On December 13th, 10 students along with Mr. Kress and Mr. Timochko visited Kaufman Studios in Astoria, Queens. The group of eight digital cinematography students and two advanced digital media students were given the incredible opportunity to watch the recording of a Sesame Street episode.

Any student at Cresskill High School would rather spend the day at 123 Sesame Street than 1 Lincoln Ave, but the field trip took on an even bigger role for the particular junior and senior students who went. The eager group all intend to pursue media related studies after high school, and everyone was so excited about getting the chance to see how the industry operates in a real-world setting.

On the day of the field trip, the cast of Sesame Street was recording a New Year’s edition episode. Interestingly enough however, Elmo, Big Bird, and the rest of the crew were not celebrating the start of 2018. Since all of the work for the current season’s episodes have been recorded much farther in advance, the Sesame Street crew was already working on the 2019 New Year. “I never realized how much work goes into recording a 2 minute segment, even for a children’s show,” commented senior Julia Maltby on the matter, “To most people Sesame Street is just a show they watched when they were younger, so it’s really easy to forget that it’s still a huge production.”

The success of visiting the Sesame Street set poses the question of how students should be chosen to attend certain trips. Rather than these excursions being organized by individual classes, maybe it would be more beneficial for students to visit places based on what they plan to study, or the job that they one day hope to have. “It was great to see the different types of people on a TV set.” said senior Michelle Yu, an intended film major, “You can learn all that stuff in class—how the director works, how they collaborate with the actors, how the costume and makeup people work on the side—but it really pays off to see how everyone works together on a real live set.”