Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts-BECA

Student script wins national award from Broadcast Education Association

Matt Itelson — Wed, 03 May 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Student script wins national award from Broadcast Education Association

Author: Matt Itelson

May 3, 2023

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts Department

Jae Hamilton wrote raucous speculative episode of U.K. teen sitcom ‘Derry Girls’

What started as a class assignment has turned into a national award for a San Francisco State University student who has since graduated. Jae Hamilton is a first-place winner in the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Festival of Media Arts. Her speculative script for an episode of the U.K. teen sitcom “Derry Girls” brings a raucous yet thoughtful twist to a Catholic girls school in Northern Ireland in the 1990s.

Hamilton (B.A./B.S., ’22) is among 300 student winners, representing 82 colleges and universities nationwide. They were honored at an awards ceremony at the festival on April 17 in Las Vegas. BEA is a leading international academic media organization that drives insights, excellence in media production and career advancement for educators, students and professionals.

Hamilton wrote the script last fall as an assignment in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts (BECA) 470: “Dramatic Writing for Television and Electronic Media.” The plot takes the “Derry Girls” protagonists to a shop in town where one of the characters gets in a dispute with the owner for overcharging for candy. In the episode’s secondary plotline, Hamilton takes the Derry girls as far from their comfort zone as she thought possible: to a museum exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs, showcasing his trademark provocative images of nude men.

“It’s hijinks, but the basis is taking care of your own and standing up for what you feel is injustice,” Hamilton said. “I wrote it because it’s funny, but it’s also about self-acceptance. Even though they are very simple characters, they deal with lots of different emotions and themes.”

A double major in Visual Communication Design and Creative Writing, Hamilton entered San Francisco State as a transfer student after a career as a theatre props technician in Atlanta. She is pursuing a career in video game design, and her passion is writing plays.

“Writing is my happy place. It always has been,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton is not the only member of the SF State community to be honored at the BEA festival. Her BECA 470 instructor from last fall, Associate Professor Marie Drennan, garnered Best of Competition in the Mini-Episodic/Webisode category of the faculty scriptwriting competition.

Learn more about the SF State Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts and Creative Writing departments and the SF State School of Design.

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Student radio, TV, cinema coming to you live

Matt Itelson — Mon, 01 May 2023 15:00:43 +0000

Student radio, TV, cinema coming to you live

Author: Matt Itelson and Diana Trujillo

May 1, 2023

Photo Credit: Courtesy of “Crave Radio”

Students gain hands-on experience in state-of-the-art studios in new Marcus Hall

With the quarantine of 2020 long in the rear-view mirror, students at San Francisco State University are back to developing skills and making friends the old-fashioned way — in the flesh. Better yet, a new energy has emerged in George and Judy Marcus Hall for the Liberal and Creative Arts, the new building where students use state-of-the-art studios and labs to operate a radio station, produce television programs and much more.

KSFS radio

KSFS is the online student-run station based in the Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts (BECA) Department, representing the best of college radio with programming as diverse as San Francisco State itself. Students have the freedom to play and say pretty much whatever they like, leading to avant-garde playlists from all music genres (one DJ is still dedicated to spinning vinyl) and talk shows and podcasts on a range of topics.

Samantha Ferro, Jennifer Gee and Alexandra Lopez host “Crave Radio”, airing Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. this semester. Each brings her own perspective and passion to her segment: Ferro focuses on the culture of her home country of Italy, Gee explores soul searching and Lopez discusses the San Francisco 49ers.

“The BECA program has provided me with hands-on experience that you just can’t get outside of college. You can do radio, podcasting, video or script writing,” Gee said. “I get to learn with different people and see how they work and also learn about myself and how I work. You also go out of your comfort zone and grow as a person.”

The three hosts only met last fall but already are completing each other’s sentences as if they’ve been lifelong besties.

“Without SF State we could not do this,” Lopez and Ferro said in unison.

Listen online 24/7 at BECA Media or download the app.

‘Under SF’

Things can get zany in Marcus Hall when “Under SF” is filming at Studio One. The weekly variety show, produced by two BECA classes, brings in artists, musicians and social justice advocates, even sending in the clowns of the Finelli Circus.

The hosts, producers, directors, writers and crew members — all students — operate in a professional television environment, preparing them for careers in the television industry.

“It’s a really good experience learning how to work with a crew in a studio … having fun together while also being able to make mistakes and learning from our mistakes,” student Luna Cardenas said. “When it was my turn to direct, [we] came together with the production group. … We just worked together a lot. We all cared about each other and our work.”

