"Westfield Live" came on the air, followed by announcements by the two hosts. Then, as the moment-of-silence scene finished on screen, director Robert Vivirito said, "15 seconds — tell 'em 15 seconds."
Floor manager Tiffany Kim then flashed a hand signal to the hosts to let them know they had 15 seconds until they were on the air again. All the participants were quite professional — but, in reality, they're students in Westfield High's TV-production II class, and they were producing the school's daily, in-house, news program.
"There's a huge amount of highly technical equipment these kids can operate now," said their teacher, Cheryl DeVincentis. "It also takes a high degree of concentration and organization — they really have to stay focused in there. People watching them in the control room are amazed."
After obtaining a degree in secondary-education communication arts, speech and theater from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, DeVincentis has taught high school in both Pennsylvania and Virginia. She's instructed students in journalism and media, speech and theater and spent four years at Thomas Jefferson directing its TV-production lab.
DeVincentis has been at Westfield since it opened, teaching two classes of TV-production I, her first year. "But we had no equipment, except for three camcorders borrowed from the school library," she said.
This year, she teaches 44 students total in two classes each of TV-production I and II. And she and film-history teacher Steve Paugh run a video club for students not in the classes, but interested in video production. They learn how to use the camcorders to write and produce their own scripts.
DeVincentis' classes meet every other day, and students putting on "Westfield Live" rotate jobs every two weeks so they learn all aspects of TV production. They operate the cameras, videotape and audio and become technical directors, director/producers and character generators (who cue up power points, any computer input and rolling credits).
Each student chose a specialty or two, and junior Priya Punnoose picked audio and host. Doing audio, she said, "You learn how to take sound levels, mix audio signals — for example, VHS music [while] the host is speaking — and you can manipulate the voices to sound high or low."
She liked hosting best, though. "We'd read the announcements of things happening in school, and it's a live feed, so we couldn't edit out any mistakes," said Punnoose, 16. "At first you're nervous, but as you get better at it, you're not. And you get to meet a lot of people around the school who want to come on the show."
Last year, DeVincentis wrote the scripts. "This year, we're running the whole show," said Punnoose. "We set up all the lights, cameras, VHS impacts, etc." The students also run document cameras (doc cams) to show pictures taken by photography students during the daily moment of silence. That way, said Punnoose, lots of students get recognition.
"I love this class so much," she said. "It's a great experience; you really learn a lot about technology." She's also using her knowledge to produce a video for the TATU project — Teens Against Tobacco Use — which the state will use to present an anti-smoking message to elementary-school students.
On a recent morning before air time, senior Casey Plant, 17, worked at an editing machine on a field report she'd done. "I interviewed two faculty members about a new school rule that people were confused about," she explained. "A lot of people thought, if you were caught sleeping in class, you'd be given a referral [for disciplinary action] or a drug test."
In actuality, she said, it's to see if students are working at jobs too late or have health problems. Said Plant: "It's really for their own benefit." She too, likes the class and wants to continue in this field as a career. "I enjoy doing projects, taping things and editing it all together," she said. "The program flows smoothly from one clip to another, and we can add music and voice-overs."
Senior Mike Wright was working that morning as a character-generator (CG) operator. "We use power points when we roll the credits, so I type them all and get them ready," he said. They're also used when listing names of students receiving some kind of recognition.
"I like setting up the show and the scenes," said Wright, 18. "It's fun to make it all come together." He said directing is toughest because it involves so much: "You have to give all the cues to the floor manager, technical director, CG and audio director."
Sophomore Tiffany Kim, 15, was the camera operator, that morning. "I have to move the camera, set up the doc cam and TV and help the hosts organize things — for example, I'll answer questions they have about the announcements," she said. Kim also did a project for the school's guidance department. In two days, she shot videos of 90 electives offered at Westfield and edited them into an 18-minute program.
She enjoyed being technical director best because "you help set up shots, tell people what to do and make sure everyone else has done their job already. And during the show, I bring in different technical effects, such as fade in, going from shot to shot and bringing in names at the bottom of the screen."
Kim recommends the class because "you feel like you're doing something productive for the whole school and you work with other people as a team. And if I watch something on TV, I know how they did things, what they're called or what's going wrong."
During the year, 32 students — eight per quarter — anchor the show, and they needn't be in the class; they just audition. During the third quarter, twins Tommy and Emily Lodge, both 17, were hosts. "We only have 15 minutes to prepare, but it's really fun," said Tommy. "We switch between us," said Emily. "He does the club news and spots, and I do the class and general news. It's a lot harder than it looks."
Senior G.J. Smith, 18, operated the TelePrompTer, working with the director to ready the script for the hosts. "I copy and paste it into TelePrompTer style," he said. "The words scroll down automatically, and I adjust it according to how fast or slow they speak."
He liked being audio director best, though, and said the class is fun because "you get to make videos, it's not like anything else here and you feel professional."
As the director, junior Robert Vivirito, 16, compiled the announcements, put them in order for the hosts and made a "rundown sheet" detailing which cameras to use and when to add power points and video. "During the show, I tell people what to do — for example, bring up the audio or mute the sound so you can't hear the hosts talking when we want to run a video," he said. "It's safer, in case they sneeze, or something."
He was scared to direct, at first, but it soon became second nature. "It would be fun to do it as a career," said Vivirito. "Now when I watch TV, I actually think about what they're doing [behind the scenes]. I can spot errors others don't see, and think, 'Oh, I've had that problem before.'"
Producing a TV show, he said, is "like creating your own story. With the editing equipment, you can put unrelated things together. For example, I could shoot myself talking, one day, and someone else talking, another day — and I could make it look like we were having a conversation."
DeVincentis says it's very much like a real show. "Sometimes, we'll have live guests, requiring extra 'mikes,'" she said. "Or the principal might come in and say, 'I need 3 minutes at the end of the show,' so we'll have to juggle things around."
Westfield's state-of-the-art studio is all digital — "which allows us to do more and do it quicker," said DeVincentis. "And the quality of the signal is much higher than with the older, analog system." Westfield is the prototype so, as similar studios are installed in other county high schools, "a lot of other teachers are coming through to see what we do here and how."
Her students are also applying what they've learned in her class to their other classes. For example, instead of writing a paper, they may produce a video. Similarly, Spanish teacher Dora McClelland wanted to show her students photos of her trip to South America, Colombia and Equador, so Mike Wright put them together and made a videotape for her.
"I'm extremely excited about the progress my students have made," said DeVincentis. Seeing them put their knowledge to use elsewhere, she said, "shows me they've learned the skills they need to learn. As more of us move into the digital world, we're finding more video used on the computer screen and companies doing teleconferencing, so there'll be more opportunities for kids with a background in video communications."