Priorities. Finding direction in life. Coping.
They’re struggles for young adults even in the best of times.
The past few months have not been the best of times for Chandler Carlisle, for whom what’s important was brought into sharp focus – as if through the lens of a skilled cinematographer, which Carlisle is.
Winning two Rocky Mountain Emmys one week and a couple of weeks later grieving the loss of his mother, Sue, after a 15-year medical battle are plenty real.
They altered the outlook of the 2021 Corona del Sol High graduate from South Tempe, now a freshman at Northern Arizona University.
“I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do when I started college,” Carlisle said, “but when my mom passed away, that kind of shifted my goals. Now I want to use my skills to help share peoples’ stories to make sure they are not forgotten. Everyone has a lot of memories to show the world. My mom passing made me realize that’s something I want to try to do.”
In the 2020-21 school year, [cdstv] at Corona submitted several videos for consideration in the regional Emmys, the same ones the big commercial TV stations in Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Tucson and Albuquerque enter.
Corona won an Emmy for Best High School Magazine Program. Carlisle was the executive producer of the broadcast, as well as its sole director and cameraman – and editor of the anchors, introduction, lip-dub commercial, credits and main news feature on the episode.
It featured Corona’s National Honor Society doing charitable work – a clothing drive, food donation, trash pickup at a park, handing out sandwiches to homeless people. He followed them, creating a masterpiece as he told their story through his camera.
Carlisle was the sole recipient of the second Emmy, Best High School Multimedia Journalist.
Corona’s Film and TV program brought home 14 Arizona Interscholastic Press Association awards last fall for the previous school year, including the top honor, General Excellence for Broadcasting. Carlisle’s fingerprints were all over those accolades, too.
The Corona [cdstv] crew had an Emmy-viewing party for the Nov. 6 awards livestream. Carlisle took a bus down from Flagstaff just for the night to be there and celebrate with his former classmates. He was back on the bus heading up the hill at 7 the next morning.
It all might be different had a technical-theater class not been full three years ago.
“It all was a bit of an accident,” Carlisle said. “I was trying to sign up for that class and they told me it was full a week before my sophomore year. They switched me in to [cdstv].”
From the first video he worked on, he was hooked.
“It was a bit of a passion,” he said. “I enjoy that creativity and being able to help the school. We did a lot of virtual tours, assemblies, Student Council – things people got to watch, especially during COVID.”
Benjamin Forbes, advisor of Corona’s Student Council, made Carlisle an honorary council member due to his diligent work documenting the group on video.
According to Forbes, who also oversees the school’s Emmy-winning [cdstv] program, there was no one better for the challenge than Carlisle.
“With the kids who want to do the work, they want to go in headfirst,” Forbes said. “They do as much as possible. Those are the kids that end up really, really shining. Chandler is one of those kids.”
Forbes says he sees kids all the time who have no work ethic.
“Chandler definitely has the work ethic,” Forbes said. “And he definitely has an eye for cinematography and for a good story.
“From what I know about the industry, being there and being on time and being consistent are some of the best qualities you can have in film. People won’t want you back on their set if they can’t rely on you. He has a great eye for editing, a great eye for cinematography. And he challenges himself. That’s a big part of it, too. He’ll discover something new that he wants to try out and he’ll just teach himself do it, and he’ll do it. That’s a really cool thing.”
As his mom underwent several surgeries, Carlisle said the family’s finances were drained.
“She got sick 16 years ago and the doctor said she had 0.085 chances in a million,” he said. “She did survive, and she did end up living 15 years longer than they said she was supposed to. The big thing is she went through so many surgeries.
“I had to save up for a lot of years to get my first camera. I put a lot of work into pursuing that hobby.”
Carlisle is pursuing a bachelor’s in Creative Media and Film at NAU. He was allowed to skip several introductory classes because of his proficiency coming in.
“Film is kind of my whole personality,” Carlisle said. “Documenting life stories is a way to spread good memories.”
Carlisle left behind good memories for Corona.
“He definitely saved the program last year,” Forbes said. “He definitely was the steroid it needed. It was a tough year with the COVID-19 pandemic. I thought for sure we would struggle a little bit but we recovered and we ended up doing better than ever, and a lot of that I give credit to Chandler.”
