Meets from 7-9 every Sunday night for the Fall Semester

•  Bryan Baker: Coordinator of Video Projects
• Email: [email protected]  
• Phone Number: (336) 278-5078

The goal of the FreshTV program is to encourage and help students grow and explore areas of communication skills. These include, but are not limited to: cinema, journalism, and broadcast production. FreshTV hopes to attract ambitious students that they can train and prepare to be successful in any area of communications. FreshTV requires no previous experience so any first-year student can join! The mission is to give students the knowledge and skills to have a head start on other students in the competitive communications field.

Throughout the course of the program, which lasts through the first semester for first year students, there are various workshops that will introduce or improve on students’ skills. Some of the various workshops teach basics in photography, teach students how to work Avid (a video editing software used throughout the school of communications and the industry of communications as well), create promotional videos, short films, and much more.

FreshTV also enjoys bringing in speakers to talk to the students during meeting times to introduce different parts of the communications industry and various media throughout the student-run programs.

FreshTV lasts fifteen weeks and meets in the McEwen School of Communications building at Elon University on Sunday nights from 7pm-9pm. Bryan Baker is the director of the program.

A large majority of the time spent in FreshTV is devoted to the students watching, learning, and critiquing professionally completed productions. From this, students are able to not only take away and learn from Bryan Baker and the guest speakers, but they are able to see what a finished product looks like and can dig into what each step and process is. From all of these examples, the students will take on the reigns of multiple projects of their own and will end up filming, producing, and editing in the professional manner that the Elon University School of Communication department teaches in their various courses.

The first project is for the students to take at least 1,000 pictures throughout the week and pick the three that stand out or mean the most to them. From there they are supposed to create a story with the three pictures and present it to the rest of the class. Other projects involve the students creating a video that is all about them and who they are through pictures, songs, and videos. All of these projects lead up to the major project that takes up the majority of the time spent in FreshTV. The students are split up into eight separate groups depending on the number of people that sign up, (usually anywhere from 40 to 80) with each group having a leader that is the director of whatever type of production that the group decides to create. In the past, groups have done anything from short films, to narratives, to documentaries, and so on. 

Then, by the 15th week once all projects are completed, the students will come together and put on a FreshTV showcase where they will meet in McEwen's television studios and produce, direct, film, work the sound, and act as talent before each project is shared. Below are the past two years FreshTv Showcases.