Welcome to Alumni Live: The Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University film and video

graduates about the industry, the film, video, major and alumni profiles.

Welcome back to another episode of Alumni Live: The Podcast with

two current GVTV board members.

We've got Izaak Che Rosales here.

Hi Izaak.

Hello.

And Joshua Wiley.

How you doing?

Pretty good.

All right, so I was in GVTV from 2008 to 2012, so, catch me up

on what's been going on since.

What is the current state of GVTV?

The current state of GVTV is deciding between if we wanna fully

commit to short films or if we wanna fully commit to broadcasting,

Okay, so fully committing to either short films or broadcast.

What are some of the shows on there right now?

Are we still broadcasting?

What is the media landscape out there?

I think that's our current debate is most of our content is uploaded on

YouTube and we want to pivot into doing more broadcast stuff that can be played

on the television network on campus.

Because we're switching from short form fiction content

into more show based ideas.

You'd be happy to know that we used to do a lot of shows.

So it's very interesting the way things flip and now you're trying to flip back.

Currently in GVTV, what, roles do you both have on the board?

I myself am the Vice President of the club.

I am the Technical Director.

All right, so break it down a little bit.

What does a VP do, Izaak?

So VP does a huge variety of things.

I oversee a lot of productions.

I am mostly hands-on with producing.

Any sets going on, any productions going on, any meetings in the ideas of shows

being put together, I'm there every step of the way until the finished product.

So most of my stuff is going to be on set, producing.

And then our president, Ian Stewart, does a lot of the behind in the scenes stuff

with our faculty advisor, Professor Ford.

Joshua as Technical Director, what does a day in GVTV look like for you?

I'm pretty much in charge of all of our equipment.

I run the studio.

I have to know all the ins and outs of all of our equipment.

Every time we get new equipment, I go over it with Ian and we figure

out how to use it to make sure we can train our members properly.

Recently I've also been stepping up to pretty much assist

Izaak and be the VP to the VP.

That is so cool.

All right, so let's dig a little more into the life of a VP, Izaak.

So you're, on set, you're working with talent, what are some lessons you've

learned working with other people?

How to build a team and get that really good product out there?

I think the biggest lesson I've taken away from GVTV in terms of being

the VP is that all of our members are scattered in terms of level.

And trying to figure out the right balance of training new members to

feel comfortable in the more advanced roles, while also making sure that

current upperclassmen are getting hands on with the equipment and

being able to take leadership roles.

I feel like that is gonna be the lifeblood of GVTV going forward.

Making sure that talent is there.

It was a big thing when I was a freshman in Grand Valley Television that like

the upperclassmen helped bring me up and kind of teach me the ropes.

Things like that really taught me skills that have, catapulted me

forward into my current career.

Which Joshua, you'd be potentially excited to know that I am currently a Broadcast

Engineer, so in a lot of ways technical directing out here at Detroit PBS.

Tell us a little bit about the tech out at, GVTV.

What kind of equipment are you using?

Just last semester we got three Broadcast URSAs, which was kind of a surprise.

I wasn't aware we were getting them.

We've been really excited to use those, because we're switching

into more broadcast shows.

We have a black magic switcher board, tons of lighting equipment, some

sound equipment, I would say it's mainly like grip and electric stuff.

An upcoming thing that we're getting hopefully is a production van.

No way.

We will have a full mobile production van that will be used for broadcasting

live or just doing broadcasts in other locations, which will be really fun.

That is incredible.

So what is it like working together?

Tell me a little bit about your working relationship.

Working together, it's trying to find the right balance of not handing off too much

to Josh while he's still a sophomore, and making sure that I'm giving them

the right amount of tools to succeed.

So Josh, what are some of the lessons that Izaak's taught you about

leadership, about working in GVTV?

The biggest thing I have learned from Izaak is that

it's all about communication.

He's produced pretty much everything we've made this year, and working with him I've

realized that you need to just constantly be communicating with your entire

crew, making sure everyone knows when we're shooting or when the meeting is.

Everything needs to be communicated clearly and concisely for

anything to be successful.

That is a great lesson that even those of us in the

professional world need to learn.

So those moments of mentorship, Izaak, is that something you're

spreading to multiple people in GVTV?

Yeah, so right now we have a couple sophomores who are

pitching and developing shows.

