Recently, as many NDA students have noticed, there have been some seriously cool new videos posted to the NDA Tritonian. But who is responsible for them?

Hannah Dercks and Dani Lippert, both sophomores at NDA, realized that students tend to like watching stories more than reading about them, so they started a new section of the school newspaper featuring NDA: Friday Night Lights among other sports stories.

Both girls do not attend the actual Journalism class; however, they are in Advanced Journalism’s independent study. They decided to join last year, but last year they both wrote stories. This year, after being approached again by Mrs. Brown, they decided it was a helpful class to be taking.

Originally, they were not planning on making videos, but Mrs. Brown wanted help with uploading videos to the Tritonian, and Hanna Dercks told her she could look at it, and that she could always edit or film videos for the paper if needed. They kept talking, and Dercks and Lippert decided to make the videos together.

The two decided their first story would be coverage of the neck-and-neck football game against Ashwaubenon. From that game, “NDA: Friday Night Lights” was born.

Lippert says she likes making the videos so much more than writing. “It’s so much fun being on the field (and court) and up close to the action.”

Dercks echoes this and says that “videography is something I’ve had interest in for the past few years, but I have never gotten as excited about it as I am now.”

Although making videos can be much more fun than writing about them, it doesn’t necessarily come without its difficulties.

Lippert explained that “when we write written stories, we can just email or call the person and write a story from it. When we make the videos, we have to physically talk to the people.”

This is especially hard for Lippert because “it is really nerve-wracking, and I am not the best at talking to new people.”

In addition, filming and editing the videos is a major time commitment. As a member of an elite club soccer team as well as taking high honors classes and participating in various clubs, spending sometimes well over ten hours editing on a Saturday can be overwhelming for Dercks.

She explains that “although it depends on what events we are filming, it can range from two to sometimes four hours just to film. On top of that, I spend four to twelve hours editing.”

Because there are so many components involved in making these popular videos, Dercks and Lippert do their best to split up duties. They both switch off filming. This takes about three to four hours because they film the entire sports game, the practice before the game, as well as the interviews after.  

Then, Lippert does the interviews of the players, spectators and coaches. Both girls decide on those questions.  Finally, Hannah does the editing, which she spends most of her weekend making sure is perfect.

There are definitely some funny moments that occur when you point a camera at a crowd of high school students.

“It’s funny when some kids wildly wave at the camera like crazy people,” Dercks explained. “When Dani and I were filming Friday Night Lights this past Friday, some boys started pointing, dancing and taking pictures of the camera. We thought it was hilarious.”

To Dani the most memorable aspect of filming the videos for the paper is “being able to do it all with one of my best friends.” She says she “wouldn’t imagine doing this with anyone else.”

Check out some of their newest videos featuring the NDA Football team, the men’s volleyball team and the NDA cross country team.