In a room full of rowdy teens pitching newcast ideas, clicking away on computers and cracking jokes while finishing their upcoming video, the only two seniors who have been enrolled in the course since freshman year, Bianca Gomez and Atria Jamshidi, overlook the projects and guide students through the chaos.

The 2017-2018 school year marks Gomez’s and Jamshidi’s fourth year in Warrior TV, with Gomez being the media director and the highest student position. Starting out as freshmen, the girls knew very little about cinematography, only gathering information through YouTube, middle school film class and home videos.

“They were pretty young when they first came to us…They were mostly just followers and beginners,”  film teacher David Baker said.

Since then, Gomez and Jamshidi have become experienced filmers through the summer film camps and festivals organized by Film Ed Academy. Film Ed Academy is a broadcast and film education program for high school students, which teaches everything about the film process from pitching ideas to the editing videos. Warrior Television is part of the Film Ed program and has given both girls a

chance to explore their passions in film and broadcast.

“Freshman year, I really wanted to go more into production design, but I think last year I got more into editing, like for the 24 hour film festival, I was the master editor and I like that so much better,” Gomez said.

Gomez and Jamshidi never expected for Warrior TV to shape their high school experience. The girls have met fellow filmmakers from other schools at film festivals, and immediately have something to bond over. As for their classmates, the long hours Gomez and Jamshidi spend editing and filming with their peers inevitably create best friends.

“I first thought it would be like my regular classes, but when I got into it, we would hang out outside of school, during lunch, during tutorial, during class, it’s not a class it’s an experience, it’s a family,” Jamshidi said.