Cuesta Sports Monthly has been a program at Cuesta College for 15 years, highlighting student-athletes and giving students a hands-on opportunity to learn TV studio and video production.
The program was started by a group of faculty members including film TV and electronic media (FTVE) professor John Arno and sports information director Peter Schuler. Schuler has been the host of the show since the fourth episode and has been able to shed light on many student-athletes over the years.
“I think it makes their experience a little bit more worthwhile because they’re not just somebody passing through,” Schuler said. “If they realize that we are invested in them as student-athletes, I think that makes their experience a little bit better.”
The show typically runs three times a semester with each show containing three segments. The first two segments are usually focused on the student-athletes while the last one can feature a wide range of guests including coaches, teachers, trainers or even the occasional off-campus guest like an author.
While Schuler gets to highlight standout athletes at Cuesta, the students behind the scenes are learning valuable skills they can translate to their future career goals. The show is almost completely student-run once they get the basics down, each with their own role in producing the final product. During the November broadcast, studio arts major and director of that session Christian Escobar explained how the class was run.
“It’s a very collaborative course where we all change roles every four sessions that we have,” Escobar said. “So we have four projects, three of them are Cuesta Sports Monthlys and one is a final that we work on together. But we each are just learning how to work behind the scenes of movie sets, TV series, radio shows and interviews so every kind of program that’s along those lines.”
Escobar has been lucky enough to get experience in a role that lines up closely with his future career goals, but the class isn’t limited to those only planning to be behind a camera in the future. This was the case for film major Cait McCormack whose role was audio during the November broadcast.
“I have always been interested in film and the making of film. I want to be an actress so I think it’s really cool to understand the ins and outs of how it’s made,” McCormack said. “We all kind of get to switch around and learn the different parts and get versed in every aspect of making multi-cam shows.”
Cuesta Sports Monthly will be back in action next semester. To watch the most recent show or any other past FTVE broadcast, visit the CuestaHDTV YouTube channel.
“I can’t find anything that’s not positive about what we’re doing,” Schuler said. “Except for my dry cleaning bill.”
