Bekah Dorsey was bored over winter break. Luckily, as a budding cinema studies major, she had a remedy: creativity. From the dangerous realm where creativity and boredom intersect came a flow surreal images and ideas that were the beginnings of an intriguing, aesthetically pleasing and cinematically daring show: Caps.

The concept began with sketches. “I drew up the costume for Mrs. Rooni and a few other characters,” Dorsey said. And then, she met Mariel DeLacy, who was expressed interest in collaborating to make a show for Duck TV.

“[Dorsey] came up with the whole narrative and I just wanted to have directing experience, so we wrote a show,” said DeLacy, who has helped with production on Duck TV but is now directing and producing for the first time.

Tilted camera angles, brilliant contrast, and the dreamlike quality of the show dazzled the audience of last week’s screening. To describe the show, DeLacy said, “It’s about an evil queen who abducts a girl and the brother that goes on a journey to find and save his little sister.” Although confusing, the show appears at times to be a modernized version of Alice in Wonderland. “I really like mythological things,” Dorsey smiled. “And I really like fantasy worlds.”

Both producers attribute the surrealism of their show to the combination of each of their unique styles. “Both of us have pretty surreal ideas that we want to incorporate into our show,” Dorsey explained. “I don’t think we would ever make a realistic show,” laughed DeLacy.

The costumes used on the show derived from Dorsey’s designs. “I was excited about making a show that dealt with more costumes than just standard student dress,” DeLacy explained. “We really tried to give each character a different outfit just so we can play around with another aspect of surrealism that you don’t see in [Duck TV].”

The show has three costume designers, Imogen Banks, Hannah Hirsekorn and Maddy Jordon, two of which are art majors. “We show them what we want and then they give us their opinions, and then it just turns into something awesome,” said Dorsey.

The show also utilizes a remarkable amount of caps, the importance of which will be unveiled throughout the four-part series. Ninkasi Brewery donated the caps used in the show. All 40,000 of them.

Dorsey and DeLacy pour hours of time into their creation each week. Viewers anticipate the next episode, excited to see where it will lead them. Until then, DeLacy wants supporters to know, “We’re very thankful for everyone who’s helping out and watching.”

The first set of Duck TV shows premiered on Wednesday in Lillis 282, drawing a huge audience. Once again, the PR team decorated the room and ordered pizza. Needless to say, executive producer Virginia Rice supplied her signature cupcakes.

“I’m absolutely astonished at the level of quality the videos are,” said Rice, noting how much Duck TV has changed drastically from Fall term. “I’m really excited to see how it’s going to get better.”

Last summer, executive producers Virginia, Zach and Richard met and decided what they wanted to change about Duck TV and what kind of an impact they wanted it to have on campus. “We wanted Duck TV to be something that people knew about, something that people wanted to be a part of, and something that people saw as a resume-builder…they would learn a variety of skills,” explained Rice. Now, the execs feel that their vision for Duck TV is finally coming together.

“We’ve all researched it,” Rice added. “We really are the best student-run production company in the nation right now in the way it’s run.” She hopes University of Oregon and the Journalism school will continue to give the show more recognition.

In addition to the shows’ success, the News team is launching its first ever news blog this term. Spice Walker and Sophie Hoover help news reporters compile stories for the blog. The News team hopes that audiences will be able to utilize the blog for obtaining campus news and follow-ups of stories shown on Duck TV.

The audience enjoyed and applauded the variety of shows, ranging from the slightly more serious A Quarter Life Crisis to the rap-inspired comedy, Rap City.

Actress Stephanie Lynn Rodgers, actress for Quarter Life Crisis and the Henry Brown Variety Hour, won the Outstanding Crew Member award. She also works as a videographer for other shows. In her fifth term of Duck TV, she has been to a number of Duck TV screenings and commented on the success and energy of this particular premier. “The decoration was absolutely amazing! The energy was great, everyone was super excited…Our shows have a lot of potential,” she said.

“Usually the first episodes are pretty difficult,” she continued. “You have a bunch of new crew members and it’s hard to get to know everyone and figure out what everyone’s good at, but I really feel like the first episodes were really good.”

The second round of Duck TV shows are undoubtedly working hard to prepare for their premier on Wednesday, April 25th at 8pm in Lillis 282, striving to match the quality of this week’s shows.

This past Wednesday, the new Duck TV crew gathered in Lillis for the first Spring 2012 meeting. As word of Duck TV spreads across the University of Oregon campus, the audience and number of students involved is growing rapidly. For this reason, Duck TV will host a record number of 13 shows this term.

