Over the past six weeks, Alexa Fay has grown accustomed to a camera following her around. She has also started a band, learned to play an electric guitar, dyed her brown hair a deep burgundy and made the honor roll. It was the busiest month and a half of her life.

Last week Fay, 16, finished filming a segment of Made, an MTV reality show that helps teenagers accomplish their loftiest dreams. Fay's wish was simple: She just wanted to rock out.

Now, after help from a producer, a coach and a few other experts, Fay is a lot closer to being a rock star than she was when the school year started. When the show airs sometime in the coming months, millions of people will be able to watch her transformation.

"I always wanted to play guitar; I just had trouble with confidence,"Fay said. "I was afraid of what other people would think. And then a while ago it just hit me: I have two years left of high school. I don't want to look back and wish that I'd done things I wanted to do."

Fay was selected to be on the show last summer, about six months after the show held an open casting call at Bow High School. Fay decided to audition because she suspected being on the show could give her the push she needed to go after her dreams of being in a rock band.

Fay has played the violin since she was 6. She is a drummer in the school marching band and has also taken voice lessons for several years. She's been working on writing her own songs for some time, too. But until this year she had never stepped outside the musical boundaries she'd set for herself.

"I wanted to break out of my shell and stop playing it so safe," said Fay, who thinks of herself as fairly shy. "I wanted to take some risks."

In late September, the camera arrived. Josh Haygood, who will produce and direct the Made segment, followed Fay around with a camera for a week, asking her questions and absorbing her daily life. When week two began, Fay's coach showed up and the real work started.

Fay's coach began training her in the attitude adjustments she would need to become a rock star. First of all, she had to give up caring what people think.

"He would give me these assignments," Fay said. "I had to wear the same outfit to school for three days in a row, to get me used to not caring what other people thought of me."

Fay started learning guitar about three weeks ago, around the same time she needed to recruit her band. The Boston-based band Waltham came to help her, and she auditioned classmates until she had decided on four friends she knew from the school band. As soon as Fay started sharing her songs with them, the group - which includes a drummer, a bassist and a saxophone player - started rehearsals.

Haygood decided that it should be Fay's goal to get into Bow High School's Battle of the Bands. Once Fay's band (which she named "Fair Fight") was assembled, the group had only three weeks to practice before the big show.

"I was sincerely doubting that they could get it together," said Fay's mother, April Fay. "Alexa kept coming back from practices and saying, 'Don't worry. We'll do it.'"

Those who attended the show know how Fay's band fared in its debut performance. Those who don't will have to wait until the TV show airs.

As a final gift, Haygood told Fay her group would be able to record a demo.

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