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College
Beat auditions new hosts
By
Molly Haupt
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Many
eager students arrived at the Beach Auditorium
last week to audition to become future hosts
of Cal State Long Beach's student-produced
television program, College Beat.
The
show was looking for energetic and outgoing
students, who wish to become campus "movie
stars" while hosting the news-magazine
program that produces four different 30-minute
shows a semester.
The
positions are available because previous
host Corian Lucas graduated last fall and
Julie Guevara will graduate in spring, but
a specific number of hosts have not yet
been set for this semester.
"We're
looking for two or three students to fill
the positions and we had about eight or
nine pretty good contestants," said
Co-executive Producer and Judge Mark Fitzgerald.
The
judges panel, which consisted of a few of
the show's staff members, evaluated on the
basis of appearance, articulation, energy,
personality and overall performance.
They
were very welcoming and friendly towards
the candidates, and directed them to provide
an upbeat personality just the same.
"They
asked me to do an interpretation of Carson
Daly, but I don't really watch MTV so I
just tried my best to sound like him,"
said applicant Marcus Armstrong, a communications
major.
But
emulating an MTV video jockey is not the
main goal of College Beat.
The
show informs students about present issues
affecting the community, promotes awareness
of these issues, and delivers a variety
of entertaining topics in an innovative
manner, as noted on the Web site www.collegebeattv.com.
It
also gives students a wonderful opportunity
to acquire knowledge and insights to the
media production world, while finding a
family within the crew as well.
"The
whole purpose of us being here is for students
to gain experience and make something they
can be proud of. It's also a really fun
and exciting atmosphere at College Beat,"
said Co-executive Producer Gregory Kim.
The
staff members of the Beat consist of students
from a range of majors such as communications,
journalism, theatre arts, and English, which
all collectively contribute qualities that
benefit the show.
Television
production is a broad field, Kim said, and
the future hosts will be expected to bring
variety along with their lively personalities.
"I'm
a communication major with an emphasis on
event coordination and party planning but
I am also interested in broadcasting,"
said transfer student Vianne Patterson,
who auditioned on Friday. "I am still
not sure exactly what I want to do so this
might help."
Patterson
heard about the auditions through a professor,
but many students learned of them through
public resources, which produced an outcome
that pleased the judges.
"We
had a great turnout this time because of
publicity. We did a lot of recruiting from
outside which included Beachboard postings,
classroom announcements, and posters all
around campus which got the word out,"
Kim said.
One
of the objectives of the show is to promote
awareness, and it seems that the staff is
already on the right track this semester.
Check
out College Beat and its new hosts on Mondays
at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m., and Tuesdays at 3
p.m. on the university channel 3 and Charter
Cable channels 65, 69, and 95.
The
new hosts will be selected next week after
call-backs take place, and the first show
is likely to air at the end of March or
beginning of April, so make sure to tune
in. |
