Hotchkiss Television, now known as [htv], has sporadically shared campus news since the 1980s. Visionary co-heads MacCoy Weil ’23 and Anika Balwada ’23 have resurrected the club and helped it produce its first episodes since before the pandemic.
Co-heads Mary Tyree ’23, Balwada, and Weil join their concept of clever exchanges with students and short funny videos with Senior Editor Harry Morelli’s ’23 quick editing style. Weil said, “[htv]has blossomed into a huge team filled with writers, filmers, and editors. We are always finding new people to help push our vision forward and strengthen the board for future generations.”
The creative process of generating [htv] episodes begins on Sunday evenings, when board members meet to collaborate on upcoming segments. They bounce segment ideas off of one another, create bumps and funny skits, assign writers and editors their respective tasks, and decide which correspondents will be featured in front of the camera or behind the scenes.
[htv] now debuts episodes bi-weekly instead of weekly. “We’ve moved to [this schedule] because we are really trying to focus on quality over quantity. Writers should have a handful of days to create scripts and correspondents will not feel rushed. Our editors also won’t feel unsatisfied with the final product because they didn’t have enough time to edit to the best of their ability,” Morelli said.
In the recurring segment, “[htv] Cribs,” board members search for unique dorm rooms. “We often want to have something different about each room — specific things like underclass student representation on the segment, roommate pairs with interesting dynamics, or funny student leaders that have the charisma to put an interesting spin on [their space],” Tyree said.
The most crucial and time-consuming step of creating an [htv]episode comes after filming, when editors shape uncut b-roll into its final, 16-minute form. Creating innovative 15-second bumps or video buffers requires hours of editing. Morelli described the process, saying, “The [other] editors work on the rough cuts and audio before the footage is passed down to me. Then I work on the final cuts, music, and graphics. Over the course of two weeks, I spend about 18-20 hours editing and filming. It always starts as a cluttered amalgamation of footage that is turned into an actual episode. We always pull through.”
Finally, the heads meet on Friday afternoons to put the final touches on the episode. Balwada said, “I’m usually in tears on the floor, because I’m so stressed about releasing the perfect episode. Our hope is that our episodes will make people die of laughter, as they see their friends, teammates, and classmates featured.”
To watch [htv] episodes when they are released, comunity members can attend the club’s bi-weekly premieres in the Student Center on Friday evenings at 7 p.m.
Scan the QR code to see the latest [htv] episode.
