Starting Homestead High TV: An Interview with Bryn Hogancamp and Clare Porter

By CCHS Student, Huck Needham

Bryn and Clare on the Homestead High TV set

It was on March 16 that I interviewed Bryn Hogancamp and Clare Porter, Hosts and Co-Producers of Homestead High TV, a brand-new news show about the school lives and doings of CCHS students. They answered some questions I prepared beforehand, thus giving me an insightful look on the production of the show. 

Now that I have digested the interview, you get to hear my gleanings, how lucky for you! 

Homestead High comes out every other Friday, with editing happening that Wednesday and Thursday. It is co-produced by Bryn Hogencamp and Clare Porter, with co-writer Emmett Schwalb, and associate Elewa Torbert. The project emerged from Homestead Journal, a digital media mastery credit class guided by teacher Zarah Cabañas.

One thing I noticed about the production process of Homestead High TV, and the Digital Media class in general, was the amount of freedom students had to brainstorm and create projects. For instance, Bryn Hogancamp said she saw a TikTok where someone did school TV, getting the idea. Thus, Homestead High TV was born.

But one of the most impactful takeaways from the interview I found was the purpose of Homestead High TV: to create a student-driven show that shared relevant school announcements and news.  I am confident that Homestead High TV will turn out to be a very successful and inspiring student project, for the people directly involved in it, and the viewers watching it.  Who knows, maybe it will continue for years to come.

The Homestead High TV Team working on the next script in the CCHS Digital Media Lab

CHECK OUT THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW:

Huck: First of all, since this is audio and not video, who are you two? Do you mind introducing yourselves? 

Bryn: I'm Bryn Hogancamp. 

Clare: I'm Clare Porter. 

Huck: You two are making a show called Homestead High TV. What is it for people who aren't aware of what it is?

Bryn: It's like a news segment show that we produce…every other week. And it's the school announcements for the next two weeks. 

Huck: Okay. Well, who is involved in the show? Obviously you two, but who else? 

Clare: Emmett Schwalb, our co-writer and Elewa Torbert, our associate.

Huck: What are two sentences on how would you describe it? 

Bryn: Probably, like, fun...Two words or sentences?

Huck: Two sentences. 

Clare: I think it's fun and also humiliating. Yeah. Could be humiliating. 

Huck:That sounds pretty well. When does it air and how often?

Clare: It goes every other Friday, and we film on Monday, and then edit Wednesday and Thursday, and produce on Friday. 

Huck: So every Friday?

Clare: Every other Friday.

Huck: Where does it get filmed? 

Bryn: The Homestead High School Studios. 

Clare:We shoot in the Digital Media Lab in the back [of the studio].

Studio tests

Huck: Who is Homestead High meant for?

Bryn: The CCHS community and students, really. Mostly students. 

Huck: Why did you start? 

Bryn: Oh, this is kind of weird, but I saw a TikTok and someone did school TV and I thought, oh, wait, that'd be so cool. So then I called Clare. I didn't call her, but I said, Clare, do you want to do this? And she said, sure. And then there we go. 

Huck: That's pretty good. How do you go about getting the first episode made? 

Clare: Well, the first episode, we were gonna make it, like, it was gonna be one week.  And then we couldn't film it, and we couldn't edit it, so we had to push it back, two weeks or something, because we just didn't know how to edit it and all that.  Then we finally got it out like a week after that. 

Huck: Do you have any tips for anybody doing the same?

Bryn :I'd say if before you start, before you jump into [a project], really organize what you're gonna do.

Clare: Yeah, I'd also say, like, figure out how to edit it before you start it. Or just, like, get a gist of it so you don't go into it completely blind. You save more time because you…know how to do it. 

Huck: If someone had a piece of news to share, how would they share it? How would they put it on the show? 

Bryn: They could email us. 

Clare: They could email me, Bryn or Emmett. Yeah. And we would put it in the script or whatever.   

Bryn and Clare editing an episode with Adobe Premiere

Huck: How do you get the resources? 

Clare: The resources? Like the [set materials] behind us?  Well, we ordered a lot of things from Amazon. We were given a $45 budget…we were just kind of thinking about…the show.  What it would need or what would make it look cooler and…this is what we decided on.

Bryn: And then the rest,the equipment and everything, was provided.

Clare: All the tech stuff, yeah, this is from the school.

Huck: What other ideas are you [going to do] on the show? What other segments?

Bryn: I think we really have a lot of things….  I think we might have a special guest come on and we'll interview them. It's probably a teacher that we'll interview. And we'll ask them about fun facts about themselves. 

Huck: Also, Have you gotten any feedback from students or teachers for the first episode? 

Clare: Yes. Emmett said that it looks like a ransom video (laughing). So we really tried to take that into account for the second episode because that wasn't really our goal. 

Bryn: So our first episode we got a couple of negatives. 

Clare: They said that we were chewing gum too much and too loudly, which was true.

Bryn: And, yeah. But for our second episode feedback, everyone said it was great!

Clare: Everyone said it was more positive than the second episode. Yeah.

Huck: Speaking of feedback, how do you handle it?

Clare: How do we handle the criticism?

Bryn: We don't really care.

Clare: We just kind of think about it.  Well no actually we don't really think about it (laughing).  We just don't…really care.

Bryn: I mean we try to…if there's something that we think oh we should probably fix that then we fix it.

Clare: I like we didn't chew gum last time, but we don't really care that it looks like a ransom video. 

Bryn: Yeah. I mean, it just is what it is. 

Clare: As long as you're getting the information. Y ep. 

Huck: What do you hope to accomplish with this? 

Bryn: To get good Advanced Mastery Credits. 

Huck: Okay. I appreciate your honesty!  What is the significance of this, like in the big picture?

Clare: What's the overall big picture, big significance? 

Homestead High TV shooting a special segment in the CCHS courtyard

Bryn: Okay, so I think…[doing this] will show kids who come into this [lab] for an elective or for Mastery Credit, and start doing work with Ms. Zarah, I think it'll show them if they just have a little idea, they can make it…happen.  I mean, so it's inspirational. 

Clare: It's cool.

Huck: What are the next steps in the process? 

Clare: Well, right now we're just kind of…unorganized on our set a little bit….  So we're just kind of trying to organize it and clean it up a little bit more. And then...next week, we'll start filming for our third episode. 

Huck: Finally, is there anything else I haven't asked you that you thought would be important? 

Clare: Not for me, but... 

Bryn:I don't think so. I think we're pretty good.

Huck:Thank you for answering my questions. 

Bryn: Yeah, thank you.

Clare: Thank you!