By Noah Coss

Every year, the AVTF (Audio Video Technology and Film) elective class takes a weekend long trip one of the biggest student film events in the country. That is the national Student Television Network (STN) convention hosted in either California or Tampa, Florida. STN is a massive Film/TV/Broadcasting organization focused on bringing future storytellers together from all over the country and even beyond for one purpose. To give these thousands of students the opportunity to create, learn, and experience together all in one place. But out of the near 300 schools and 4000 students, how does our small video class fit into the mass of this grand movement?

On this trip, we rode on a bus for 9 hours stopped at the best rest stop in the world, Buc-ee’s, competed in the Amazing Race which was an icebreaker scavenger hunt hosted by STN, visited Busch Gardens which was THE roller coaster amusement park in the Tampa, competed in many film/tv/news competitions, went to Publix, had very dinner at many nice restaurants, attended STN CineFest at the Tampa Movie Theater, attended the two awards ceremony, and placed in two competitions! Our school won first place in the Commercial category and made top 5 in the Vertical Man on the Street Category. It was defiantly an experience to say the least for everyone there.

“STN competitions are no joke. Students received prompts on the spot and had to write scripts, film footage, and edit their final videos — all within tight time limits. Categories ranged from silent film to vertical man-on-the-street interviews, and every team had to bring their creative A-game from start to finish.” – Mr. Sanders (the AVTF teacher)

One filmmaker who had much to say was Claire Rafferty (sophomore) the trip as a whole. “It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Especially as a sophomore, so it was my first time, and definitely a really good introduction to AVTF in general and what’s to come for AVTF.” Many of the competitions had students create videos similar to the ones we make in AVTF and the advanced level course so the trip was a really good way to up the ante on what it is that we do.

Aside from competing, STN is just a genuine great time. “Definitely some of the highlights were going shopping at 9 PM, just like walking around the city by ourselves, going to CVS like twice.” Claire explained, “It was also just like a lot of fun to just be with people that I kind of just met and being able to form better relationships with people… I was kind of expecting to stay in my own bubble and I was really happy that I didn’t have to and that I met a lot of great people.” Often more than not, this is usually what students walk away with from this trip, having a genuine experience and growing closer to their peers because of those experiences.

That’s really what I took from this entire trip, the idea of losing and finding something special beneath the rubble. Our small class got the chance to compete against more 4000 students and we held out own despite our limited equipment and limited numbers, compared to the other school of course. I may not have one my competitions but I feel like I won in other ways. The whole point of these conventions are to create and tell stories, and that’s the truth about filmmaking conventions. But what I learned from all this is that, sometime its not about always about what you create for the judges but the stories that we write for ourselves.