And so showing these new kids at GVTV how to run a production that is almost weekly.

And making sure that like content is being pushed out, we're not

burning ourselves out too much.

Trying to find a balance of alright, you have classwork to do, but you also

had a commitment to the club to make this, edit this, and host this show,

so what does this balance look like?

Yeah, balance.

I've heard that word a couple times now.

When I was in GVTV, you know, the balance between classwork, social

life, GVTV, other clubs, that balance was really something that a lot of

us, had to tackle almost every week.

What are some time management lessons that you've been learning?

Time management equals open communication with everybody.

It is making sure that like, if we are talking to each other about something

that the end of the conversation is clear.

We know what our tasks are and these things are getting done without me always

having to hover or Josh having to hover or producer always having to keep a

close eye on our fellow club members.

Yeah, taking away those action items.

So these projects that you got going on, what genres do they cover?

What does the entertainment landscape of GVTV look like?

It's a broad spectrum.

I would say for the most part, right now, we have improv based comedy shorts.

It feels like a comedy show half the time where I'm reading, a script

about this waiter who just keeps pulling stuff outta his pockets.

And it's almost like a Shakespearean type role where he is just like this

other worldly being for no reason.

It is like a constant giggle fest of, wow, this script is

ridiculous, how do we shoot this?

How would we make this in a realistic world, and make sure

that those comedic beats happen?

Comedic beats are so difficult.

Joshua, tell us a little bit about the storytelling in some of those shows.

How is making a GVTV show different than something you might get in a class?

It's much more open-ended where we're pretty much allowed

to make whatever we want.

There's no restrictions and I think it's a lot more lighthearted

because it's not for a class.

Everyone realizes we can just have fun with it, put as much effort as we can

into it, and just have a good time.

Like Izaak was saying about that waiter one, it was one of the best

sets I've been on with GVTV ever.

It was such a good time and it was just hilarious.

That's so fun.

This idea of improv and comedy and things like that, goes all the way

back to the very founding of GVTV.

In one of our episodes we talked to the founder of GVTV.

Jillian Austin was the first President of GVTV and one of the first shows she

created was a show called Random-Ish, which was all skits, comedy, and improv.

It is crazy that the 20 years of GVTV, college students always love giggling at

the most random stuff you can think of.

Joshua, do you feel that DNA, in GVTV today?

Most definitely.

I think most of the members that we get looking to make

something is like comedy based.

They always want there to be just something that will get a laugh out

of the audience in their shorts.

And I think it's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know in the years that I was there we had some laugh out loud, you

know, great shows, but we also had some really dramatic shows, like

Quarter Life, some sci-fi shows, some action shows, things like that.

Is that happening still at GVTV?

It is in a sense that if you could turn a comedy into a drama,

it is there at GVTV right now.

I actually wrote and directed a short film that is still being edited.

It is about a guy who goes on a date and it turns out this girl he's going

on a date with is, uh, a Muppet.

It's shot like a drama with just like very gritty, like real sense

of the world that it doesn't feel like it is a slap-sticky thing.

That is awesome.

And Jillian also said a puppet show was in that first couple years of GVTV as well.

So somehow that is also in our DNA.

But certainly something else that's like always been part of it and,

you know, something that I value maybe the most out of GVTV was

the relationships, that I made.

One of my best friends in the world, John Sessions, he and I met at GVTV.

Adam Burl was a guy that stood up in my wedding, 15 years after we were in GVTV.

Tell us about some of the relationships.

Um, Joshua, you wanna start on this one?

GVTV has definitely been very vital in all of my relationships within the film

major and even outside of the film major.

I came to the school, switched into the film major the week I started

classes, and then I was like, " Alright, I need to make friends".

So, I went to Fandango and then met the old President, Hannah Scout Dunaway.

She was like, "We're having a meeting tonight. You should come to the

meeting." And then she was just very helpful and like very welcoming to me.

I went to the first meeting and met a bunch of great people that

I'm still very close friends with.

Wow.

Yeah, that openness of wanting more people to join, bringing 'em in, I think

that's a huge value of the organization.

Izaak, what are some of the relationships that you've developed?

Honestly, it is crazy, the through line.

I could name off 20 former GVSU, GVTV alumni that I've worked on like a

feature with, over the past summer.

