THOMASVILLE- The multi-award winning Audio Video Technology and Film (AVTF) Department from Thomas County Central High School added to its extensive collection last week when the audio production team brought home the state championship at the Georgia SkillsUSA competition held in Atlanta.

The team, composed of senior AVTF students Nyla Emery-Davis and Josiee Walden from Central, won over teams from all over the state in the audio production competition.

Nearly a dozen teams of two students from their respective schools’ AVTF departments were given a topic to develop a two-minute podcast regarding ‘How AI Will Impact the Media Industry,’ including interviews performed by the students. The teams also had to create an original thirty-second commercial for an Atlanta film production company that was included in the overall production. They had five hours total to compile, edit, and produce their work.

Central AVTF teacher Kristy Faucett chose Emery-Davis and Walden because the duo has been actively involved in audio production inside their department for years.

“I chose Josiee and Nyla for this particular competition because of their excellent work on the Yellow Jacket Tailgate Shows on the radio the past few football seasons,” Faucett said. “They both developed a personality on the air and were very confident with the audio production process. I got Kasey Massey involved, as he went through a couple of training days with the girls to make sure they were comfortable with setting up and operating the equipment they would be using at the competition.”

“I also gave them examples of prompts to practice with because they didn’t get the real prompt until the day of the competition. They were a little concerned that they wouldn’t be comfortable with the subject of the prompt, but we did this to show them that no matter what the topic is, they can work together to make a cohesive project, and they did.”

“We had to set up all of our equipment and discuss how we felt about Artificial intelligence and also had to get live interviews with people discussing their stance on AI,” Emery-Davis recounted. “With all of the unedited clips, we had to consolidate our ideas into two minutes and 30 seconds.”

“We worked as a team, as Nyla worked on gathering the live interviews while I edited the overall work,” Walden stated. “With the four years of experience I’ve got under my belt, I was pretty confident.”

“The most important part of preparing for the competition was practicing to be able to set up the equipment correctly, and making sure we had good communication skills to ensure we sounded confident in our work,” Emery-Davis added.