High school TV programs bring forth their best work to go head-to-head in front of a panel of judges. Each year, the Chicagoland Television Educators Council (CTEC) hosts a TV festival in which high schools from the Chicagoland area compete.

Glenbrook North, Maine South and Lyons Township are just a few of the Chicagoland high schools that have been competing against South for 19 years.

The festival is being held April 27 this year. Students entered their videos to CTEC on March 9 into any of 13 different categories. These categories include commercial, how-to, sports coverage, trailer, public service announcement and talk show. Each student is eligible to individually enter one video per category made within the past year.

This year, South’s lip dub was entered into the music video category, and junior John Paul O’Rourke has high hopes for its performance.

“I think [the lip dub] definitely should place,” O’Rourke said. “It’s weird because there’s a five minute limit on music videos. We either had to cut it off after five minutes or cut it up into the best parts in five minutes, but we’re very confident that it will do well.”

According to senior Connor Smith, it was a difficult task but ultimately they decided to choose the best parts. Although the lip dub had to be cut from its 12 minute length, TV director Mark Ferguson was excited about this year’s competition.

“I get a little anxious because I really believe that our work is good, and I believe that our work is inspirational,” Ferguson said.

Aside from the lip dub, South also excels in categories such as live performances, documentary work and comedy and drama narratives, according to junior Kevin Mathein.

Smith has high hopes that this year’s increase of upperclassmen in the TV Department will benefit them.

“[This year]  we’re mostly seniors and juniors, [which means we are] more experienced,” Smith said.

In addition to the competitive aspect of the festival, Mathein believes it is great learning experience.

“It’s kind of cool because you get to watch the first place video of every section, so you can see what the best around Chicagoland are doing right now and how your work matches up with that to compare yourself if you want to get better at [something],” Mathein said.

Like Mathein, Ferguson also enjoys seeing what the other schools are capable of producing. However, his goal is to have the competing schools feel the same way about South’s program.

“I like people to view the work of GBS television and say, ‘We want to do something like what they do,’ and you know, that’s kind of what I hope the feedback would be,” Ferguson said.