I've worked on several short films.

I've worked on almost every former E-board's senior thesis.

It has been very vital to me, and like not just GVSU, but being in Grand Rapids.

I'm from northern Michigan, so like coming to Grand Valley, you know, I'm

not a traditional student, so making friends is like extremely important to me.

And it's just like a core piece of me now that I know this person

from GVTV, so I can vouch that this production's gonna be like a solid one.

It's gonna be fun.

And I know that if this alumni is a part of this production, that

it has to have quality, because I know that GVTV puts out quality.

Yeah.

And I think there's something to be said too about the crucible of GVTV.

Where we're in the forge together.

You know, sometimes, 1:00 AM on a Saturday night, finishing a shoot, there is an

intensity to it too that I think breeds an intensity of relationship that is lasting.

Have you had some of those really intense, we're on a set together, we're gonna get

this shot, we're gonna do it together?

Yeah.

I mean, GVTV was my first ever time being on set.

So that was a really good learning experience.

The first set I was ever on, was a comedy short called Tape Hands.

And it was, we were really fighting the clock and our Producer was

pushing us to like get a roll on everything as producers do.

That doesn't change in the professional world too, that continues.

I cannot imagine it does.

But it was my first time realizing that, "oh, it's not just all fun and games.

Like we're still working against time and making something." That really helped

me realize that that's what that is.

But then after the shoot, we all went and got Applebee's

and still had a great night.

So it was still just a great experience.

That sounds really familiar.

I feel like I was on a very similar set at GVTV.

Izaak, tell us about some of those tough moments that, you know, forge friendships.

When I had written and directed this short film about a Muppet, one of the

big things was "How do I make a Muppet?

How do I make this creature that has never existed before and I have

to make it out of mattress foam?" I have to ask these club members, "Hey,

can you stay until Kirkhof closes?"

And we cut out mattress foam in the studio and make these

Muppets until the dead of night.

Like, I'll get you Little Caesars, we'll hang out, we will put on a movie, and

we are just gonna cut foam together.

It is always just like true faith that in GVTV, we are

gonna have each other's backs.

We're gonna make sure that this production gets done and it's gonna be to the

best quality that we can possibly put into it at 2:00 AM the night before

. Yeah.

The cleanup from those mattresses I remember was awful.

Oh my goodness.

We were Dremeling foam just on the carpet of GVTV studio and it

was such a nightmare to clean up.

There's probably still foam in the studios, somewhere in the corner

. Half the mattress is still sitting in the studio.

You're right.

It is, it is still in the studio.

Someone will use that for something, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Something that I really hear in that story is this idea of experimentation.

Which, GVTV being kind of separate from classwork, separate from

even professional work, where it's not budgets, it's not grades.

I really felt freed up to experiment with different things, to try

different storytelling ideas.

Talk a little bit about this idea of experimentation.

\ I would say that the role that I am in right now as VP

and as helping as a Producer.

in all these sets, Coming into Grand Valley I was like, "I'm not a Producer".

People last year were helping me, teaching me to become a Producer,

I was like "I don't wanna do this. This is really difficult.

How could anybody pull this off?"

Coming into this year, I'm like " I can do this.

I can do that.

I can help out with this." And I'm like, "Oh no!

I've been tricked into being a Producer." I wanna write and direct, why am I

producing a television show about like movie reviews and trying to figure out

how to broadcast stuff across a campus?

Like, I didn't think I could do this, but here I am, figuring out how to do this.

Yeah.

Well, and that idea of doing things that you don't expect yourself to do

or set out to do, that is something that to this day, I didn't set out to

be professionally a Broadcast Engineer, but when I became one I was like,

"Oh, everything I've been doing has been kind of this idea of engineering.

Where I've been figuring out how to make the shoot work, when Covid hit how we

can get things online, how we can, get the best quality out of a Zoom recording.

But I think it all goes back to that, you know, GVTV mindset where the scrappy

group of people who are going to make the shows and make the shows as good as they

can be because we wanna show 'em off.

I think that's a beautiful and relatable story you told.

Joshua, you got, some thoughts on that?

Yeah.

I personally have not experimented a whole lot in GVTV.

Hold on.

Didn't you say you weren't a filmmaker?