Watch “Under SF” on the BECA Media YouTube channel.

‘State of Events’

Every Tuesday, BECA student journalists present a full-length television news program, “State of Events.” Broadcast from a set with a street-level view of Holloway Avenue, the show covers news from the SF State campus to the greater Bay Area.

Watch “State of Events” on the BECA Media YouTube channel.

BECAfest

BECAfest is the annual showcase and celebration of the work produced by BECA students. Emulating Hollywood’s top award shows, the event features award-winning work in video, audio, writing and radio, among other categories. This year’s event takes place Friday, May 19, at 7 p.m. in Studio One.

Film Finals

At SF State, the media arts are on display beyond BECA and Marcus Hall. In the Fine Arts building, students in the School of Cinema — recognized as one of the nation’s top film schools — enjoy a soundstage, editing rooms and recording facilities developed with guidance from industry legends including Francis Ford Coppola.

A Gator tradition for more than half a century, Film Finals is the juried showcase of the year’s best student films — and the city’s premier student cinema showcase. It returns to the Roxie Theater, at 16th and Valencia streets in San Francisco, on Tuesday, May 16, at 6 p.m.

Related screenings of SF State Cinema student films include the Queer Film Finals, scheduled for the Roxie Theater on Monday, May 15, at 6:30 p.m., and the Animation Finals on Thursday, May 25, at 6 p.m. in the August Coppola Theatre on campus.

Visit the SF State calendar for a full list of events.

Learn more about the SF State BECA Department and School of Cinema.

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SFSU alumna starts first full season with SF Giants as voice of Oracle Park

Jamie L Oppenheim — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 23:15:02 +0000

SFSU alumna starts first full season with SF Giants as voice of Oracle Park

Author: Jamie Oppenheim

March 27, 2025

Radio personality Carolyn McArdle splits her time between 98.1 The Breeze and Oracle Park

Carolyn McArdle (B.A., ’94) has worked in Bay Area radio for more than 30 years, mostly as an on-air personality. As the industry changed, she wore more and more hats. She’s a morning show co-host, assistant program director and music director at iHeartMedia’s 98.1 The Breeze. Last summer, she added one more hat to the mix — and this one’s orange and black. McArdle was named the public address announcer for Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants baseball team.

This year will be her first full season with the Giants. She’ll work 81 home games, mostly at night. With a full-time job as morning show host, McArdle will have a packed calendar. “This is my dream come true. I don’t care if I’ve got four hours of sleep or five hours of sleep. I get to call the ballgame at Oracle Park for the Giants,” she said. “I’m so fortunate. This is the pinnacle team that I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d be working for.”

She credits San Francisco State University for her career in radio and Major League Baseball. An athlete herself, McArdle came to SFSU to swim on the Gators’ NCAA Division II team (which was disbanded at SFSU in 2001). After a challenging run studying real estate at SFSU, she switched to a program that didn’t require math or accounting: Radio and Television.

Once in the program, she was blown away that this was something she could do professionally. SFSU taught her the basics of radio: editing, copy writing, audio production and sound mixing. “We were editing reel to reel, cutting tape and slicing tape and playing records off vinyl,” she said. “The teachers were so down to earth and so real and so helpful that that you just constantly felt supported.”

One of her class requirements was to intern at a radio station, which gave her actual broadcasting experience. She shot for the moon and wound up at her favorite radio station, K101 (101.3 FM), working with a staff that included the legendary Bay Area DJ Don Bleu. Every day she worked, she’d bring him his daily prize sheet. Hearing him on the air the next day, she says she felt proud knowing she was the one to walk that piece of paper to his recording studio.

SFSU helped make the jump to the professional world of radio seamless. “There was still a learning curve, but I was so well prepared based on what I had learned at State,” she said. Eventually, she found herself working alongside some of her former instructors. Then in 2012 her life came full circle when she became the co-host for “The Don Bleu Show” on 103.7 KOSF.

After three decades in radio, she says she wanted a new challenge. “I love radio, but I do it every day and I could do it with my eyes closed,” she said. “I wanted to try something new ... and so, I thought, ‘What about announcing sports?’”

Baseball was her first choice, so in 2019 she looked online for public address announcer positions. One popped up at the University of the Pacific (UOP) in Stockton for the softball team. From there she found other gigs. It was swimming and gymnastics at Stanford University, water polo at UOP, softball, volleyball, gymnastics and football at the University of California, Berkeley.

