Broadcast editor Emily Brumley had been working on completing a story for Fall Challenge earlier this week. Emily Brumley talks about her personal experience during the six-day competition.  

Q: What is the Fall Challenge and what is it for?

A: “The Fall Challenge is when we are given a prompt and then we are expected to have a story written, filmed and edited within six days after getting our prompt. It is really challenging because you have to follow certain guidelines and time frame. The whole reason we do this fall challenge is for STN (Student Television Network), our broadcasting convention in the spring.”

Q: What was the prompt you were given for your story?

A: “Every group had been given different prompts, but for mine personally, it was a news feature package and we were given the topic strength and diversity. So we decided to do ours on a child with autism in our  community and how his unique disease has strengthened his family. He is unable to speak but still finds new ways to communicate his love to his family every day.”

Q: What is a news feature package?

A: “For the STN guidelines we had to follow it is a story that had to be a maximum of three minutes, for example it can be about someone in your neighborhood, or in the community, as long as it follows the prompt.”

Q: What motivated you to participate?

A: “[I was motivated by] my classmates that participated in it last year, and just wanting to compete and to see how our broadcast program measures up to others around the country.”

Q: How did you feel as you were turning in your completed story?

A: “I felt really relieved. At the beginning of this I was not sure how this was going to work out or if my team and I were going to be able to pull it off.”

Q: Do you think that with the time restraints you were able to produce something you were truly proud of?

A: “I definitely think so. If anything the time restraints made us work harder on our product because we knew that we had to get it done, we had to focus and really pay attention to what we were doing because we did have such little time. In the end I am really proud of what we produced.”

Q: As an editor did you have to help other students complete their Fall Challenge?

A: “As an editor I did not have to help them complete their stories but I did still have to help manage normal stories and make sure everyone else in the class that was not participating in Fall Challenge was okay in what they were doing on their own. At the end of the day what is really important is this class and what we are doing in this class and not the challenges, even though they are really fun.”

Q: Who participated in the Fall Challenge?

A: “We had people from each broadcast class: news, productions and sports all participate. Some worked with people we have never worked with before. It was really cool to get outside perspectives and new looks on something we tend to do on a day-to-day basis.”

Q: With it being your third year in broadcast do you think you will ever get used to the stress of deadlines?

A: “No. Deadlines stress me out every single time. I never get used to having that type of stress. If anything [the stress] probably gets worse because I know that I have to turn it in and it has to be better than my last. I always want to be improving my skills.”

by MCKENNA ELLIS AND RENESE LOPEZ