Reporting On One Year At AUCA TV

June 19, 2015

AUCA TV – our own television channel - is one of the distinctive qualities of the American University in Central Asia. Students not only apply their knowledge in practice, but also reveal their creative potential. With it's own studio, editing rooms, high-level software, and equipment - these elements allow AUCA TV members to produce quality video and photo productions. We interviewed several members of the AUCA TV team to learn about their experience as one of the voices of American University of Central Asia, and to hear more about their plans for the future of the channel.

In the halls of the university, one young man can always be spotted with different types of cameras in his hands. Bakhrom Tursunov is AUCA TV’s producer, responsible for developing the storylines, shootings processes, and subsequently for the entire body of work of AUCA TV. Bakhrom is also an alumnus of the"New Generation Academy" program, and since completion of this one-year preparatory program he was successfully continued his studies at the American University in Central Asia. Many of people mistakenly think that he is a student of the Journalism and Mass Communications department.

“When I studied at school, I could not imagine that I would become a student of American University of Central Asia. I knew it was one of the most prestigious universities of Kyrgyzstan and the cost of tuition was very high. Luckily, in 2012 AUCA has launched a new preparatory program called New Generation Academy. I was among the pioneers of this program. Within one year, we were tought by different teachers and were ready to pass all the entrance exams. I need to mention that NGA has provided me with this wonderful opportunity of being a student of AUCA. Still my financial situation was in need of support at that stressful moment. Then, I found out about the US-Central Asia Education Foundation program. I decided to apply for this program and my good educational performance and respectable entrance exam results made me lucky to acquire the scholarship. Now I am one of the 15 students who are studying on the scholarship provided by the US-CAEF.

I discovered interest for photography in myself when I was at secondary school. I loved taking pictures and writing different interesting articles about our school. Photography was my favorite hobby, on which I used to spend most of my free time out of school studies. Then AUCA has opened up new vistas for creativity. Majority of students confuse me with the students from the journalism department, because all the time I'm making various videos and taking pictures of events. In fact, my department is Business Administration, but my hobby has stood the same over these many years. At first I wanted to apply for the department of information technologies, then for journalism, however when I found out that I became a finalist of US-CAEF program, I chose Business Administration. US-CAEF offers scholarships only to Business Administration and Economics departments. I thought I would be bored in this department, and I could not use my skills. After several months of studying, I realized that my choice was not wrong. I am improving my professional skills, and in the future I want to associate my business with these skills. Our department is very friendly, and during two years of study we have become one big family.

I really like to create video content that will be of interest to our students, professors, and staff. If highly developed countries consist of people representing different ethnic groups and religious backgrounds, my team is gathered from students coming from various departments. All are working on a voluntary basis. My co-workers are not professionals or Oscar winners, we are just people who love what we do and use all our efforts to develop ourselves every single day. There are many cases when students refer to us by saying that we inspire them every day by making our university visible and recognizable around the globe just by using AUCA TV. Within these four short months, our team has been capable of increasing our audience several times over. Our videos in average gain 500 to 600 views each. Of course, there are many critics who like making different comments on the videos we make. However, we are always open to all kinds of criticism, which will make our time stronger and our team better in the future, and we are keen on learning from our random mistakes!”- Bakhrom Tursunov says.

Ayperi Zhanyzakova is a reporter of AUCA TV. She is a 3rd year student of the Journalism and Mass Communication department. Ayperi is a practicing journalist and the winner of different international contests. Ayperi is TV presenter of the "My Fortune" project – a program about interesting and successful people who are making contributions to society and inspiring others.  She is also engaged in production of a series of video reports devoted to the 70th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War.

“What I like at AUCA TV is professionalism among its staff, students, and volunteers. They know how to do their job at the highest level and you can see results already. This sphere of AUCA life is functioning not just for fun, but by going worldwide through internet. AUCA TV is one of the greatest tool to work on our university’s reputation. That is why we work hard on our projects. Since it is also a student club at the university, the support from the staff, students, and volunteers is very high. During the course of this work, we have managed to raise the prestige of AUCA TV and increase our audience. Of course there might be funny awkward situations in the process. I remember I was going to interview a guest for the program. I have prepared all the materials, all questions for the interview. Everything was fine, but I was little nervous. I went by car to the shooting. I had extra time so I was calm. But suddenly I had no time to pass the intersection as a red light came out on the railroad. I waited about 15-20 minutes. Unfortunately I was more than half an hour late for my interview. The guest was ready to leave, but he saw my pitiful face and decided to stay. From such moments and lessons I am hardening my professional nature. In the future, I plan to open my own author's program at AUCA TV with stories about the good people at the university and outside it, and to do experimental journalism in our channel to try myself in different directions. Before I graduate and continue my career, I want to get more practice, as my colleague Bakhrom is doing.”

Samat Durusbekov is responsible for the technical side of AUCA TV. He is not visible on the screen, however he carries great responsibility. Samat is a student of the Anthropology department, and his profession is closely connected with documentary video and photo production.

