By ADMIR DURAKOVIC
Staff Writer
Professors Maureen Vanacore and Tina LoPonte took their classes down the yellow brick road to Manhattan as they made their way to a taping of “The Dr. Oz Show” on Feb. 15.
The purpose of the field trip was to get the students familiar with all the aspects behind the filming of a television show such as “The Dr. Oz Show,” and one FDU student was lucky enough to get chosen to lm a scene with Dr. Oz for the show.
Senior Sierra Fox described the process behind being chosen to act out a scene on stage.
“What had happened was that the producer saw me while we were waiting in line outside,” Fox said. “What caught her attention was my necklace, a $5 necklace that I ordered last week for the show. It’s so funny because if I didn’t have this, who knows if I would’ve got picked or not.”
The selection process starts once members of the audience line up outside waiting to get into the building.
“When we were sitting in the pre-screening area, I was sitting next to Professor Vanacore,” Fox said. “The producer was coming up to us and I thought she wanted to talk to Professor Vanacore. She sat in front of me and said, ‘Every show, we pick somebody from the audience to be an assistant. Would you be willing to do it?’ I was like, ‘heck yeah, of course.’ Television was always something I was interested in. She read through the lines – there were about five lines. I was like ‘I think I could do that.’ I was nervous but also really excited because who knows what doors could open from this? That was my thought process.”
Fox is interested in television broadcasting and this experience was a taste of life in front of the cameras.
“I would love to be in front of the cameras,” she said. “I would love to be like a red carpet correspondent, or like a news anchor – something based in entertainment news.”
After being selected to participate in the show, a producer ran Fox through some lines they wanted her to say. However, Fox added a bit of her own personal air once the cameras started rolling.
“Most of my lines were scripted, I added in some stuff just to make it ow and relatable,” she said.
Another student who attended the taping said that the woman who approached Fox explained that they were doing a segment on shopping for healthy snacks. She told Fox to say she had bought kale chips.
“She was allowed to go off script a little bit,” the student told The equinox. “For example, she mentioned that she was a college student, but they told her to remember the words ‘crunchy,’ ‘salsa’ and ‘hummus’ so that she would tell the audience they can dip the kale chips in different things.”
Fox had some nice words for Dr. Oz after the show.
“He was really nice, he was very professional,” she said. “He was making sure he knew what he had to say before I spoke, how it was going to work. The whole team was really professional, they told me exactly what to do. I had no questions.”
The episode filmed during the classes’ visit will air in the coming weeks. “The Dr. Oz Show” airs weekdays at 1 p.m. on Fox.