She enjoyed what she was doing and people thought she had a talent for announcing, she says. “Now, of course, your brain naturally goes to, ‘How high can I go?’” she said. “And for me, the goal would be Major League Baseball. That would be the pinnacle, the gold star.”

Her goal was quickly becoming a reality. She auditioned for the San Francisco Giants’ minor league farm team, the Sacramento River Cats, and was hired as a fill-in announcer in 2020. Eventually she became the team’s full-time announcer.

Fast forward to 2024 when the San Francisco Giants were looking for a public address announcer. She auditioned against other people who were equally talented, she says. “It could have gone to anybody in that booth,” she said. “I’m extra humbled and grateful that the Giants selected me to be their new [public address announcer] going forward. … This is definitely something I worked for.”

SF State Night with the Giants is Tuesday, April 8. Tickets can be purchased online.

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ABC news anchor and alumnus Whit Johnson returns to SFSU to inspire students

Kanaga Rajan — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:00:00 +0000

ABC news anchor and alumnus Whit Johnson returns to SFSU to inspire students

Author: Kanaga Rajan

October 3, 2024

Photo Credit: Whit Johnson and Journalism Professor Venise Wagner in Knuth Hall. Photo by Juan Montes.

Johnson visited campus to share insights from his “strategic and surprising” career with Journalism and Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts students

Emmy-winning journalist Whit Johnson (B.A., ’04) has experienced a lot in the 20 years since he was a Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts (BECA) major at San Francisco State University. He was among the first reporters to interview Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was killed. He reported on the recent total solar eclipse and covered two Olympics. And he just got back from Florida, where he covered Hurricane Helene.

When you’ve had experiences like that, you build up a lot of stories — and Johnson returned to the San Francisco State campus Tuesday, Oct. 1, to share some. The co-anchor of the “Good Morning America” weekend editions and anchor of the Saturday edition of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” Johnson talked to students about journalism, his journey and his advice for launching a successful career. The event, held in SFSU’s Knuth Hall, was moderated by Journalism Professor Venise Wagner, who brought along students from her class “Social Impact of Journalism.”

“I never imagined that I would end up here [as a network anchor],” Johnson said. “But the one thing that I think I did have going for me was just a work ethic that I developed while I was here at San Francisco State.”

Johnson grew up in San Francisco, and both his parents are SF State alums. (Johnson’s dad actually joined him for his Oct. 1 visit, and they were both chuffed to talk about how the school evolved from the ’60s to the early 2000s to now.) Johnson came to the University for the broadcasting department — and soccer. He wanted to be a professional player, but injuries halted that journey.

“While I was here, I sort of evolved from a wannabe morning disc jockey and prank caller to a sports broadcaster to a news broadcaster,” Johnson said. Since the news initially seemed intimidating, he leaned into sports broadcasting. He even voiced Gator basketball, welcoming spectators and doing PA announcements.

Johnson with some of the students who attended the panel. Photo by Nicole Lange.

As he approached graduation, he began putting together VHS resumes, using the campus editing bay to work on the tapes. “Out of dozens of tapes, I got exactly three job offers. None of them were in sports,” he recounted.

He accepted a broadcasting job in Yakima, Washington, for a salary of $18,000. Though it felt less than ideal, the move set the trajectory of his professional and personal career. He met his wife, journalist Andrea Fujii, in Yakima. When she got a job in Salt Lake City, he followed. He got a job at CBS News in Washington, D.C., while she got a job in Baltimore. To prioritize his family, he returned to local news with KNBC in Los Angeles, before ultimately ending up at ABC News in New York, while his wife became a freelancer for ABC News.

“Every career move along the way has been both strategic and surprising,” he told students. But the chain of events all started because he was prepared for that first post-grad step.

“The facilities here allowed me to fine tune the skills that I needed to get my first jobs, get my foot in the door … ,” he explained, emphasizing the importance of being able to pitch himself as a reporter who could shoot, write and edit his own material on a tight deadline. “[As a student] I was hanging out in the news studio, in the sports studio. I was doing reports when I wasn’t supposed to be doing reports. I was hanging out in the control room when I wasn’t supposed to be in the control room. I was using the edit bays just on my own.”

Left to right: Johnson doing live to tape and radio interviews with students, and posing with his father in Marcus Hall.

Johnson maximized his time with his professors, too. He fondly recalls talking to professors like Professor Emeritus of Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts Marty Gonzalez, KRON-TV’s weekend morning anchor today, peppering them with questions about getting into journalism, salaries and more. “I asked all the awkward, uncomfortable questions,” Johnson recalled. “Through those experiences, through access and talking to people, I learned that you’ve got to be willing to pack up and go where you need to go.”

