The BBN during the filming of their annual Haunt Episode.

During their last episode, BBN announced that their news program is moving out of English class to third period SSR so that all students and teachers will see the BBN at the same time.

Today, that dreaded change begins.

When asked for reasons why this change was taking place, Mr. Herzfeld said,” It has been the intention of Baron Broadcast News since its inception to be a school-wide broadcast. Until recently, we have not had the infrastructures to make that happen effectively.”

Interesting, but honestly, students don’t care what BBN was supposed to be.  We were content with watching BBN during English class. We enjoyed the bi-weekly reprieve from the academic grind we’re subjecting ourselves to here at FVHS. But that break from our studies is another reason the BBN is being moved to SSR.

Herzfeld noted that English teachers have sacrificed instructional time for years, while other departments haven’t been asked to give up teaching time at all.  This poses as a concern to administration because English and writing scores are extremely important to school and student success.

Not everyone feels that time spent watching the BBN is a sacrifice of class time. Several students have reported that their English teachers use the BBN as content for class discussion, debates, argumentative writing among other learning activities. The BBN and teaching time do not have to be mutually exclusive. 

But some people think they are and so today, we’ll be watching the BBN during SSR. This leaves only 15 minutes for the episode. Students dread the possible loss of some of the creative and fun elements to BBN.  With the reduction in time, priority will likely be given to clips that are most relevant news-wise.  One thing that will certainly be absent are the end credits which are often the most creative and entertaining parts of the BBN (although some English teachers stop playing the BBN once it gets to that point). Hopefully the BBN will not remove skits such as Nasayugara and clips from the “Pho-nomenal Five” crew.

 Herzfeld also explained that BBN was initially designed as a network so that news could be broadcasted throughout the entire school at the same time.  He hoped that, “Down the road, we may be able to do a portion of the broadcasts live, which would give the BBN students a more realistic newscaster experience both on camera and behind the scenes.”

As optimistic and hopeful as this sound, with all the budget cuts happening around school and the money that would be need to be allocated to BBN to make a live broadcast possible, just doesn’t seem plausible at the moment.  Mr. Ziebarth, advisor to BBN, also agrees that “It’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

But, Mr. Herzfeld does make a point that it would be beneficial to BBN by exposing them to more realistic news casting, but it can still be felt that BBN won’t be the same due to their new time constraint.  BBN is more than a mere school broadcasting school network.  It’s a student outlet that lets students know what’s going on before, during, and after school hours.  It provides so much more than a regular broadcast.  It gives students more interest in school and leads them to be more active. It’s a program that pumps up school spirit by showing videos and clips of our hardworking ASB, our sports teams, our clubs, and many more.  

And a few weeks ago, a Facebook page was created in response to the move of BBN, although approximately 1,000 people have joined the cause, will it change anything? Only time will tell and today the clock starts ticking. 

This is less than half the people that contributed to the Haunt

The annual Halloween Haunt, produced by BBN is a highly anticipated clip that students enjoy watching in their English classrooms. Although this year\’s Haunt featured new ideas and stood out from the attempts in previous years, the product fell short in terms of creativity.

The introduction opens with a light car ride down various roads and soft jazz music playing in the background. At first, it appears to be a buildup of suspense like the beginning of a classy Oscar-worthy film. The festive Halloween party environment and the flashbacks of character Forrest hint at a beneath-the-surface level of meaning. However, when zombies enter the scene, the downward spiral begins.

The zombie invasion had a shallow plot, essentially one big violent war scene with one character dying after another. The progression of violence was predictable with the linear story, and the humorous scenes only slightly made up for it. Mr. Pefferonis\’ heroic role was poorly played with a lack of emotion that did not fit in with the playful style of the others. A clichéd parting speech followed the death of every character. Without the occasional inserts of humor, the production would have completely fallen on its knees.

Fortunately, there was a deeper story unknown to most viewers. The making of the Haunt is, in fact, far more interesting than the Haunt itself. The Pho-Nomenal Five worked under conditions so stressful that even completing the production is a major accomplishment in itself. For the past few years, the Haunt has been an ambitious project requiring at least seven months of planning, filming, and editing. This year, they managed to do it in one.