Your whole thing is experimentation.

Right, right.

But I am a camera nerd at heart and every GVTV production that I've been a

part of, including the first one I've been on the camera team or DP-ing it.

So, on set I have pretty much exclusively worked with cameras

because that's what I love.

But like a lot of the stories are usually filled with experimentation.

I know last year.

there was one short, and the editor, Evan, we didn't really understand what

he wanted with the story, but then once he edited it, it was like a time piece

where he was like playing with time and moving time around in the edit.

And that was very experimental and I think it worked pretty well.

But it's open.

People are free to just come in and experiment with their

stories and do what they'd like.

That's really cool.

There are some other parts of GVTV that really meant a lot to me.

Like the idea of being able to get up in front of a bunch

of people and pitch an idea.

What is the pitch process like today?

It varies whether we're doing a broadcast show or we're doing a short film.

Typically with the broadcast shows the members will come talk to E-boardems

like, "Hey, I want to do this idea of a show. Here's A, B, C, and D of

like how I would make it happen."

And we ask them, "Can you make a pitch video? Can you make an example of this?"

It happened last year when we created the show called The Mitten Players

with our current E-board member, Tim.

He gave us an example of the exact show he made, gave us a script, gave us a complete

breakdown, and now we're doing the same thing with this new movie review show.

The short film side is very different compared to that kind of production.

The short film stuff is definitely more of what you'd see in a class here

where you write your script or very close to what is your final script.

And then during a club meeting, we have you stand up in front of the club and

pitch your entire script to the club.

And then if there's multiple pitches, we'll listen to all of them and then as

a club decide what works best for us?

What do we wanna do first?

And we'll kind of lay everything out and see what our options are.

That is so cool.

I think about the different ways the experimentation of GVTV has

changed my trajectories, like I'm out here hosting a podcast.

Which again, part of GVTV is I was hosting like the special events show.

This idea of embracing different roles, trying out different things it's a

really valuable skill that GVTV fosters.

Obviously as VP, Izaak, you've been doing that which I think is incredible,

like you have professional experience as an executive of a TV station.

Do you think about that as you're looking towards graduation?

it's crazy to think about it like that because from my perspective, it's me

making this short form content with friends and classmates and just like

having fun, making stuff that they wanna make and we wanna make together.

So looking at it through that lens is really special.

It makes me even more proud to be a part of this club and be a part of something

that is very special to any university.

To be able to have a broadcasting station and have this very open concept.

And that goes all the way back to like what Jillian was

doing when she founded it.

She wanted to make sure it was, student run, student

approved, like the pitch process.

She wanted it to be as, student led as possible.

Joshua, how does, uh, being student led, you know, affect the experience?

I think being student led is amazing.

I think that's why so much of our stuff, at least this year, has been

leaning towards comedy because we have so many just funny people in the club.

And it allows us to just read a script and sit down and do a table read with

no professors looking over us, telling us what's good and what isn't, we just

get to decide on our own and trust our own abilities in that process.

That is so cool.

Hey, it's Randy.

We're taking a short break to tell you about the Morse-Cuppy

Film, Video, and Animation Study Abroad Endowed Scholarship.

The scholarship was established by Bill Cuppy with support from Deanna Morse to

help film, video, and animation students with the cost of studying abroad.

Alumnus Bill Cuppy talks about why he started the scholarship.

We created this scholarship because experiencing the world and other

cultures has been life-changing for us and we wanted students to

have a similar experience during this pivotal time in their lives.

Caroline Hamilton, the 2024 recipient of that scholarship, describes the

benefits of the support she received.

I'm a film video major and I have a German minor.

I've been studying German for about eight years now, and so I decided to

study abroad this past summer in Germany.

It definitely challenged me as a person.

I had to figure out how to do things and communicate and just

put me outta my comfort zone.

It Introduces you to new things that you'd be afraid to experience because

you don't wanna embarrass yourself, but you have to just go for it.

The scholarship itself, just the almost permission to be

like, yes, go experience this.

Go learn, go see what happens, how this changes, how you see the world

and how you approach your work.

It took the pressure off of me a little bit to just be like, I can

experience this and not have to worry about everything else going on.

I can just go enjoy my time there and see what I can learn and grow from.

