Posts About Inside Channel One News
Behind the Scenes: Roger & Me
Roger Daltrey and his The Who bandmate, Pete Townshend, are long-time patrons of a UK charity, The Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT). They're opening a specialized unit at UCLA Medical Center, similar to units they've supported across the UK, dedicated to caring for teens with cancer. Check out pics from our shoot with Roger Daltrey in the slideshow below.
COMMENTSOpen Arms
In case you were wondering...we donated your aired t-shirts to an organization in Austin, Texas called Open Arms. We thought since y'all were so generous with us, we'd pass on the generosity! Open Arms hires refugee women from war torn countries who have fled their homes in search of a safer place to live. They takes donated t-shirts, wash them, and turn them into new clothing -- mostly scarves and skirts.
The workers at Open Arms are paid a living wage -- the amount of money needed to support a family in everyday life. They are a for-benefit company that is looking to create positive social change.
Now your donated t-shirts will get a new life supporting refugees settling into their new home. So thanks!
Meditation for Beginners
My first meditation class was an accident. I thought I was going to yoga. But the winter to spring schedule changes had just taken place at my yoga studio. So there I was – up at 7:15 on a Thursday morning already dressed in workout clothes. I thought "it can’t be that hard – let’s meditate!" I assumed the class would be nice and peaceful, with a teacher telling us what to do in a soothing voice. I walked in, everyone sat down, the teacher turned off the lights, and...that was it.
I kept opening my eyes to peak at my fellow meditators. Their eyes were all closed and they seemed at peace. I expected the teacher to say something about what I should be thinking about. She didn’t say a word! I didn’t know what to do! And then I got mad because I didn’t know what to do. I was too embarrassed to walk out so when the class was finally over instead of feeling more relaxed I stormed out, angry and annoyed I had wasted my morning.
That was a couple years ago. Since then I've read books on meditation and the benefits of thinking about thinking. Trust me, thinking that "I’m a mountain" and "my thoughts are like clouds passing by the mountain" does not come naturally to me. But sometimes after yoga or working out, I'll sit down and close my eyes and think about…nothing.
It usually lasts for about ten seconds before thoughts start swirling in my head. But I observe these thoughts and it's nice to know that these thoughts and emotions don't last forever. I can be really mad and annoyed at something but know that in an hour I may be laughing and having a good time.
I'm not sure if I'll ever master meditation -- but I have learned a couple of minutes of me time every day makes me happy.
What Next? 101
One of the more fun parts of my job is producing What Next? segments. We love it when you write to us telling us about your career aspirations.You have emailed us saying you want to do everything from being an astronomer to a Lego designer, and thanks to your ideas, we’ve gone to Google, observed a heart surgery, and spent the day with a truck driver.
Last year 15-year-old Taylor Hamilton from Huntsville, Alabama emailed to tell us that she wants to be a film editor. We thought it would be great for What Next?
When we decided to go with it, I went into action -- I talked to zillions of movie companies and Disney agreed to let us meet with both the editor and the director of its new movie, "John Carter." One of my favorite things to do in What Next? is to surprise the teen that we will be featuring. We like to do it on camera, so I don’t respond to the emails of the people we choose...and hope that they think we have forgotten about them.
Then I work secretly with the teen’s parents and school to arrange a way to surprise them. At Taylor’s school, the video department set up two cameras near a speaker phone and we called her during a class to tell her the news that we were flying her to California to meet a successful film editor. It’s fair to say she was not expecting our call!
One of the best things about producing is that you get to go along for the ride...so I flew to California with Taylor and our anchor Scott, who I like to call "Scott-man!"
The director of the movie, Andrew Stanton has won two Academy Awards. I have never met an Academy Award winner before and thought he might be sort of intimidating, but he wasn’t at all. He was warm, friendly and easy to talk to. Erik Jessen, one of the editors on the film, showed us a lot of really cool stuff about how live action movies are made and edited.
Since it’s very expensive to shoot a film, the movie director plans out exactly what he is going to film before he starts. Then, an artist known as an animator makes what could be described as a video game version of the action before filming starts. The editor’s first job is to put that version together. Finally, based on the video game version, the director and actors shoot the film.
"John Carter" has lots of strange looking creatures, one of which is a huge white ape that is actually a computer generated image. Before the computer generated version of the ape is finished, Erik edited in a cartoon like version of the ape that is drawn by an artist so that the director can have a sense of what the scene will look like once the computer generated version of the ape is done. Finally, once all the film is edited in Erik edits in music. He says music is very important in conveying emotion and setting the mood.
