Zodiac is a game show created by Sydney Cunningham for their Video Production Capstone. “Everyone was doing all these cool narratives, but for me I felt like I needed to do something different,” said Sydney. They talked about how they were used to doing everything themselves. “It was weird delegating tasks to other people that I would normally do.”
To create a capstone at this level, it needed a lot of hands on deck to help out. Josh Warner was not only the host, but also the producer, a writer and a casting director. Josh spoke on how he helped write the show. “I wrote the entirety of episode two, and I also wrote a majority of the questions for the finale” He later went on to explain that most of his pre-production role was just logistics. He stated that he was definitely nervous when the first episode came out, as when they did the test shoot they didn’t have a live audience and he wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out.
Cody Bender who was a contestant and winner of episode two was very happy to be a part of Zodiac. “Originally I wasn’t gonna be there the day I was scheduled because I had previous plans, so then being asked to be on this episode of Zodiac was really cool for me.” Cody explained how they are super excited that they won the event because they typically don’t win things.
Sydney told us that the questions that were asked were loosely based on the 12 zodiacs, one example question was about the zodiac Virgo. “Which Biblical person would represent Virgo?” The contestant answers were Jesus, God, and Virgin, with the latter being very close to the correct answer: the Virgin Mary.
“I really liked one of the tie breaker questions and that was just about Culver’s history about when they made the cheese curds,” said Cody. Josh Warner called up Culvers and then we got sponsored,” Sydney told me. This sponsorship has contributed to the grand prize: a Culver’s gift basket.
There are currently two more episodes planned for Zodiac, one on Saturday, February 21st, and the finale on Sunday, April 26th, where the winners from the last three episodes will compete head to head for the grand prize. Though the episodes aren’t live-streamed, a filmed and edited version is set to come out soon. If you want to attend and support your local stout students in their work, you can attend Zodiac in person! The doors open at 5:00 p.m. and the show starts at 5:15 p.m. at Harvey Hall theater on February 21st and April 26th.
