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Sunrise Mountain High School nominated for awards

BY LAUREN SERRATO Glendale Star Staff Writer

The Foundation of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) has determined the nominees for the 2021 National Student Production Awards, selected from high school student entries across the country in 25 programming and craft categories.

Peoria Unifi ed School District’s Sunrise Mountain High School received fi ve nominations in the following categories: magazine program, music video, audio/sound, director and talent – news or sports.

“The future journalists, analysts, correspondents and entertainers of the next generation will be found among these talented young nominees represented here,” said Adam Sharp, president and CEO of NATAS. “Highlighting their work and encouraging their pursuit of excellence is one of the primary mandates of our foundation.”

Ryan Kraska was nominated in four categories, Kalini Aguon-Sewell in three and Lamley Andrews in one.

While the students were nominated for their work completed in high school, they graduated from Sunrise Mountain in May 2021.

Despite having graduated from high school, Kraska admitted it is still an honor to get recognition for the work completed in the last year.

“Even though we have moved past it and we’re making better things now, it was like we were justifi ed in our own feelings of being proud of our work. We know that the old things we made are still worthy,” he said.

Kraska and Aguon-Sewell are currently freshmen at Arizona State University’s New American Film School. Both agree that their time in broadcast

Ryan Kraska and Kalini Aguon-Sewell are nominees for the the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ 2021 National Student Production Awards. (Photo courtesy of Erin Dunsey) and fi lm in high school played a role in their decision to study at the fi lm school.

“I can speak for both of us when I say we’ve always had a passion for fi lm. But if we didn’t take these classes in high school, we wouldn’t be nearly as advanced with how we make our fi lms. But we also wouldn’t know the behind the scenes process of everything, and we wouldn’t really be invested in the process,” Kraska said with a laugh as he admitted to basically living in the broadcast room his last two years of high school.

Aguon-Sewell added that if it wasn’t for enrolling for the class as a freshman in high school, she would have never discovered fi lm, as she had never picked up a camera prior to that.

As their advisor on the projects, Amy Nygard said she felt such pride when she found out her students were nominated, adding that their work was far beyond what people would expect from high school students. “I’ve always been really impressed with the quality of work, the time, the commitment that they put into everything they do,” Nygard said. “They hold themselves to professional standards. The kinds of things that I heard about them from the judges’ comments, just at the regional level, so many of them in the fi eld said they really hope that these two specifi cally — talking about Ryan and Kalini — we really hope that we’re going to see them in our fi elds in the future, because they have such a promising future in fi lm and TV and broadcasting.” This year’s submissions from high schools around the country were successfully culled from over 2000 entries from the regional chapters of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Entries were judged by selected industry professionals and media academics. Recipients will be announced in late November via a web stream produced by NATAS.

“The Foundation of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is thrilled to honor the incredible work of these talented students,” said Danielle Mannion, education chair with NATAS. “The students faced extraordinary challenges and produced dynamic and compelling stories. We also wish to acknowledge the dedicated work of their teachers who supported the productions.”

Moving forward in their education, Kraska and Aguon-Sewell are sure they want to pursue a career in fi lm but admit they’re not yet certain on which specifi c fi eld they want to enter.

“I really like just sound design and audio and making sounds from things that weren’t there when you initially fi lmed it. So I would say I’m personally more of an audio person,” Kraska said.

“I’m pretty set on cinematography. I just really like capturing things in the best way possible and using lighting and how I frame the image to really sell the story,” Aguon-Sewell added.

Looking forward to hearing the fi nalists, Kraska and Aguon-Sewell agreed that win or lose, they want to continue working with Sunrise Mountain High School as mentors to younger students, similar to how Nygard served as a mentor to them.

“It gives us an opportunity to start a kind of mentorship position where we can help these kids out and make sure they get to the spot where we’re at now where they can go to fi lm school and produce really cool stuff,” AguonSewell said.

For more information or to view the list of nominees, visit theemmys.tv/ nspa-2021-nominees.