “The telethon is an enrichment activity and that they get to experience it at all is a great thing.”

Get that camera out of my face! Why RBTV needs to relax on the sidelines

Nothing can compare the energy you get from running through the huge banner on a cool Friday night onto the football field. All the players are pumped up and ready to play; they’re jumping around and shouting like crazy. Then they make their way to the sidelines, where they experience one of the biggest buzz kills of all time: having a gigantic TV camera shoved into their face right before the opening kickoff.

Football is a sport that requires a great amount of focus and concentration, and it’s infuriating when you’re trying to discus tactics with one of the coaches or cheering on your teammates while some guy is pressing a video camera as close as he can legally get to your face without getting charged for harassment.    

“They come right up into your face and distract you from the game,”said junior football player Zach Sollinger. “They should stay off the field and stand where they belong: with the cheerleaders.”

RBTV has had a fair amount of success at various competitions. In the last eight years, RBTV has won at least one 1^st place trophy for a TV program at the Hometown USA Video Festival. In the 2007 festival, they won a total of seven 1^st place trophies. Needless to say, we have a talented TV station.

“If you’ve ever watched a college or NFL game on TV, you’ll notice that they use sideline cameras,” said TV production teacher Gary Prokes. “In order to completely cover the game, it’s necessary to have cameramen on the sidelines.”

However, I just can’t stand watching a football game when the only sound coming out of my TV is the announcers. I don’t know much about video cameras, but I do know that the cameras broadcasting the RB football games cannot pick up any sound whatsoever. You can’t hear the crowd shouting, the cheerleaders cheering. You can’t even hear the referee blow his whistle. And when I see a close up (and I mean an extreme close up) of a player on the sidelines, I see his lips moving, but there is hardly any sound.

It is reasonable for the station to want to cover the football game as well as they possibly can, but you seldom see professional cameramen doing close ups of the players to the extent that the RBTV cameramen do. It doesn’t do RBTV justice and it shatters the players’ concentration. It would be more desirable for the cameramen to stand apart from the players and take some sideline shots, but do it in a manner that won’t make the entire team feel like they’re being stalked.

It’s not like player close-ups are a vital part in successfully covering RB football games. Sideline cameras are meant to add a bit of interest for the viewer and impress the TV audience with the numerous camera views. Unfortunately, RBTV sideline cameras accomplish neither of those goals.

“Bulldog Faceoff” ready for new edition

Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Participants in the new RBTV show Bulldog Faceoff can find out as they put their knowledge to the test. The gameshow returns for another round after a successful campaign the previous year.

Hosted by senior Max Weiss, the game show features teams of two competing against each other in a typical game show setting. The team that won the previous point gets to select a topic from which the host, Weiss, then reads a question related to that topic. Which ever team hits the buzzer first gets the first opportunity to answer that question. If answered correctly then they receive a point, but if answered incorrectly, then the other team can answer the question.

This show based off “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” and is very competitive and very fun for most contestants.

Several prizes were awarded to the winner of the competition, including a Culvers gift card, a free haircut and a Dr. Pizza gift card. Of course, with prizes came competition and controversy last year.

In a competition last year, eventual second place finishers George Suchy and Mark Swift were facing off against Jason Flam and Madison Jordan in the first round. Flam and Jordan’s team was winning by five points with one question left, so the game was in the bag. But Weiss decided to make it interesting, so that whichever team got the question right would advance to the second round. Swift got the question right, and he and Suchy never looked back. Flam was not pleased.

“It was an interesting format, but I felt that I was unjustly served a loss,” said Flam about his first round exit. Suchy on the other hand called their last second win a “landslide victory”.

The team that turned out to be the one to beat was composed of teachers Doreen Fritz and Jennifer Waldock called “Team Tall”.  They ended up outlasting Suchy and Swift to win the tournament. They received the prizes and all the glory that accompanies winning an RBTV gameshow.

Look for new competitors and plenty of knowledge coming up. Tune into RBTV in the future to catch new episodes of Bulldog Faceoff.