With new equipment and a state-of-the-art studio, all Dartmouth High’s media program was missing was real-world clients. That’s where Andrew Garcia stepped in.

The lifelong resident and attorney at Philips Garcia’s estate planning division was in need of new videos to promote his business, when he had a thought: why not involve students at his alma mater, Dartmouth High School?

“It occurred to me to reach out to Dartmouth High to see if the media program would be up to working with a local business to create videos,” Garcia said.

As luck would have it, media teacher Robert Perrotti had been exploring just that, and was in the middle of planning a smaller sponsorship program when Garcia reached out to him and pitched the idea of a paid collaboration between students and business.

After email exchanges, meetings with the principal, and classroom hype, Garcia stopped by the studio last week with ideas, but students quickly took it away and came up with ideas of their own.

“I had ideas I presented to the students, but their creative juices just flowed,” Garcia said.

Finally, on May 3, filming commenced inside the media program’s studio on the ground floor of Dartmouth High.

Initially, Perrotti thought of having an application process among the class, but decided to open up the opportunity to everyone. Students worked in teams throughout the process, from script writing to filming and editing.

Sophomore Jacob Medeiros helped set up the tech in the studio to film with. Working -- and getting paid -- by a real client was a valuable learning experience.

“I’d really love to get a job in this field, and this shows me it’s not totally unrealistic,” Medeiros said.

Caden Lisa served as director for the filming, working in the control room checking cameras and feeding lines to the newly purchased teleprompter for Garcia to read.

“They were very cool, and were very engaged in us and our format with cameras, recording, and tech,” he said.

Perrotti said he hopes to encourage more collaborative projects in the future, and encourages local businesses interested in working with DHSTVMedia to contact him for more information.