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Producer, show-runner, writer: MSU sophomore wears many hats in CAS department

December 6, 2024
<p>Portrait of Sophomore Aiden Myerson at the SA desk (DMAT Equipment Checkout) at the Communication Arts and Sciences building on Dec. 6, 2024. </p>

Portrait of Sophomore Aiden Myerson at the SA desk (DMAT Equipment Checkout) at the Communication Arts and Sciences building on Dec. 6, 2024.

If you have checked out audio visual equipment in the Communication Arts and Sciences (CAS) building this semester, then you likely met digital storytelling sophomore Aiden Myerson. He is a familiar face for many in the department, as he works five days a week in the equipment room.  

This job is one of the many things Myerson is involved in on campus and within his major. In addition to working five days a week, he is on MSU Telecasters as a producer and the events director, he works for Impact FM, is developing his first short film, acts and writes for The Show and even plays in a band with his friends in his free time.  

Media production and audio are where Myerson's true passions lie, and after speaking with quite a few seniors in his freshman year, he realized that in order to be successful he needed to start building his portfolio. 

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MSU Telecasters is one of the first organizations he joined. He is a producer for the Beaumont Bulletin, a parody news show that pokes fun at global, national and MSU news. Soon, he will be transitioning out of that role to develop an entirely new show for MSU Telecasters. 

"We're in what we call a pilot semester, where we have to produce three full episodes of this show successfully by the end of the semester, starting next semester," Myerson said. "If it is unsuccessful, then it simply gets canned, and we never see it again. If it is successful, it gets green-lit, and we move on and we create the show going forward."

The new show is a trivia game show called "Niche."

"We give contestants one week to study, and we give them a general topic… They get in the studio, we start filming, and we give them three specific subtopics… then we get very, very specific," Myerson said. 

Myerson came up with the entire idea on his own and then enlisted his friend, games and interactive media sophomore Mannix Muir, to help with the software that the game show will use. 

"Our goal is to make it similar to certain shows, but just different enough to make it its own thing," Myerson said. 

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With the many resources available at the CAS building, the group creating "Niche" will be able to conduct a professional production as college students. 

"We shoot this thing the same way you would shoot a professional game show with a full control room, multi-cam setup," he said. "Everything will be the exact way that you do it professionally."

Myerson enjoys multi-camera production, so he will be able to get valuable experience on top of what he already has with the Beaumont Bulletin. 

"It's gonna be a lot of work, but it'll be worth it, if, both in general, because it'll be fun, and also to be able to put on my resume that I started, produced and ran my own show for two and a half years," Myerson said. "That'll be a really great thing to have too." 

Outside of MSU Telecasters, Myerson has also created his own production company, ANM Productions, and his first project under this company is currently in the works: a short film entitled "The Hat of Confidence." Working alongside the director and writer, senior Cole Bennett, Myerson will be an executive and lead producer for the film. This will be another main focus of his for the coming semester. 

"Full production will take multiple weekends to film the whole thing and then we're trying to get it in film festivals and do that sort of route," Myerson said. "So that's mostly what's going to take up a lot of my time, on top of classes as well."

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The various projects that Myerson is involved in supplement his digital storytelling classes, but his biggest focus is getting hands-on experience. 

"I personally feel that the classes are really helpful when it comes to learning how to do things, but in order to get a job in the future, you need to have a lot of extracurriculars, and you need to be able to build your portfolio up," he said. 

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Myerson credits the process of building his portfolio with helping him build a lot of connections, both personal and professional. 

"I love all of the different organizations that I'm in, mostly because of the people. A lot of the people that I hang out with, a lot of my closest friends, I made through these organizations," he said. "We stay busy together, which is kind of the important part of this."

Despite large workloads and various projects, Myerson is doing what he loves and what he has wanted to do since he was young. He encourages others to go for what they are passionate about and try to get as much experience as possible. 

"One of the biggest pieces of advice that I have, is that it doesn't matter how young you are, you should always go for whatever you want, because there's no hurt or harm in trying," he said. "It's always a good experience to try for it, no matter how young you are. Either it shows ambition, that you really want it, or it shows that you're trying to learn."

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