By Julianna Mauriello
Arts & Entertainment Editor
While most students were home for Columbus Day break on the weekend of Oct. 8 and 9, Sacred Heart University’s Frank and Marisa Martire Business and Communication Center was rented out and used as a set for the Hallmark original movie entitled “Broadcasting Christmas.”
“Broadcasting Christmas” is a new twist on a classic holiday romance. The plot of the film is set around the story of two news anchors with a romantic history that makes the fight over a job opportunity as a co-host for a prime time morning show all the more difficult.
The two leading roles, played by Melissa Joan Hart and Dean Cain, have to learn to overcome their differences and mend the past if they want to be civil while working in the same industry and fighting for the same news anchor position.
The film is based in both the cities of Stamford and New York City, using the Martire Business and Communication Center film studios and hallways as parts of the set.
In addition to using our sets, the film’s producers also used some of our School of Communication’s graduate assistants as helping hands on the set and as extras in the film.
“This movie filmed in the Martire building in a few different locations, including both of our television studios, Control Room A, upstairs in the College of Business’s waiting area by the Dean’s office and outside in the parking lot. They used our equipment in the studios and control room as props for their movie and set it up as the character’s studios,” said School of Communication’s Graduate Student and Assistant, Kara Levine.
Students were happy and excited to be able to see Sacred Heart’s studio used in the film.
“In the first half of the movie, you see our studios multiple times which was very cool to watch on TV,” said Levine.
Having producers of a television network choose to film on Sacred Heart’s campus not only benefited the movie, but it was also good for the school’s reputation.
“Knowing that our state of the art equipment is being used as a real life news set is amazing. That just goes to show that our School of Communication really does have the necessary tools that the real world does as well,” said senior Nicholas Quaid.
Levin said that having a director and location producers of a film really like and decide to use our location and equipment in their movie shows that our facilities are nice enough that people want to put them on television.
The film also features a street view, the control room panels, and the main news desk that is used for shows like Sacred Heart’s TV news magazine show, “The Pulse.”
“Watching ‘Broadcasting Christmas’ after having watched countless episodes of Sacred Heart’s ‘The Pulse,’ made me see how much effort Sacred Heart puts into making our dreams a reality,”said sophomore Megan Keane. “For us to be able to use a set that is so realistic to a real news show, that is such great practice and experience for the working world.”
“Broadcasting Christmas” may be a twist on a classic holiday love story, but for Sacred Heart students, it had a much more lasting impression.
“I really enjoyed meeting the film crew, working on this movie, and experiencing what it takes to put a film together. Seeing as I’m going into TV production, working on this was a great step and experience for me. Not to mention, meeting Melissa Joan Hart was amazing too,” said Levine.