After we spent the day with Erik and Andrew at Disney’s Barsoom studio in San Francisco, Taylor said film editing was definitely for her! Her family is saving money to buy her a Mac and editing software so she can get started. If there is a job you’d like to do when you grow up, email us and let us know what it is...and maybe we’ll surprise you next.
Shout it Out
So you wanna be on Channel One News? One of the easiest ways is by recording a One Shout and posting it on channelone.com. Here's some inside advice on how to get your clip chosen to be on the show1. Include your name, school, city and state in your video.
2. When recording, hold the camera steady and make sure everyone is in focus.
3. Film in a place that is well lit so we can see your shining faces.
4. Have fun and don’t be afraid to make it creative. But always at the end say: “Channel One News starts right now!”
5. The last step is to upload it. Click here to get to the right place.
I look forward to seeing a bunch of new One Shouts in the future!
Meeting Mia
You may have seen our recent Glory Road interview with Mia Hamm. I have to say talking with her was pretty awesome. She's done everything from writing books, to setting records in soccer that no woman or man has surpassed. She's also the mom of twins girls and new baby boy who still finds time to speak to groups of young people about pursuing their dreams. Meeting her was a little like sitting in a room with your big sis because she's one of the most down to earth people I’ve met -- and is arguably one of the most successful too.
We met at the HerWorld event in partnership with DeVry University in New York City. Three hundred girls, all there as leaders from their respective schools and neighborhoods, came to listen to inspirational stories from women killing it in their fields. And in walked this woman, unassuming in Nike athletic gear and completely eager to get her chance to speak to them.
When she approached the stage, you would have thought Nikki Minaj had walked in the room. I even looked around to see if anybody was encouraging the girls to respond, but there wasn't.
These girls went crazy; excited that someone was willing to come lend their advice in order to help them succeed. And Mia didn't skip a beat -- she got right to it.
She spent the better part of an hour talking back and forth with these young women with stories about her family, about adversity and how to look it in the face and overcome. She talked about the importance of passion and diligence and about identifying what you want and then going for it. It was awesome to see the audience respond. A lot of the girls had just been born at the height if Mia's popularity, but it didn’t matter because what she was saying now was important. "follow your dreams...don’t let anyone tell you, ‘you can’t do something.’ And once you start going after it, go until you get it. It's not always gonna be easy, but it's always gonna be worth the investment, if you're investing in yourself.”
I think we could all benefit from thinking that way!
Frog'ed
Now that you've seen our piece on the rite of passage that is dissecting frogs, you know that for most students, it’s a cool interactive way to learn about the different systems of an organism -- muscular, circulatory, skeletal, digestive -- you get the idea. But it’s also the time, at least in my class, that pranksters live for. Unfortunately for me, it was my turn to get prank’d.
Before "Frog Day," we'd planned what we were going to do, when we were going to do it and exactly how to dissect the frog. We discussed in great detail what to expect and how to be careful with our utensils. We had one frog per group of two. The first thing we were to do was to pin their limbs down with clamps to hold them in place. Aside from the smell, there was nothing particularly memorable about this process. But I'll remember what happened next forever.
I was a little anxious to get to started and before the prompt and warning of our biology teacher, I went in. I was met with a spray of froggy juice in the face. GEERRROSSSSS!! I can’t even describe to you the sound I made because I blocked it out of my memory because of the trauma. And unfortunately that was not the end of it for me.
The rest of the day I walked around school smelling like old frog. The end of the day arrives I got on the bus, still smelling like old frog. After my eventful I day I figured the best thing to do was take a nap. Which I did, until my mom came home screaming!
One of my friends put the frog in my backpack. When my mom, curious as to what the awful smell coming from my backpack was, found out. I thought it was me smelling because of the frog, er, liquid on my clothes, when really, the frog was in my back pack. Needless to say I never used the bag again and couldn’t participate the next day, because everyone thought I took the frog home. Of course, none of this would have happened if I had I just waited to start like we were supposed to.
Lesson learned.
How to Rock
January 23, 2012
Most of us have either rocked braces or glasses, if not both, but have you ever wondered what it would be like to rock a stage? Kacey Simon (Cymphonique Miller) knows what's its like to do both. On the new show, How to Rock, Kacey goes from being BFFs with all the right people and hosting her own segment on the school's news network, Channel M News (hmm...) to social outcast, all in a week's work. The culprit? You guessed it: glasses, braces and a wicked lisp that not only sounds silly, but virtually ends her broadcast career and knocks her to the bottom of the social stratosphere. Kacey's challenge is to find a way to deal with her new look and status and still be her same rockin' self.
