Club Spotlight: Yearbook
By Cassidy Mammay
One of the more “behind the scenes” things that went on at Melbourne High School each year was the work of yearbook students. One of the things that most didn’t realize was how much work yearbook students did, and long it took to put together the book. While the book didn’t come out until May, yearbook students started working on the book as early as the first week of school. They finished the book around the end of February so the book had time to print. That’s about six months spent working on the book and it was not an easy job.
Junior, Isabelle Heise, an editor on the team, mentioned “I think a lot of people don’t realize how ahead of the year the yearbook team is. Before people even saw the book for the first time last year, we were already planning out what we wanted this years yearbook to be. We go to camp every summer and that’s where we take a finalized verbal theme and pick out our colors, make our cover, and figure out some of the elements we want in our book. We also have to submit our book earlier than people think,” said Heise. As Heise mentioned, yearbook students are always multiple steps ahead, and work does go during the summer.
Additionally, junior, Caroline Schneider, said “Some people may not know that we have the opportunity to stay after school to collaborate with each other and work on our deadlines,” said Schneider. Once a month yearbook students had a stay-after-day where they were able to work with other students on their current assignment in the class. It was also a time for students to bond with each other.
Another thing some people may not know about yearbook is how many different parts there are. Copy writing is majority of the writing in the book. Yearbook students write copy based off the quotes they got from interviewing students and staff members. There is also design, which is all of the colors and shapes found in the book. Lastly there is photography that includes every photo found in the yearbook.
With this, every yearbook student has their strengths and what they enjoy the most. “I love the design aspect of yearbook because it allows me to get creative and tell a story with more than just work,” said Heise. Heise was in her second year of being on the team. In that time, she felt like she had improved on copy-writing. “I’ve definitely improved my copywriting. Writing copy is really different from writing something for your English class so it can be a little challenging at first. I would love to improve my photography. I think it is really fun getting to take photos of school events so getting better at it would be amazing,” said Heise.
Every yearbook student is different. What is one persons strength might be another weakness. Unlike Heise, Schneider’s favoritre element of yearbook is photography. “I would consider my element of making the book photography because I love the art of photography, I’ve always enjoyed taking photos,” said Schneider. As a first year student, Schneider has learned a lot, and felt like she had already improved in the class. “I have definitely improved on my capability to be creative with my coverage, especially with newspaper coverages. I hope to improve my photography skills even more as time goes on since there’s always from for improvement,” said Schnieder.
Students were half way done with their deadlines, which also means that the book was halfway done. As Schneider mentioned, time in the yearbook class flies by. “It feels like time is flying by knowing we are halfway through our deadlines. I’ve gained a lot of experience in writing copy, captions, and learned both design and photography techniques along the way,” said Schneider. Some school years went fast, while others went slow. Heise agrees that this year had flown by. “Knowing we are already halfway done with the book feels unreal. While part of me knows we have been working on this book since May, the other part of me feels like we shouldn’t be halfway done with the deadlines already. But, I am so excited for this book to come out and for everyone to see it,” said Heise. Until the book comes out in May, students can find some sneak peaks on the Melbourne High School Yearbook Instagram page.