Every Friday, students remind teachers over and over again to turn on the smart board before 8:15 so we don’t miss a second of CCTV. From the hilarious “intros” to the catchy theme music to the field reports, CCTV is always the highlight of the day on Friday morning.

Sometimes we take it for granted. We don’t realize how much effort goes into the seemingly short eleven minute broadcast, and we don’t understand how much work our fellow classmates put into making the best show possible for us to enjoy. Lunches sacrificed, Thursdays turned into stressful times, the CCTV crew puts their heart and soul into each and every broadcast.

Though teacher Mr. Ryan Andrzejewski helps tremendously, the broadcasting class is taught to deal with deadlines and the weight of responsibility to finish by Friday all on their own.

Producer Luke Whitmarsh said, “One episode is more work than most people think. We only have 3 hours of class time a week that we can put into making that week’s episode, so almost everyone spends a good amount of time outside of class working on their packages and trying to make the episode the best it can be.”

Luke wants Cathedral to know that “the amount of work that goes into CCTV is more than many other classes at Cathedral. The amount of time that most of the people in the class put into one episode is more than what they put into most of their other classes.”

Though Whitmarsh holds a lot of responsibility for the broadcasts, he is not the only one who feels that Cathedral should know how much work truly goes into one episode. Digital short director Jacob Breeze said, “We put our heart and soul into the broadcast, and we really try our best. Sometimes it’s not that good, and people hate it; but even if people don’t like it, we’re proud of it because it’s our own work, and our own unique expression.”

Whitmarsh and Breeze both work on the behind-the-scenes stuff, which of course keeps the broadcast going. Perhaps a better-known face is anchor Matt Thompson, who has the pleasure of greeting Cathedral every Friday.

Thompson loves being an anchor, and he thinks it is an amazing opportunity. He said his job is more structured than others in the class. He said, “Every week we have our filming routine, collect campus data and bounce off to stories. It’s not as last-minute and scrambling as a lot of the other aspects of the broadcast can be.” He feels his job is unique in CCTV because “not a lot of people are in a position in which the whole school is guaranteed to hear what they have to say.”

CCTV had to cut its infamous segment of Question of the Week, but this year they have asomething else to look forward to: a new digital short, modeled after the popular sitcom The Office. Thompson, who has been writing and directing the new short, said he wants something the school can look forward to and to be “attached to.”

Thompson, along with Breeze, works hard to write and produce a new digital short each week titled The Broadcast. “We have a class of brilliant personalities and funny people, so me and Jacob Breeze work closely with each other each week, writing our version,” said Thompson.

While they are not the bulk of the broadcast, digital shorts are the part that the whole CCTV crew hopes the students are excited for. “It really does capture what happens on our side of the camera, with some obvious exaggerations,” said Whitmarsh.

So, next time you are eager to watch CCTV in your first period on Friday morning, keep in mind that it’s more than just a way to waste a few minutes of class. It is the product of hard work, dedication, and stress on the part of the CCTV staff.

Thompson has big expectations for the class this year, and he just “hope[s] people can take something home with them after each one, by ‘not just having a good day, but making it a good day.’”