Members listen to TV Club president John Gruccio talk about ideas for their TV segments.
Thanks to a new organization on campus, students are given the opportunity to film, act in, write, edit and produce their own television show.
The TV Club formed last semester, and according to the club President John Gruccio, the group has now accrued approximately 25 members, a combination of primarily television production majors and others from the department of journalism and mass communication.
“The goal of the TV Club is for students to gain experience and to find out what aspect of television production they’re interested in: those who want to edit, or who find computer and software interesting, or people who are more interested in using or being on camera,” he said.
Gruccio said last semester the club produced a variety of shows on varying subjects with small groups of club members working independently of each other.
Despite several successful attempts, he said this method of working was hard to maintain, so they decided that this semester the members would all work on one project together.
The yet to be named variety show is scheduled to be posted on YouTube and possibly aired on local cable.
“It will be your typical variety show: entertainment, comedy, some skits, just a whole variety of different things,” Gruccio said. “We want it be something that people in our generation would find humorous: not necessarily a Saturday Night Live-like program, but something along those lines.”
Club members shot, edited and acted in the content produced for the show. The segments run from three to five minutes long.
Gruccio said he hopes to produce at least one more episode of the variety show this semester and said he has also been in contact with Murray State’s Student Government Association about possibly producing a Murray State-themed music video for Pharell Williams’ song, “Happy.”
Chris Haynes, the TV Club’s faculty adviser, said now that the club has been established, the next goal is to make the campus aware of its presence.
He said one of his reasons for co-founding the club was that so students would come to him and ask if there were any television projects outside of class they could be a part of.
“I’d always have students asking, ‘Is there anyone they could shoot a project with?’, ‘Does anyone need a camera operator?’, ‘I have an idea for a video, where can I get some help?’,” Haynes said. “The TV Club is about bringing together individuals with like-minded pursuits so they can help each other and learn together.”
Haynes said having the TV Club is also important for television production majors because in the region Murray State is in there aren’t as many opportunities to get involved off campus.
“Despite the fact we have WKMS, Digital Media Services and WPSD in Paducah, we live in a very media-poor environment in terms of video,” he said. “The reason why we need a TV Club is because we need something to exist so students can get experience.”
Story by Ben Manhanke, Assistant News Editor