The school year may only be a few months old, but the new KBEV Director Kyle Newman is taking the program to places it’s never been before.
KBEV, Beverly Hills Unified School District’s award-winning media program, is a Career Technical Education class at Beverly Hills High School that gives students the opportunity of hands-on media production at every level—including cinematography, script writing and broadcasting. Founded in 1969, KBEV produces news segments on student life and community happenings and is the longest-running weekly student newscast in the world, according to BHUSD. Newman, a best-selling author and film director whose credits include “Fanboys,” “Barely Lethal” and “1Up,” as well as content for Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and Hasbro Studios, brings his unique experience to the role after longtime KBEV executive producer Romeo Carey retired from the district.
In taking the role, Newman said he hopes to inspire the next generation of filmmakers and give students their introduction to the industry in the same way he was while growing up in New Jersey with no tangible gateway to the film industry.
“I feel really strongly about education and also passing the baton and helping mentor a younger generation,” he said. “This is a great coalescing of everything I love—it’s filmmaking and it’s storytelling, but at the same time, I’m learning from the students as much as I’m teaching them.”
Newman said his biggest hope is that students take away applicable life lessons from their work at KBEV and use the skills they learn in any field they choose.
“You may only be doing this as an elective, but you will leave the class with skills that are going to be applicable in all aspects of life,” he said. “Whether it’s how to present an idea or how to speak to yourself or showcase yourself, how to thrive in an interview setting, how to research an idea from scratch and bring it to life. Just writing—how to present an idea in a thesis or any paper you’re working on—what’s the story? What’s the hook? What’s the midpoint? What are the twists, and what’s your ending? You have to think of things in this way.”
KBEV is developing a new programming app for BHUSD’s broadcast platforms, which will include both student-produced content and district features, soon to be available on streaming platforms including Apple TV, Amazon Fire and Roku.
“We want to open it up so if you’ve got grandparents in New York or a cousin in Ohio that wants to watch you in the football game, these people now can have access to it,” he said. “We’re trying to broaden the reach of what students here in the KBEV program can do, and within that, beyond just covering sports and things like that, we would love to get short films, encourage kids to be making stuff that’s related off campus, not just what’s happening on campus. So it has a broader appeal too, and I think it’s going to be hugely instrumental in having more eyeballs on people’s content, and films, and creations, they’re going to be encouraged to make more.”
Living in a world with so much visual content, Newman said he hopes to give students a more technical understanding of what they watch on a daily basis and how to use the same techniques to impact an audience.
“We watch so much content as people,” he said. “Everybody already knows they speak a certain language subconsciously. But they might not know the terms, the vernacular, the way you would do it and the way you would analyze it. So, I’m giving them those analytical tools and those technical tools, so they can then understand what is already going on in their head, what they’re already watching. You go, ‘Oh my God, that’s what that’s called when this happens, or that’s what that technique is called. I know that because I’ve seen it in 100 different TV shows, but now I know what it’s called, and I understand why they’re doing it.’ I think that’s what’s important. It’s activating the subconscious that they already have.”
He is already seeing tangible results with students coming up to him after class after being newly inspired by conducting an interview or realizing the impact of a filmmaking technique, Newman said. He has also encouraged students to take on more individualized documentary-style projects beyond the classroom, hoping to challenge students to go beyond their comfort level.
“[The students] have really been challenged—we brainstormed a lot about what are good subjects, beyond not just what’s easy, not just what you have access to, but what are you interested in?” he said. “Talk to the shop owner. Talk about their business, how they got into their business. It starts from safe and easy to ‘Wow. This is exciting. I’ll push myself a little further.’”
Beyond hands-on practice, Newman said he plans to bring former colleagues into the classroom to give guest lectures for students and also hopes to eventually give students opportunities and internships on the sets where he works.
Student engagement and success under Newman has already been evident, said BHUSD Superintendent Dr. Alex Cherniss.
“The success of the KBEV program is a shining example of what happens when student creativity meets professional mentorship,” Cherniss said. “Under Kyle Newman’s leadership, our students are not only learning media, they’re mastering it.”
In taking on his new position, Newman, who studied film at New York University, said he hopes to inspire students in the same way his previous professors did for him. One in particular was Arnold Baskin, who taught film for 40 years before his passing in 2019.
“Baskin was a very encouraging, hands-on professor, but he also gave kids a lot of room to go, create [and] a lot of leeway,” Newman said. “When you have big classes of students, everyone needs the highway to express themselves to travel. And that, I think, is very important. Rather than saying, ‘Everyone do this on this subject,’ let’s get a little more broad. Let’s say ‘These are some parameters, and how do you want to bring it to life? How do you want to tell the story?’ You can take the same footage and cut it 50 different ways. Each person could turn into 50 different projects. And that’s what I’m trying to show them. There’s no one way.”