We loved the premise of the show (and the book!), but the braces and glasses thing got us thinking. Can you be on TV with braces and glasses? Then we remembered we work at a TV news show and we could get the answer straight from the source.
Here's what Jessica Kumari had to say about rocking braces and glasses:
Have you ever had braces or glasses?
"Yes. I got them in the same year and I was terrified that I was going to be a big dork, the stereotype, you know? But what happened is that because I got them so young, before anyone else, they were cool. Also, I had the kind that you could change the rubber bands on so I could customize for holidays – black and orange for Halloween, red and green for Christmas, and that was fun too."
What kind of affect did they have on your self-esteem?
"Like I said, at first I was scared that people would judge me, especially with the glasses. Also, my mom was sort of anti-glasses so I was a little worried about that. But I needed them! I literally couldn’t see the board. I used to pretend that I had to sharpen my pencils so that I could I go up and see it. But it was worth because as soon as I got the glasses, not only could I see the board, but I also became a rock star at Nintendo because I could finally see what was going on in the game.
I’m basically blind without my contacts now."
How did you feel when your braces finally came off?
"It’s funny – I was like one of those transformations that you see in movies. I got contacts and my braces off at the same time. And then I got a perm. It was crazy. I was suddenly really popular with the boys, and then the girls liked me too because of the boys."
Do you have any advice for dealing?
"I realized when I suddenly super popular and feeling great about myself that feeling confident is half the battle. Once you have that feeling, even if you have to fake it at first, you eventually really become confident. And then it doesn't matter what you look like."
What kind of affect did they have on your self-esteem?
"Like I said, at first I was scared that people would judge me, especially with the glasses. Also, my mom was sort of anti-glasses so I was a little worried about that. But I needed them! I literally couldn’t see the board. I used to pretend that I had to sharpen my pencils so that I could I go up and see it. But it was worth because as soon as I got the glasses, not only could I see the board, but I also became a rock star at Nintendo because I could finally see what was going on in the game.
I’m basically blind without my contacts now."
How did you feel when your braces finally came off?
"It’s funny – I was like one of those transformations that you see in movies. I got contacts and my braces off at the same time. And then I got a perm. It was crazy. I was suddenly really popular with the boys, and then the girls liked me too because of the boys."
Do you have any advice for dealing?
"I realized when I suddenly super popular and feeling great about myself that feeling confident is half the battle. Once you have that feeling, even if you have to fake it at first, you eventually really become confident. And then it doesn't matter what you look like."
Jessica Kumari
Clearwater Beach, Florida native Jessica Kumari cultivated a passion for news at her campus TV station at Georgetown University. She then moved to New York City and joined the prestigious NBC Page Program before serving as a production assistant for Brian Williams.
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Shelby Holliday
Shelby Holliday is passionate about all things Millennial. From politics to prom, her favorite assignments involve talking to students and discussing issues that affect young people.
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Scott Evans
Scott Evans has been working in entertainment and media since the third grade. After studying communications and theatre at Purdue University, he worked as a NBA On-Court Host for the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever. He most recently worked as the West Coast Correspondent at the millennial news organization, One Minute News.
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Jason Witmer
Producer Jason Witmer has worked in just about every type of journalistic medium including writing for magazines and producing pieces for NPR. He fell in love with video as a medium at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism before spending three years at the Houston Chronicle. He is happy to be at Channel One now, a show he grew up watching.
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Kristen Brody
Kristen Brody is a graduate of the University of Missouri's journalism school and a Production Associate at Channel One.
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Gary Hamilton
Gary knows something about that famous Texas pride, he was born and raised in Houston (where he grew up watching Channel One in Middle and High School) and then he graduated from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas and studied abroad at Oxford University in the U.K.
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Jessica Rojas
Jessica Rojas is a born and bred New Yorker whose love of all types of music, dance and entertainment took her to Los Angeles where she studied at the University of Southern California. Her love of music is what brought Jessica back to New York to share that passion with you at Channel One.
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Sarah Mirza
Producer Sarah Mirza is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Master's journalism program at Boston University. She loves to write and lives for those adrenaline-fueled breaking news situations.
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Kristin Sachau
Producer Kristin grew up in San Diego, California and graduated from San Diego State University. When she got involved with documentary filmmaking, she realized she had a passion for storytelling and she's been doing it every since.
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Evan Groll
Associate Producer Evan Groll started at Channel One as an intern. He enjoys covering international news, human interest pieces and stories centered around social injustices (or even better, a combination of the three).
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Sponsored Disney Nature
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