“When I first took on this project, I thought it was fun, until halfway through,” said Vinh Vu (\’12), who spent countless sleepless nights editing the feature. On top of time constraints, the group dealt with a slew of retakes due to inconvenient scheduling, actor requirements, and weapon regulations.

“It was a special privilege to be able to work on the Haunt, even though it was our first year [in BBN]”, said Nathan Nguyen (\’12), a member of the Pho-Nomenal Five.

The 2011 BBN Halloween Haunt will forever go down in history as the product of countless hours of blood-sweat-tears, fake blood, and actual blood. No clock can measure the amount of sleep the editing crew lost in the making. Appreciate the Haunt for the story behind it and what the journey represents, not the quality of the production itself.

Here is your special edition for the BELL GAME! Hope to see you all out at the field and remember to wear white!

Go to “Haunt” Episode | Go to Episode 6 (will air November 18th)

However, this year, BBN decided to do something different, something better. Instead of incorporating the cliche gore, haunted buildings, and a highly overrated use of documentary style camera shots, BBN provided new and improved elements to this year’s Halloween episode- comedy, student involvement, and better video-editing.

Most would ask, why choose comedy over a horror story, rightfully meant for the occasion of Halloween? Personally, if one compares this year’s episode to the ones in the past, I would say that the comedy element broke from the repetitiveness of the focus and remakes of scenes from horror/scary movies (not to mention the overly done Paranormal Activity hypes). It was different and hilarious. The episode’s uses of gore was subtle rather than overly done. Rather than being bored while already knowing the ending of the storyline, one can be entertained and look forward to what happens next.

Not only was the episode humorous, but BBN reached out to more students this year to be involved in the episode. You can’t deny that seeing your friends in the episode made it more entertaining to watch. References to stereotypes and parodies also contributed as comedic effects.

The video-editing has improved as well. There was better sound and visual quality in this year’s episode. The dialogue and sound effects were perfectly in sync. Let’s not forget to note that the Pho-Nomenal Five exhibited great comedic (and some, serious) acting.

This year’s Halloween Episode of the BBN was by far the best that I’ve seen. Kudos to the Baron Broadcast Team for a job well done!

Haven’t seen the BBN Halloween Haunt Episode? Be sure to check it out on our featured page.

Sorry to disappoint, but there is no full BBN for this week. This has been pushed one week to sync in with the BELL GAME/BELL WEEK. Extra long edition, so it should be worth the wait.

However, we still wanted to celebrate our spooky holiday, so our traditional “Haunt” Episode was produced and aired today. We hope you like it! Respond below and tell us what it’s like.

Go to Episode 4 | Go to Episode 5 (BELL GAME EPISODE!)

Go to Episode 3 | Go to “Haunt” Episode

Episode 3 was aired Friday, September 30th.

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

Hey Barons: Someone accidentally used copyrighted music in the clip below. As a result, there is no audio in the clip below. We are working on fixing this ASAP. Sorry.

Go to Episode 2 | Go to Episode 4

Episode 2 was aired Friday, September 16th, 2011.

Part 1 of 2:

Part 2 of 2:

Go to Episode 1 | Go to Episode 3

baronbroadcast.tumblr.com

Click here to go to episode 2.

Editor-in-Chief

Our Fountain Valley High School Baron Broadcast News (BBN) now has their very own official website where all BBN-goers may visit to read up on updates on inside scoop of the BBN behind-the-scenes as well as updates for upcoming episodes. If unable to watch an episode the day it premieres in the English classrooms, episodes and segments are also posted on the website for viewer’s convenience.

Come visit their website at http://www.baronbroadcast.tumblr.com.

Also, BBN is now open for new applicants for the 2011-2012 school year. Application forms are available in room 306 or here. However, there is a highly recommended brief meeting for all students interested or possibly interested in joining the staff. Space is limited and process of elimination runs by personal review of application and interview as well as “first comes, first serves” as several applicants may fail to attend.

Finally, for those curious when the next episode will premiere, Season 9: Episode 4 of the Baron Broadcast News will be released on Friday, March 4, 2011 in the English classrooms.