Much of Brandeis media centers around written periodicals like the newspapers, leaving Brandeis Television (BTV) out of the mix. BTV provides students with a television outlet that focuses on student life as well as featured stories.
Because BTV uses visual media to project its message, its members can achieve great cohesion between the club and the classroom. Treasurer for BTV Rachel Zhu ’18 is working with Prof. Sabine von Mering (WMGS/GRALL) on “a video that features faculty commentary on climate change as well as helping someone with their senior thesis film.” Herein, BTV provides a unique way for individuals to use skills taught in the classroom with videographer skills in tandem.
However, not all projects need to have a serious academic bent to be considered for BTV. Mica Unger ’17, secretary for BTV, is currently working on “making two promo videos for Dance Marathon.” As a secretary, Unger acts as a “liaison” to members and makes sure to send weekly emails to the club members. BTV has also begun to partner with other clubs.
“This year, we have been working extensively on our new program BTV music. We partnered up with SCRAM to produce semi-weekly concerts which we shoot and make into music videos,” BTV President James Conlon ’16 said. BTV could be the perfect club for anyone interested in combining their musical interests with audiovisual pursuits.
In the future, the club hopes to “build BTV up to have more members and more of an alumni network,” Rachel Goldstein ’16 said. Currently, BTV’s membership base is underwhelming. With more members, the club hopes to embark on larger projects. Additionally, many members have gone on to achieve great success in the film industry, so using these resources would be very efficient for the club as a whole as well as its alumni outreach.
Many members, like Zhu, hope to go on to a career in the film or television industry. Zhu “dreams to become a screenwriter.” Similarly, Unger joined BTV in order to pursue her interests in “film business and production.” Because of its excellent resources and membership, BTV allows members like Zhu and Unger to make quality television projects.
Like any other club, however, BTV does face various challenges. “One of our biggest challenges is that a lot of people don’t know who we are or what we do. We want more people to know our name and what we do. This year we are trying to recruit more members and also get our name out there more than it has been before. So far our attempts have been a lot more successful than the past,” Goldstein said. Membership growth and retention is crucial not only to maintain the survival of the club, but more pertinently, to ensure that BTV is well known in the larger Brandeis community.
“Sometimes it’s difficult finding people committed to long-term projects. Therefore, we’ve made a lot of small films. But I’d really like to see more ambitious projects in the future,” Conlon said.
Fortunately, BTV members know how to have a great time and any day can bring the most hilarious moments to the club. For example, Unger recalls how while filming a sketch about existentialism and t-shirts, “We used a voiceover for the existential thoughts so we pretty much had a giant crew take over part of Sherman to film two characters looking at each other with absolutely no dialogue. We laughed a lot after each take.”
Mostly, when people join a club like BTV, they might expect to have their activities contained to the institution. But thanks to the generosity of the board members, people like Zhu have gotten “credit for a small portion of a film that went to Sundance, met and interviewed bands that played at Springfest last year and gained so much experience from just taking a camera and shooting.”
To find out more information about BTV, viewers can visit their “Deis TV” Youtube page.