Some of his most memorable SF State experiences were listening to speakers who came to talk about their own careers. They were often people he grew up watching on TV. Now current SF State students get to say the same about Johnson. In addition to the talk in Knuth Hall, he also dropped by Marcus Hall to be interviewed by BECA students for live to tape and radio interviews.

“He had a lot of information that was needed for all of us. I like to hear about his stories of where he went and what happened,” said first-year Creative Writing major Savannah Paquette, who attended Johnson’s morning panel.

“In order for this job and career, you need to just get up and go to random places, to record and give the information to the world,” she said of what she learned from Johnson.

Learn more about SFSU’s Department of Broadcast and Electronic Communications Arts and Department of Journalism.

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SF State alumni, faculty find camaraderie in Writers Guild of America strike

Matt Itelson — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 15:00:00 +0000

SF State alumni, faculty find camaraderie in Writers Guild of America strike

Author: Matt Itelson

June 22, 2023

Photo Credit: From left: Lecturer Marion Dayre takes a selfie with her former SF State students Armando Jimenez and Barbara Burgues

‘Better Call Saul’ executive story editor Marion Dayre is an SF State lecturer, and she brought two of her former students to the picket lines

For many San Francisco State University graduates with Hollywood dreams, moving to Los Angeles is a move for opportunity. While the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike has brought production to a halt industrywide since May, two former San Francisco State students have placed themselves on the picket lines alongside one of their faculty mentors.

“It’s history in the making, so why wouldn’t you want to be there and try to make a change?” said Barbara Burgues, a Venezuela native who attended SF State in 2021 and now lives in Los Angeles with goals of producing, writing and directing.

Her former SF State classmate Armando Jimenez picketed with her. Jimenez (B.A., ’22) is an aspiring screenwriter and director who moved to Southern California in the spring.

“It’s natural for me to join the picket line. I get to fight for my future,” he said. “Especially since I’m hoping to get a job somewhere in that field; I hope to be able to afford the roof over my head.”

Burgues and Jimenez were invited to the picket line by Marion Dayre, a lecturer in Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts and executive story editor on the Emmy Award-winning “Better Call Saul.” (Streaming soon: She is the head writer on Marvel’s “Echo” and co-showrunner on Amazon Prime’s “Wytches.”)

Dayre structures her “Television and Video Program Design” class to simulate the full preproduction process of developing a series for streaming. Writing is a major element, but students also learn to build a pitch and other tricks of the trade. As a rising star on the front lines, Dayre tells her students what conversations are like in the writers’ rooms and network executive suites, with self-care in mind.

“If students are asking if they’re capable, I hope they would be able to find that assurance going through the process of the class,” Dayre said. “What I try to pass along is the importance of self-care as a writer. Knowing that we’re in a community with our anxieties, we don’t have to harbor them alone and navigate them alone. I try to come and be real.”

But then comes the question of existential doom: Is it a good time to move to Los Angeles to break into the industry?

“It’s always risky and it’s always full of rewards. And I think now’s as good a time as any,” Dayre said. “I moved to LA during the last strike [in 2007 – 2008]. And everything worked out.”

Alumnus David Pollock marches on the picket line. This year’s WGA strike is the fifth that he has participated in.

Shrinking seasons, shrinking compensation

WGA members are striking to seek increases and equity in pay, improvements in work conditions and job security, measures to prevent harassment and discrimination, and the regulation of material generated with artificial intelligence. The guild is bargaining with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

“When I was watching television in the 1950s, there were 39 episodes a season. The same shows were on year after year, and they were all advertiser-driven,” said David Pollock (B.A., ’61), a retired Emmy Award-winning writer from classic programs such as “Frasier,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Carol Burnett Show” and “M*A*S*H*.”

“Over the decades, incrementally, the number of episodes shrunk as the business expanded,” added Pollock, now retired but still a frequent WGA picketer. “We’re just burning up content faster and faster with shorter attention spans.”

‘Another pause for the greater good’

Dayre says the camaraderie that it takes to write a quality script begins in the writers room and continues on the picket line, where she is a captain.

“We had a slowdown during COVID, and now it comes time to take another pause for the greater good,” said Dayre, who has taught at SF State since 2021 and been a WGA member since 2014. “You’re never guaranteed the next job or the next spot, but you are guaranteed the ability to learn from brilliant writers and to help them when you can.”

