Ellie Fehlig
Grade: Senior
Major: Film and Media Studies
KJHK Position: Multimedia Director
Dakota: Who are you?
Ellie: Who am I? I am Ellie Fehlig. My full name is Katherine Eleanor Fehlig…I was born in Overland Park Kansas, lived there my whole life…yeah.
D: Repping the Great OP?
E: Yeah.
D: What do you do for KJHK?
E: I am KJHK’s Multimedia Director.
D: What does that mean?
E: It means that I am in charge of booking and directing Live @ KJHKs, which is our in-studios program that we have here. Every Thursday, at 5, a band comes in, we record them at 7, and they go on air across the hall. And also, right where I’m sitting is where the band will be typically, I’d be in the drummer’s position. I’m also in charge of assigning Multimedia staffers to different kinds of events and opportunities around Lawrence and the KU community that they can take pictures and videos and we put them up on our website and…yeah, anything that has to do with videos or pictures, I’m your gal.
D: What are your goals for the Multimedia department?
E: Hmm. My goals… One of my main goals this year was to…I think I can speak for all of us in the Content bubble when I say that we want more collaboration among Sports, Arts and Culture, and Multimedia staff, and Content staff even. I didn’t feel like we had that in years past, so I wanted to collaborate more often. Last year I didn’t even know that Sports was in the Content bubble, so I didn’t want my staffers to not be aware of that either.
D: From the beginning of the semester have there been any collaborations like that?
E: Yeah, so we actually have this huge project coming up. It’s the 50th anniversary of women’s sports here at KU. I think it’s next year in 2018 that it’s happening. There is a lot of things we are trying to do with that. One of the main things is kinda do 3 separate videos, from past present and future, of Women’s sports at KU. So obviously Multi-Media and Arts and Culture could get involved with that too with the research and video interviews and getting archived footage, stuff like that.
D: Cool! Going back to the live music aspect, how does a band appear on KJHK? Do they contact you or does your staff scope around and see who is coming in town and bring them in? How does that process work?
E: Ummm…all of the above.
D: Yeah?
E: Yeah. Sometimes if a band is going through Kansas City or Lawrence on tour, a lot of times they will contact me or someone else on KJHK. That someone will forward their message onto me. A lot of time I have to contact them, mostly local bands don’t contact me first, I’ll contact them. Local bands are usually the ones that are live since they’re the most flexible cause they live around Lawrence and Kansas City.
D: What’s the biggest challenge for you and your staff doing these in-studio live performances on a weekly basis?
E: Well…we’ve had a lot of them so far.
D: A lot of challenges?
E: No no no…A lot of in studios. A lot of bands coming in, which is awesome. It’s my favorite thing in the world to do. I love it, but I think it’s been a little overwhelming for my staff maybe. Because I’ve just been like, y’know Bam! Bam! Bam! So, I think they might be a bit a little burned out, but from this point on it’s gonna get a lot calmer.
D: How long have you been working with KJHK?
E: I’ve been working at KJHK since my sophomore year, which is also when I transferred here.
D: What led you to do KJHK?
E: Actually, it was my brother. My brother was on the Multimedia staff his last year at KU. And so…yeah he just always made it sound like a blast so I was like, “Oh I wanna film bands too!” So I signed up for content staff first and it eventually led me to multimedia staff.
D: What kind of experience did you have before coming to KJHK? Anything in high school?
E: Yeah. I was actually on my school’s broadcast team, Tiger TV, did that for two semesters. I was also a photographer for the newspaper and the yearbook for each a semester. Took photography in high school, not sure if that counts.
D: Does somebody on your staff need that type of experience before coming on here?
E: Not necessarily, I would say. They don’t necessarily need high school experience as long as they have had experience with DSLR cameras, for both photo and video. Yeah. If they’re a quicker learner and passionate about it then welcome aboard.
D: Was there ever a time where you realized all the hard work you put into KJHK was really worth it?
E: Umm…yeah I mean when I got the position of multimedia director that definitely was like an “okay well you’ve done something right so far, so you just gotta keep doing it” I guess. Yeah. That was pretty great.
D: What is the most quality aspect of KJHK that you might use in the future.
E: Oh for sure I’ve gotten so much experience here. I’ve gotten more experience here than I have in a lot of the film classes that I’ve taken, because I just…I’ve spent so much time here and put so much into it. And it’s stuff that I actually want to do you know? It’s stuff that I’m really, really interested in. So, yeah I guess that’s a good aspect of it. Just the experience I’ve gotten so far, the friendships that I’ve made. It’s been a big part of my life.
D: You have a DJ set coming up, what’s your DJ name?
E: My DJ name is DJ LL Cool Feh…cause my last name is Fehlig.
D: Ha ha, okay. That’s all I need and thank you for the interview.
E: Cool.