ABOVE: Martin Luther High School sophomore and first-year media class student Samuel Marroquin-Balderas mans the camera while senior and class veteran Emma Sailor films a portion of the class Christmas project at Gemini Studios in Fairmont.

FAIRMONT – For those interested in an audio/visual pursuit, Martin Luther High School is providing students with a chance to explore their horizons.

The program is taught on location at Gemini Studios by owners Bruce and Shelly Abitz on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:45 to 3 p.m. Bruce said they’ve run the program since the 2000s with other area schools like Fairmont participating at different points in time. It gives students an opportunity to work on all facets of the media experience.

“What they work with is pretty high-end equipment,” he said. “They work with very high-end cameras, tri-casters and computers with software so they can learn the editing aspect of it. How to communicate, reading and writing scripts and computer editing. There’s just a multitude of things out there.”

The first section of media they work on is TV commercials, and all the facets behind how they’re created and how they persuade you.

“They’d have to know all the tools they would use in the toolbox to convince us to buy this Jeep or house or go with this particular product,” Bruce Abitz said. “When they put something out, it’s like, ‘What do you want people to think about that? What’s your end result?'”

Students in the program have gone on to have sustained careers in media and entertainment industries. Bruce said one of his pupils, Marcus Taplin, travels across the world and has done commercials for the Twins, Timberwolves and Nature Valley.

The class currently has four students. Given the small student population and amount of time they get with them each day, Bruce has no problems with this class size. In his research, he said it’s very uncommon to find other schools of Martin Luther’s size that have a media class in Minnesota.

“Mainly because most public schools are run by numbers,” Bruce Abitz said. “Private schools, they can pull off some things that [public] can’t do. They can send us three or four students and they’ve kept the program going no matter what the numbers.”

For Bruce and Shelly Abitz, being able to impart their decades of knowledge to the next generation has provided them with a purpose.

“A reason to get up,” Bruce said. “You hit my age, its ‘Am I still needed in society?’ When you see all these youngsters come up to you [with questions], it’s like ‘the old man still has some value into it.'”

“I think we’ve changed a lot of kids’ lives along the way,” Shelly said. “As far as what their passions were, how they looked at life, teaching them respect and professionalism when you go out into the work world. It’s nice to look back and see, ‘Yes, we helped mold this person into the person that they became later in life.'”

Senior Emma Sailor has taken the class for three-and-a-half years. Throughout her time, she said she’s picked up numerous skills.

“I’ve learned what type of stuff media does,” Sailor said. “The ways TV shows or news stations use forms in media to help convey certain messages; graphics, motion, sound, music. I learned how to work the camera and green screen, edit my own videos, put in transitions, add graphics on the videos, and figured out I really like doing this.”

It’s also helped her visualize a long-term goal, to film as a part of Discovery Channel’s yearly Shark Week. Sailor said her favorite parts of the class have been behind the camera.

“I like to write the scripts, camera angles, what type of motion should be in a scene,” she said. “Also, editing. That’s fun.”

With this being her last year, Sailor said she is grateful for the opportunities she has had and won’t be a stranger to the program after graduation.

Junior Katie Schultz, who’s taken the class for a year and a half, said on top of media skills the class has helped them learn important universal skills as well.

“It’s helping us be more organized, time management,” she said. “It’s super cool, I would recommend anyone to take a media class.”