Construction of a new broadcast TV studio will begin May 31. Tiger TV adviser Denny Brand said the renovation was supposed to happen several years ago, but financial issues postponed the project.
“The studio obviously is overdue,” he said. “Blue Valley has the oldest broadcasting program in the district, and the other schools were able to get [new] studios before us.”
The current broadcasting classroom/TV studio was created in 2002, but prior to that, the anchor portions of Tiger TV were filmed at the district TV station.
The new TV studio will include a glassed-in control room that will give Tiger TV the capability of going live more effectively.
“We have the capability to go live now, but [with] the way the anchor desk is and the control room, if the director was directing the show, and he said ‘Zoom in on Camera 2,’ you would hear him over the air because we don’t have the control room glassed in,” Brand said. “In a TV studio, you have to have your people directing the show and teleprompter people and all that in a soundproof environment. Otherwise, if he said ‘OK, Camera 2 zoom in,’ then you would hear that if the anchors had their microphones on. The key thing that is happening is they’re building us a control room to put all the equipment in.”
Tiger TV reporter junior Natalie Pace said when she heard about the new studio, she was thrilled.
“I was really excited about [the renovations] because that means it’s going to be a lot easier to put things together,” she said. “It also means that since we’re moving on to live shows, we’re going to have to get our stuff done a lot earlier. When I found out about it, I was really excited about that because I had never done a live show before, and I know we have in the past, but we haven’t recently.”
She said anchoring will change during a live show.
“Anchoring is going to be different because you can’t mess up and you can’t plan how you’re going to talk and you really don’t get any preparation time except for the one time that you go through it beforehand,” Pace said. “If you mess up, you have to come back with it, and if your partner messes up, you have to help them recover. You have to really be a team up there.”
The new studio will be a combined room with a computer lab in Room 402 and the TV Studio in 510.
The current broadcasting classroom will replace the computer lab currently in 402.
The new studio will have a green screen wall and floor which will be used for special effects.
“[With the green screen], we could go live with weather, for instance, and green screen some maps behind us,” Brand said. “We could go to virtual reality; we could put various backgrounds behind people on a live basis if we wanted to. In my room now, we really don’t have an effective place to do our green screen. There’s just no room in there.”
As well as the new studio, the Tiger TV will be getting new equipment including HD equipment, a switcher, hard drive recorders and new lights.
The new studio is expected to be done prior to Aug. 15, the start of school. Packing up the equipment from the current room will start after the last show.
“I like to organize things, so I’m going to help with that,” Pace said. “I’m probably going to get rid of things that Mr. Brand doesn’t necessarily need, but he thinks he needs. Helping organize the new studio — I’m also really excited about that because I like to design things. It’ll be fun.”
The project is funded by the recent bond issue.
The studio and room are funded by the special capital outlay, and the equipment is funded by the bond issue for technology.