“I always wanted to stop time, and I did it. How? I just got a phone and started taking photos. I have developed my photography skills since my childhood, and it became my hobby. When I was at school, I am not sure when exactly, I think I was in 4th or 5th grade, and someone gave me a present – a phone which could take photos. So, my friends always took videos. Our first video was action genre; we called it “Street fights”. But at that time, I did not know how to actually make a video, its techniques, like to add music so the video will be more interesting. Once, I took another phone and turned on music at the time of video shooting. In this way, the music would be recorded in parallel with the video, and then the whole thing would become a film. This is how I enjoyed photography and video making back then. AUCA TV is the first extracurricular club that I joined when I entered AUCA. When I came, I was asked if I can use a camera. So they gave me a camera and I would walk around the University shooting videos, taking photos, and I liked it. In my freshman year, I was a cameraman. In my second year at the University the head of AUCA TV graduated and left, so AUCA TV stopped working. I did not want AUCA TV to disappear just like that, so I took the responsibility to restart it. There were around 5-6 people in our team, they all helped me a lot, and we started shooting videos about AUCA news and concerts. Thanks to Dinara Orozbaeva, director of the PR office at AUCA, we got to the next level. Dinara helped us in many ways, not only in technical parts but also she always encouraged us, taught us how to shoot good quality videos and report materials. We are so thankful to her. At this moment I am a head of AUCA TV. One of my goals is to develop AUCA TV as much as possible, not only within AUCA but also across Kyrgyzstan. I want everyone to see what great professionals and young successful students are graduating from AUCA.”

Adilet Dubaev is a Journalism student, and this is his second education and degree. Charisma, natural photogenic and communication skills belong to Adilet. These qualities led Adilet to AUCA TV, and he became a TV presenter of the AUCA channel.

“My business is to create. Originally, I wanted to enroll in the faculty of BA, but soon I decided, better tandem of marketing is public relations and I chose the faculty of journalism. Why so? Because I will take PR, at the same time AUCA policy allows me to take any courses BA and it will get easier if you concentrate on the marketing in conjunction with PR. Diploma doesn’t have primary priority for me, and I can choose any course I need. Now, I am taking such opportunities, which AUCA provides. I came at the invitation of friends, Samat and Bakhrom. They knew how passionate I am about video and photo productions. Gradually, I joined the newly created team AUCA TV. In the near future we plan a new section where I will devote more time and focus. Now, preparing for new reporters in the future, they will replace me. AUCA TV is a small information product that our team rotates to the next level to improve the quality of the information provided. For me it's a priceless experience to develop my skills and I take this issue with the utmost seriousness. I will say that the staff of AUCA TV is the best, and I'm trying to do the best. The process goes by different means, often prolonged laughter and brainstorming. Our team emphasizes on the positive. For example, our student print publication focused on the negative aspects in the lives of students, we reverse. Videos and photos can capture the best moments of each student in the various activities of the University, and we want each our audience retains the best of their student life. All the members of AUCA TV are very talented and creative. We often share ideas when there is a collection of command or even casual encounters. If this is really cool, the whole team are going to do it even better. I like this Playground where you can experiment and implement their ideas. All this gives more pleasure in the work of AUCA TV.”

All of this could not happen without support and contribution of Dinara Orozbaeva, Director of PR at AUCA. From the very beginning of the rebranding of AUCA TV she has createed, helped, and collaborated with AUCA TV members not only professionally, but psychologically and mentally as well.

“AUCA TV is a platform where young, active, creative, and purposeful guys; whether they are future journalists or anthropologists, sociologists or a businessmen; they learn to work with information, get practical experience, closely work in one team, create and develop media projects, and help build open civil society. Supporting intellectual development of talented young people is our mission. If you ask about professionalism, I will answer that AUCA TV members are professionals. They work with our alumni and representative of media companies, who help us unconditionally. Our mission is to support young people who are creating and promoting socially meaningful content in the media environment. The task of our journalists - an objective, truthful, interesting and fun broadcasting, sharing this information with audience that is basically the people of AUCA.

Speaking about the results of 2014: students began to do better reports, promo video clips, and they sometimes write for our website. When we started there were only two journalists plus one cameraman. Now our team consists of 12 people: journalists, operators and editors, and this is just the beginning.

Exactly one year ago these guys have written an appeal to our president to support AUCA TV, their staff requested to join our public relations department, and of course Dr. Wachtel supported their initiative and forwarded them to me. Honestly it was nice to me that students want to work with me. I am happy to do it, and I am doing my best. They are my future wings and many years later, I'm sure all of them: Samat, Bakhrom, Begimai, Ayperi, Adilet, Erlan, and others; they will be successful people, professionals. I am sure that I will look at them and will be proud of my students.

I would like to thank Andrew Wachtel, that he has entrusted to me the university TV channel and thanks to the guys for their efforts desire to grow. They are a team, and staying together, they have nothing to fear. In 2015, we will create many more interesting projects. We will have our uniform, we will recruit new talents, and hopefully we will have a private room in the new campus.”

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