A Production in Pictures: Live Coverage of the 2014 Germantown Festival

      GHS-TV produced Live Coverage of the 2014 Germantown Festival on Sunday, September 2014. The show aired live from the Festival grounds at the Germantown Civic Club Complex. Student hosted and produced, it featured look-in interviews with vendors around the grounds, interviews on-set with community members, performances from local artists and video segments on nearly every aspect of the Festival.

GHS-TV Goes Live From the Germantown Festival

Germantown High School students, from left, Ben Taylor, Derrick Saulsberry, Sean Byrne and Ethan Morton rehearse in the C19 mobile unit forGHS-TV's Live Coverage of the 2014 Germantown Festival.

     Germantown High School’s internationally recognized Creative and Performing Arts Department has a busy weekend planned at the Germantown Festival. Students and staff  are dedicating this Saturday and Sunday to entertaining children, promoting the Festival with a live television show and building support for their world-class education program. It all happens September 6 and 7 at the Germantown Civic Club Complex.

      Germantown High School’s award-winning television station, GHS-TV, is bringing the Germantown Festival into the living rooms of viewers all over Memphis and onto the computers and mobile devices of people around the globe. The student-run station presents Live Coverage of the 2014 Germantown Festival Sunday, September 7 from 2-5 p.m.  This annual show is produced on-site from the Festival grounds at the Germantown Civic Club Complex. Along with interviews and performances from local guests, the show is jam-packed with student reports covering nearly every aspect of the Festival…from memories of Festivals past, to the newest winner of the Running of the Weenies. Viewers can watch on Comcast C19 in Memphis or online at our new website ghstv.org.

     The hundreds of thousands of visitors expected at this year’s Festival will be entertained by GHS acting and theatre students from the Poplar Pike Playhouse. These young thespians volunteer to operate “Gameland,” the Festival’s area for children of all ages. Face painting, spin art and fish toss are just some of the activities offered. GHS fine arts students will also craft balloon animals to help raise funds for their program. Just down the street from the Festival grounds, students will be selling water and other refreshments from the campus of Germantown High.  

     The 2014 Germantown Festival student chairmen are Damaris Diaz, Ericka Garrison and Arafat Quran. Hayley Bardos is the overall producer of Live Coverage of the 2014 Germantown Festival. Sean Byrne is the technical director of the TV show. The hosts are Sydney Armstrong and Maclean Mayers. For more information on the Germantown High School Creative and Performing Arts Department, visit our website at ghscapa.com or call (901) 755-7775. 

Tour GHS-TV, Learn About Fine Arts Dept. During Thursday's GHS Open House

The annual Germantown High School Creative and Performing Arts PPAG Open House is being merged into the Germantown High School Open House set for this Thursday night from 6 until 7:30.

Along with the normal events planned for the school-wide open house, parents and students are invited to attend a special GHS CAPA meeting and a performance by the GHS choir. Fine arts students will also lead tours of the department, which will include the school’s community theatre, the Poplar Pike Playhouse, and its community television station, GHS-TV. Parents will have the opportunity to sign up for the Poplar Pike Arts Guild and other parent support groups.

 The Germantown High School Open House is Thursday, August 21 from 6-7:30 p.m. All parents should report to their student’s 1st period class for a brief welcome video. After 1st period, parents may visit their student’s classrooms and meet the teachers. Bells will not ring to move parents from class to class during the event. The night is structured as a “meet and greet.” Parents who would like to have a conference with a teacher can sign up for the next designated conference day, which is September 19.

Winning Proposal Gives GHS-TV Students Their Own Show

Four students from Germantown High School's award-winning television station just earned themselves an even larger audience. GHS-TV seniors Sydney Armstrong, Sean Byrne, Kaif Gilani and Maclean Mayers won Shelby County School's district-wide video contest Show Us Awesome.

Students from all over the system entered for a chance at their own show that would air on Comcast C19 and on the system's online media site, as well as be publicized through SCS' many other channels of social media and communications.

The GHS-TV quartet will start production soon on Around the Block, a monthly show that will highlight subjects impacting today's students. During a recent production meeting, talks centered on including as many field segments as possible. The students seemed eager to branch out to new communities and to make this show a truly unique addition to the ones already being produced by GHS-TV students.

"I think this is a great way to get the entire community excited about the many great things happening around town," said Byrne. "We'll focus on our school system, but we also want to showcase the pride so many people have in Memphis."

Established in 1982, GHS-TV is a community television station operated by the students of Germantown High School. GHS-TV is seen online at ghstv.org and its programming airs in the Memphis area on Comcast C19 and throughout the region on ION Media. GHS-TV serves as a model facility that continues to produce original programming, inform citizens and educate young people interested in telecommunications careers. It has been named the nation’s best access station an unprecedented 11 times by the Alliance for Community Media. Its students have won over 145 Hometown Video Awards, 44 regional “Student Emmys” and 2 national “Student Emmys.” For more information on GHS-TV visit ghstv.org. You can follow GHS-TV on Facebook and Twitter (@ghstv).

Allison Long is the executive producer for GHS-TV.  Ted Beasley is the senior producer. Bobby Ramsay serves as the studio supervisor. Matt Sloan is the SCS videographer. Ashleigh Williams and Catie Broadwater are supervising producers. Catherine Cohen is the business manager. 

Alum & Emmy winner Matt Sloan newest addition to GHS-TV Staff

        GHS-TV welcomes a familiar face back into its family. GHS class of 2011 graduate Matt Sloan has joined the GHS-TV staff as an Audio/Video Production Technician. A recent graduate of Southern Illinois University he is excited to come back to his roots.

     “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to come back and give back to the fine arts department that has taught me so much.” said Sloan.

     Sloan’s will teach students creative and technical skills, serve as a supervisor for TV programs and produce content for both GHS-TV and Shelby County Schools. Sloan said he is looking forward to sharing his TV knowledge with the students. He earned a degree in Radio, Television and Digital Media for SIU. During his time there, he  became the executive producer of alt.news 26:46, for which he won a college television Emmy award for “Best Magazine Style Program.”

     Sloan was heavily involved with GHS-TV as a student. Along with being general manager of the studio, he directed Live Coverage 2010 Germantown Festival and Election Night 2010 along with monthly tapings of Crosstalk and Wake Up, Germantown!. Sloan is the only GHS-TV student to win the Jim McKay Memorial Scholarship, which is a national honor given each year by the Emmy organization. He also performed in the Poplar Pike Playhouse productions The Secret Garden, The Farnsworth Invention, Parade, The Beaux' Stratagem, Curtains, Beauty and the Beast, Ragtime and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. 

     He is not the first Mr. Sloan that has worked at GHS-TV. His father, Paul Sloan, is a 1981 alumni who also came back to teach at GHS-TV. Sloan’s father then went on to become the Creative Service Director at the Fox affiliate in Memphis. He currently serves in that same role for the Fox affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona.

     Faculty members and students are looking forward to having Matt Sloan on board with both GHS-TV and the Poplar Pike Playhouse.

     “I’ve heard so many great things about Mr. Sloan here as a student,” current senior Ben Taylor said. “I’m excited to for the opportunity to work with him at GHS-TV.

Story By Taylor Shennett