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Poetter Hall was purchased by the SCAD founders in March 1979. Classes began in September of that year.  
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Trivial Pursuits

Trivial Pursuits
 
Student adds puppet-friendly angle to news


 


By Monique Bos
Published: Friday, May 5, 2006

Viewers of Beecon, the Savannah College of Art and Design student television station, might notice a new face onscreen this quarter: Mandrake Stone, a fluffy green puppet with pink eyebrows and a plaid shirt.

Stone, who interviews college officials on the news show “Puppet Pick of the Week,” is the brainchild of Matt Terrell, the news director for both Beecon and SCAD Radio.

“It’s an easy way to make a boring subject fun, by having a puppet do the interview,” said Terrell, a junior who’s planning to change his major from production design to contemporary writing as soon as SCAD offers the latter. “You have the broccoli, which is the interview, and he’s the cheese on top.”

Upcoming segments of Stone’s show, which are posted online at http://beecon.tv when they are ready to air, will feature Jeff Smith, crime prevention officer and investigator in the college security department, and Falishia Wilson, manager of parking and transportation services, Terrell said.

Learning to operate the puppet — who was purchased through eBay — has been a challenge for Terrell, though he’s gotten some tips from fellow Beecon staffer John Gholson, a sophomore sequential art major who has worked as a professional puppeteer.

“I’m still learning puppeteering,” Terrell said. “It’s harder than I thought. You have to hold your hand down in the puppet’s head so the eyes are always pointed forward.”

His emphasis is on creating in Stone a face and persona viewers will associate with Beecon news.

“I’m trying to stay as much behind the camera as possible,” he said. “You hear my voice in the crime and security cartoon and ‘Puppet Pick,’ but other than that, I’m just trying to be the producer.”

The cartoons to which he referred are still in development, but he said they will present the college’s security report and other crime-related information and will be similar to the online cartoon “Teen Girl Squad.”

In addition, Terrell and his news assistant, first-year student Jared Black, produce the lifestyle/feature show “Erica on the Scene,” which features media and performing arts sophomore Erica Korman. The show has covered SCAD and community events such as the painting department’s Open Studio Night, the Mutation Craft Fair in the Starland district, and the media and performing arts department’s presentation of “Our Town.”

He also has another idea in the works.

“I’m starting up a hard-news, investigative, documentary journalism show tentatively called ‘Eye on SCAD,’” he said.

Visually, Terrell has tried to differentiate both “Erica on the Scene” and “Puppet Pick of the Week” from other shows on the student station.

“A lot of the stuff on Beecon is really splashy and professional,” he said. “I’m using pink and blue. I’m trying to make my news look really early ’90s, inspired by early ’90s Nickelodeon shows. It’s a look I think viewers will recognize.”

In addition to his work for Beecon, Terrell also creates news segments for SCAD Radio, which he said are usually broadcast at the top of every hour during regular programming. As D.J. Mattie Broussard, he hosts “The Final Countdown” Sundays, 4-6 p.m. The show features the top 30 songs from SCAD Radio each week.

Terrell, who served as District editor in chief during the 2005-06 academic year and news editor in 2004-05, said he expects his involvement with SCAD Student Media to provide valuable experience when he embarks on a career.

“I want to move to New York and go to grad school for writing. I want to be a teacher but I also want to write professionally,” he said. “Once I graduate, I’ll have a radio reel, Beecon reel, and a print portfolio. I’m going to know everything about media. I’ve also gone to a lot of conferences, and I’ve met a lot of people who are going to be working in the industry.”

He has applied for 12-15 editorial internships in New York this summer, and his District experience already has resulted in a freelance writing gig for the Savannah Morning News. His most recent assignment involved interviewing Savannah icon Lady Chablis.

“She was much nicer than people make her out to be,” he said. “She’s all natural, all her.

To read the story, visit www.savannahnow.com/stories/041206/3784156.shtml. For more information about SCAD Radio, visit www.scadradio.com.