For more information, and to donate to the scholarship, visit

the link in the description.

Now back to the show.

So, thinking forward to your 35-year-old self.

What do you tell them about like what you were trying to do in GVTV,

you know, how were you trying to set yourself up for the future?

I think for myself with trying to set myself with the future is

to find like-minded individuals at Grand Valley who want to make

stuff, who want to tell stories.

I'm a big believer in storytelling and in the arts, and I think that sometimes the

limitations of a university, no matter where it's at, can only put out so much.

So GVTV as a whole, being able to put out content that normally would not be

made, being able to help these students.

I'm hoping that in however many years I look back on this time like, yeah,

I made sure that like these people who normally wouldn't do these roles,

wouldn't make these type of shows, got the chance to be able to try to

figure out what they actually like.

Wherever you end up in the future, those skills are everything.

Team building, collaboration, you know, all of those ways that

you're, leading this organization is gonna be so helpful to you.

Uh, Joshua, you're sitting there talking to your 3 5-year-old self.

He's complimenting you on everything you've done so far.

What do you tell him about what you were trying to do today?

Just remember how special it was that we were able to have this experience

and this opportunity to be in this club at this university that even has a club

like this, and remember all the effort you were putting in and how special

it was to meet all these people and be able to work on set outside of class.

That is incredible how about we take a u-turn in time here and, and we get

outta the future and head to the past?

What do y'all know about some of the generations that came before?

I will be honest.

For me, I only know up until the pandemic era of GVTV.

Once the pandemic happened, there is no before, it is just always like the after.

These students you know, how do they make a man on the street

during a pandemic where you can't be within five feet of each other?

I love looking back at specifically the 2020 era 'cause it's so unique.

I also have not heard much before the pandemic.

I think that really just created like almost this divide in eras.

But like the second I came to GVTV, it was all like, how are we

still recovering from the pandemic?

'Cause they lost so many members and they had to rebuild the club.

You wanna talk a little bit about what that 2020 season was like?

From my knowledge, I talked to Hannah Scout Dunaway, the former

President and everything shut down, the club completely closed.

And then as things started opening back up.

Hannah started that man on the street show and it was the only

thing being produced from GVTV.

And then once she became President, she started to bring back shows

and try to build the club back up.

Wow.

Izaak, do you have any stories from that, COVID era?

I just know that prior to 2020.

They were able to have the amount of members that they could fill the

largest space in Kirkoff, and man almighty, do I wish that GVTV had

that same pulling power into the club.

Right now it was just trying to fill up 10 tables worth of people and I'm so jealous.

They must have been able to put out like a bajillion shows in a year to have

that many students working with GVTV.

So like I was in the second generation of GVTV.

Right?

So in that first generation with Jill, she started it as a freshman.

The leadership from that time started making sure that the

upperclassmen were making sure the underclassmen had mentorship.

She was able to build it up from nothing and continue it forward.

So I believe that you'll also be able to rebuild after the

destruction that Covid brought.

I think you've got some good plans.

As we kind move forward from this 20 year anniversary right now, 20 years from

now what do you hope, GVTV looks like?

What do you hope, students are doing?

My hope is that they're still doing almost what we are doing and what

happened 20 years ago, which is student run productions made by students for

students at the highest level that we can.

I would completely agree.

I would hope they're still having as much fun as we are on set and coming

up with ideas and just collaborating.

I would love for there to be like short form fiction content and then

broadcast shows and a whole mix of shows.

Just anything anyone wants to make could be possible, and I hope it stays that way.

That's so cool.

Izaak as a, VP, you're a a systems guy, you're putting together this

organism that is GVTV, what do you see as the growth plan for GVTV?

What are you putting in motion today that will help it get to that point in 20 years

where everybody's having fun making shows?

Spreading the word and you know, grassroots is still a thing in GVTV.

It's still, word of mouth and being able to have it spread

naturally throughout the students.

like.

it just keeps growing and growing and growing where, you know, we

have these different productions happening in different days

with different groups of people.

We wanna make sure that like, it's not just the same 10

people and the same production.

That's cool.

And, you saying that has reminded me that when I was there, a lot

of our shows were produced by people outside of the film major.

And even when Jill originally started it, she had multiple majors as part of it, you

know, whether it be theater or advertising or a person in the computer technologies

major was making one of our shows.