Jimenez says picketing has been a fun way to effect change and learn about the business side of entertainment. As an extra motion of solidarity, one day he brought two cases of water for the protestors.

“I’m not a WGA member and, fortunately, you don’t have to be a WGA member to join the picket line. Nobody minds at all,” said Jimenez, who interns in project development for Dayre. “They have such a great community of people. I don’t usually see something so tight-knit where an entire huge group of people go, ‘Oh, we’re going to go on strike. We’re all going to do this.’ Plus, spending time with someone like Marion, it gives me comfort for the future.”

Burgues only spent one semester at SF State, but it’s changed her life. She credits the University for sparking her creativity, and Dayre is a vital inspiration.

“She’s just so understanding of how hard it can be to get into this industry, and it’s very easy talking to her,” Burgues said. “If it weren’t for her, I don’t think I would have had the courage to tell my parents, like, ‘Hey I’m going to be a writer and leave everything behind and just be a struggling international student.’ And I do not regret it at all.”

Learn more about the SF State Broadcast and Electronic Commuinication Arts Department.

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SF State alum executive produces documentary on hoops legend Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf

Matt Itelson — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 16:00:00 +0000

SF State alum executive produces documentary on hoops legend Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf

Author: Matt Itelson

February 13, 2023

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Showtime

Sarah Allen (B.A., ’99) focuses her journalism work on social justice in sports

Two decades before Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the National Anthem to protest police violence, another professional athlete faced severe consequences for refusing to salute the flag. Now, a San Francisco State University alumna has brought former National Basketball Association (NBA) player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf’s unique story — and the tantalizing style he played the game — to an international audience.

Longtime journalist Sarah Allen (B.A., ’99) is an executive producer for “STAND,” the biographical documentary about Abdul-Rauf featuring extensive interviews with him and other basketball luminaries. It premiered on Showtime on Feb. 3.

“I fell into it because I really was intrigued by that whole conversation around athletes and activism,” Allen said. “I’m not as interested in giving somebody’s stats on the field. That’s boring to me. Athletes have stories that go beyond that.”

Born as Chris Jackson in 1969 in Mississippi, Abdul-Rauf exhibited a dazzling display of skills and athleticism at only 6 feet and 1 inch tall. He used his battle with Tourette syndrome as motivation. “It looked like I was watching God play basketball,” Shaquille O’Neal, a teammate of Abdul-Rauf at Louisiana State University, said in the documentary. Allen said: “Clearly, he was Steph Curry before Steph Curry.”

Abdul-Rauf’s career was cut short, however, after he decided to sit on the bench during pregame performances of “The Star-Spangled Banner” due to the continued oppression of Black people in America. He was suspended and then exiled from the league, and later his home was burned down in an act of white supremacy. Now age 54, he has enjoyed a career resurgence, dominating players much younger than him in the half-court BIG3 basketball league with the same skills he has always had.

“Mahmoud is just very layered,” Allen said. “When you see his story, he’s had a lot of trauma in his life. When you look at him, he doesn’t seem like he’s been through everything he’s been through. And that is what intrigued me. And again, he’s a conduit for all these messages that are in the film and that I feel we should continue talking about.”

Allen met Abdul-Rauf at the 2017 National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference, where he won an award. At the time, he was long out of the national spotlight and his story had been largely forgotten. Allen approached him and convinced him to do an interview, his first one-on-one with anyone in years. Their rapport has since evolved into Allen writing numerous stories on Abdul-Rauf and then negotiating his licensing agreement with Showtime and the contract for his 2022 memoir through Kaepernick Publishing.

Allen’s SF State story

Allen grew up in the Fillmore District in San Francisco. After high school at Sacred Heart Cathedral, she attended Clark Atlanta University for one year before returning to the Bay Area.

“San Francisco State has one of the best broadcasting programs in the country, so it was a no-brainer for me,” she said.

By Allen’s third semester, though, she found herself on academic probation. She credits fellow Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts student Tiffany Griffith (B.A., ’99) with helping turn her academic career around.

“She and I became fast friends and we started taking classes together. I started getting motivated to go to class, be awake during class, make sure I do my homework,” Allen said. “I think it took me about a year and a half to get off academic probation. And in a year and a half, I ended up back on the Dean’s List.

“Once I really took it seriously, the mentors that I had there, they really made sure I succeeded,” Allen added. “And I’m just so grateful I had that experience because it really prepared me for real life.”

Learn more about the SF State Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts Department.

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