This will be the last term working with Duck TV for two of the three executive producers, Virginia Rice and Richard Stutsman, who will graduate this year. Overseeing so many shows this term, they have quite a commitment in their final season, but seem to also possess the energy and enthusiasm to make this season a huge success.

A few of the shows airing this season are: Fumblerooski, produced by actor Ryan Hoefle; The Jaguar by Thor Loutzenhiser; Caps, by Rebekah Dorsey and Mariel Delacy (yes, they will be using actual bottle caps in their show); and A Quarter Life Crisis by the creators of last season’s Ten Second Show, Halden Hoodenpyl, Alex Mcleod, and Sean Roney.

The executive producers also selected a group of highly qualified, committed individuals to create a “Dream Team”. Writers Brent Hammack and Nicholas Maurer have been collaborating to write a screenplay for the show, which will be a drama about a car accident. Producers Eugen Merher and Allysa Veigel have completed the first day of shooting and are working to meet their first deadline.

The first set of shows will debut next Wednesday at 8pm in Lillis 282. For the next week, the producers of these shows will work hard to film, edit, and add the finishing touches to their shows before the premier.

Winter term of Duck TV closed with a successful season finale on Wednesday, March 14th. The PR team decorated Fenton 110 with streamers, balloons, and, and lights (might I mention this was all done without tape) that dazzled the audience.

A main attraction at the screening was the food. Viewers enjoyed pizza and appreciated Virginia’s artistically decorated cupcakes.

The room was packed with energy, and each show received rounds of applause and laughter. Battle Trains astounded the audience with graphic yet edgy effects and professionally recorded opera-like soundtrack, while other shows offered viewers unexpected twists.

Awards were presented following the screening. The Ten Second Show won the audience award, almost tied with Battle Trains. The three producers of the Ten Second Show, Frank Krainock, Alex MacLeod, and Halden Hoodenpyl, were pleased with the results, but also with the progress of all of the shows on Duck TV this past term.

“I think it’s pretty clear that everyone has improved exponentially,” said Frank. “It looked more and more professional. I don’t think anyone was left behind.”

“It’s like a little mini film festival that you contributed to,” Halden commented. “We felt more like everyone was a group [at the screening].” During the middle of the term, not everyone attends the screenings and it is hard to push each other to improve.

At the finale, they felt united again, everyone enjoying each show together. “It’s kind of like a comraderie,” the decided. “You learn a lot from everyone.”

“I had this feeling…when we submitted the last episode of just being really happy and thankful for the 25 plus people that have actually made this whole thing possible for us.” said Alex.

The finale left members of Duck TV excited for next term. Thirteen shows have been announced, and auditions for editors, camera operators, actors, news and sports anchors, and more are taking place Thursday and Friday of Week 1 of Spring term.

When the Sports segment of Duck TV goes to shoot, they mean business. There are certainly studios on campus available to shoot in; however, Sports takes it one step further to achieve a quality, professional look for their show.

Venturing about 10 minutes off campus, they found Chambers Productions, a large, professional production center open to serving corporate, commercial and educational purposes. Chambers is complete with five studios, with stages ranging from 600-14,000 sq. ft. They provide Sony XDCam HD cameras, lighting equipment, control rooms, grips, makeup rooms, and more. The audio studio itself might cause a producer to salivate: it is a Dolby Certified 5.1 surrounded audio facility, with stereo mix-downs for TV, DVD or web to achieve professional results.

Preston Hiefield has worked on sports as an anchor, analyst, script writer, and editor. The first time he saw Chambers, he was blown away. “Everyone’s really excited about it,” he said. After the first tour, he describes the sports crew thinking, “Wow, this is amazing! We feel like we’re in the real world doing real broadcasting.” The ability to work in such an environment provides the cast and crew at each shoot at Chambers with energy and excitement.

The control rooms allow editors and producers to make the final touches. In the studio, camera operators focus and white balance the cameras, but people in the control rooms can see it on multiple big screens and make final touches. “We can check audio levels and see who’s doing what which is really efficient,” said Hiefield.

Duck TV Sports uses two studios: one bigger and one smaller. “The anchors sit with a great backdrop, a great background and wooden finish on the desks. Then we have 3 different professional stand-still cameras to get different angles of the anchors.” Two mobile cameras transition into a smaller studio for smaller segments. The show also frequently utilizes the green screen.

Hiefield also mentioned that KEZI, Eugene’s ABC affiliate, shoots at studios there and uses similar control rooms. For this reason, he thinks it is safe to say that Chambers “gives us a professional real-world experience.”

More information about Chambers Productions can be found on their website: http://www.chambersproductions.com/index.php