So, you know, that whole thing of expanding it out, I think

that diversity of interests and thought, really helped us.

And it becomes a big, growing organism.

Absolutely.

I would say also like it's still there.

Like Ian Stewart is a, is a computer science major.

He's not a filmmaker.

He loves just being on set.

He loves this behind the scenes type of action of just like "I'm not going

into the career to be a filmmaker, but I have a passion for broadcasting

and technology and filmmaking.

The fact that our President is not a filmmaker, but loves it so much that like

he's helping run it, is just fantastic.

So Josh, Izaak gave us his vision for the future.

Do you agree with that vision?

Are you going to continue on that policy?

Yeah, no, most definitely.

I think grassroots and like spreading the word is very important and

I think currently, the next two year plan to keep GVTV growing

is just being able to accommodate everybody that comes into the club.

Because with every single club that I've been a part of on campus, you

always get a lot of members like the very start of the fall semester and

many of them slowly dwindle down , but being able to accommodate more

members at the very beginning, we'll be able to keep our membership high

throughout the year, make a lot of everything that everyone wants to make.

Oh, and it's so fun too.

I mean, there's nothing like a premier night, a pitch night, people coming

in with their suits and everything.

Like it is just, it is a blast.

On that note, thinking about, you know, maybe one of the hardest times you've

laughed, on a set in GVTV, one of the things you're most proud of, give us

some of those, the highest of highlights.

I think hardest time I laughed, was on a short piece, Izaak wrote

last year that was about a man who was in love with a Laker Line bus.

That was my first time ever DPing, so I had to make the whole shot list with

Izaak and it was absolutely hilarious and we could not stop laughing.

And that was definitely one of my memories.

I blacked out the memory.

I made a short about a guy who fell in love with a bus.

A theme here of people following in love with inanimate objects.

That's GVTV for you.

It is just fallen in love with an object, I guess.

izaak, Highest of highlights, thing you're most proud of, what do you got for us?

The first time I ever got to really direct, anything was in

GVTV for this short film I made.

I got to make a movie that I wrote and take it from page to screen

and see it every step of the way.

And if you ever look at any of those pictures from behind the

scenes, I am cheese and I am mean mugging with the big smile.

I am like just having the time in my life.

I'm so proud of that shoot.

I'm so proud of , seeing these members growing too.

I'm so proud to see everybody go off like seeing Josh working on

the, all these thesis projects.

Seeing Shannon working on all this, seeing Beth grow into being

a filmmaker is just phenomenal.

I am so high spirit to see like, people coming out of GV TV with knowledge.

Like yes.

look at you, I'm proud of you.

I feel like a dad in this moment.

Like, oh my gosh, you did it.

That is incredible.

I don't think a smile could be any bigger than your, the

smile you have on right now.

It reminds me too of a memory that I have so similarly, like one of the

first times I directed anything is the President of GVTV that first year

that I was in it, was directing a show and I was kinda like asking questions,

giving him ideas, and at some point he just turned the camera over me.

He's like, why don't you just direct for the day?

And that idea of paying it forward.

He was, you know, fostering new leadership and it was the day that I

really directed for the first time.

It just, man, there's nothing like it.

There is something I think really special about GVTV there's the scrappiness, right?

Like sometimes, literally scrapping a mattress to make a character.

There's the grassroots thing of , if not us, then who else, right?

We're the only people that are in this club to make this stuff.

But then I think GVTV also, It's a voluntary club, so if you are in it,

it's because you wanna be there and it's because you want to make your stuff

better, make other people's stuff better.

There's this teamwork aspect to it.

So I think it's kind of a, a synergy of all these different things of,

grassroots and scrappiness and teamwork and just all of it together.

Izaak does that, uh, mean anything to you?

It means the world to me, like every part of, me as a filmmaker, me as a

storyteller, the foundations that I've learned from GVTV are just exponential.

I could trace back how to wrangle a cable, to how to work a camera, to how to make a

call sheet, to how do I set up a broadcast channel on a station, like everything.

Everything that I've learned here at Grand Valley, started at GVTV and

expanded out and help me advance in my classes, help me advance in outside

work, help me get through school, the foundations of everything came from GVTV.

I would completely agree with that.

