ALISON K MILLER
Experience & Skills
Throughout my time in Television Production Workshop and during my journalistic career, I have undergone valuable experiences and gained lifelong skills. The time I have spent as a director, news anchor, editor, team member, and volunteer have all helped me become a better journalist, communicator, and leader.
Director
As a director on LO-AM, I held the responsibility of ensuring the newscast flowed smoothly and appealed to our audience visually. I instructed camera operators, made technical directing decisions, directed the timing and placement of our graphics, and ensured every member of the crew was focused and on-task. Below is one sample of a show I directed. It was a special episode of LO-AM for the Cell Out for Soldiers event at our high school. During this newscast, I wore two headsets in order to give additional directions to a separate live crew outside of the leadership classroom.
News & Sports Anchor
I was a news anchor for eight newscasts and a sports anchor for two. The main skill anchoring assisted me in furthering was writing under pressure and time constraints. I was not given the outline of news stories until the beginning of the school day, and I often did not have time to create and edit scripts until the 45 minute period prior to show rehearsal. Anchoring is a creative and vocabulary challenge, and I seized every opportunity to engage the audience that I could, working alongside other anchors to fine-tune scripts that would interest and inspire. One of the newscasts I anchored on, the April 20th show, received an Excellence Award at the Michigan Student Film Festival.
Editor
As a journalist working with video production, it is essential to understand and continuously experiment with editing software. Through my production of news packages, I have become proficient in Adobe Premiere Elements editing software. This program includes tools for audio and video manipulation, including keyframes, blurring and sharpening, shake reduction, and several other methods for producing the best possible content for audiences.
Team Member
As a member of TPW, I was a part of not only a team but a family. We spent countless hours together, collaborating to produce a newscast we were all proud of. Outside of school, we spent even more time together on dozens of livestreams of sporting and performing arts events. Through my experiences in the class, I grew to know every single member of the program personally. As I worked alongside each peer, whether it was up front at the anchor desk or behind the scenes, I gained skills in communication, collaboration, and leadership, working efficiently and collectively to create high-quality news content.
Volunteer
Volunteering has been an integral part of my life since the beginning of eighth grade. I am extremely passionate about assisting others, and that is why I have amassed over one hundred and eighty service hours through my years at the high school and earned the Service Learning Medal. I joined three honors societies to make a difference in the areas of study that I love and in the lives of hundreds of others. I have been offering math support to students since December of 2021, and I have assisted in numerous other local organizations, including senior centers, the public library, and our LOCS band program. It is my love of providing support that inspired me to join the TPW segment centered around serving the community, and it is that same love that continues to motivate my journalistic pathway. I am driven to become an investigative journalist in my future because of my passion for uplifting and telling the stories of the places and people who need it most.