Almost everything I have learned started at GVTV, being on set for

the first time, making my first ever shot list, DPing for the first time.

Like Izaak said, learning how to wrangle a cable the right way, setting up lighting

equipment that has all stemmed from GVTV and it has made me much more prepared

for classes and just has, it's allowed me to get on thesis sets and fiction

two sets and It's a great opportunity to get your hands on, out of the gate.

I can attest, those skills are, you know, professional skills that translate almost

immediately into a professional world.

As a freshman, I tried to be in the back and then, John Trombley brought

me forward, put me on the e-board and gave me a camera to direct and the next

year when I was a sophomore, right?

Like I applied for a, uh, part-time job at, WGVU Public Media, the,

PBS station in Grand Rapids.

And I remember talking with, Phil, who is the, VP of content there.

And, he was like what skills do you have?

And I was telling him all the stuff that I've done, right?

Directing shows and, coordinating shoots and working in the equipment

room, like all that stuff.

And he was like too bad you're a senior because we hire really good

people and then we lose 'em right away.

And I was like, no, I'm a sophomore.

He was like, what?

He was like, we're gonna keep you for a while.

So, I mean that, like, all of these are professional skills that on a resume

in an interview, they become a job.

it's actually crazy you say that because I work at WGVU now, like same thing.

I've helped direct shows, help write shows, help put together call sheets,

help put up the sets, help with every element, almost on a broadcast station.

The steps I'm taking and the almost similar steps that you took, Randy, like

it, it is awesome that GVTV has been able to just push people forward to be better.

A way to think of it is almost like a shortcut or a short

circuit around the ladder.

The ladder being this thing where you have to start at the

bottom and work your way up.

Well, with GVTV, you're kind of like leapfrogging all that because like

Izaak, you are a VP, like Joshua, you are a Technical Director like

you are already doing the work.

Joshua, do you feel this idea of being set up for a professional career?

Most definitely.

Yeah.

I think GVTV has contributed so much of my experience.

My classes, obviously they change every semester, but GVTV has been consistent

the entire time I've been here.

I'd say it's at least half of my onset experience.

And even offset, like pre-production, post-production stuff.

There's just so much that I've been able to work on and just get my hands on, which

I would not have been able to without.

And I think you hit on something really important with that consistency there.

'cause there's something with being out in the professional world where

whether you're freelance or whether you are corporate or whether you are

on staff somewhere, is you have a consistency of the people you work with.

So if a shoot goes bad, you can't just never work with them again.

There's this thing in GVTV where it feels like this kind

of microcosm for the real world.

Izaak, you wanna talk about that consistency of working with people over

and over again and, uh, how that happens?

Consistency is everything with GVTV.

'Cause helping everyone has just been step by step process.

You gotta start on step one to get to step 20 . Helping everyone

get through those steps, without the worry of a grade almost.

Being able to like, "Hey, we're just gonna do this.

If you mess up this shot, you know it's shaky, it's outta focus, you know what?

we'll know better for next time.

Yeah.

The first time I ever lost footage was at GVTV and I think it's, it's significant

to say that I was frustrated at the time and I may still remember that editor who

lost that footage, but you know, like there's, there's something to say, like,

okay, like I got that under my belt.

I know what that's like.

GVTV is a safe place to do that.

I think that's why GVTV is so good for learning because it is the

safe space to make your mistakes.

Because like Izaak said, there's, there's no grade.

The only people holding you accountable is yourself and those within the club.

And I like to think we have pretty friendly people, so nobody's

gonna get like crazy upset at you if you make a mistake.

It's just awesome that Josh and I worked on a show where it

just never saw the light of day.

It vanished.

Like they didn't lose the thing, they just didn't wanna put it out because

they didn't like the quality of it.

But having the experience, we learned how to do a movie talk show.

We don't have proof, but we have the knowledge , it's just as important to us.

It's hours in the bank, right?

And that's, part of what makes, a professional person, really good at what

they do is just hours in the bank, right?

When we're interviewing people at, at our TV station, we wanna know that they've

made mistakes and have they solved them.

So GVTV being a place where you can make mistakes, I think is, is

really significant and excellent.

Thank you so much and thanks for carrying on the good work of GVTV.

The organization's stronger for everything you've done.

Thanks for having us on.

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