"Studio-B" Teardown 1

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BLAST FROM THE PAST

Well, the old studio that has been at our main Allen High School campus for nearly 16 years has ceased to function. The gaff tape holding together parts and pieces that thousands of students have learned on had it's last tear. 

I have spent countless hours fixing old Windows machines, patching BnC cables, and plugging all the holes to keep the water out for many years. The equipment has been very sturdy and lasted an impressive amount of time. 

I am in the first stages of a "KGLE" re-boot. The current studio is at the opposite end of the building and is fully high definition, fully functional, and running smooth. 

I stepped back from television broadcast teaching for the main newscast and passed the torch so I could focus on 2 things. Building the radio program (cheap plug...go to www.kqks.org to listen to us!), and completely overhauling the old studio you see above in the slideshow, salvaging what I can (minus the majority of the "Saved By the Bell" set) and prepping the new gear. The freshman will be able to use high definition cameras and switchers, complimented with 50" high definition preview and program monitors.

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TEARDOWN

The control room had many components I am ripping out from life support. CG1, CG2, and Telepromter computers are removed and stacked for now. I am breaking down everything you see there, except I am keeping the long control room table, storing the Echolab Opera SD switcher for remotes and practice switching, keeping the 32-channel Mackie sound mixer, and the hula girl figurine that has been there since I started working at AHS 15 years ago.

In the studio, I am ripping out the Saved By the Bell set, but obviously keeping the awesome balanced lights above, saving the anchor desk that we already repainted with chalkboard paint (don't cringe), and finally last but not least (without breaking too many OSHA regs) going to remove the hideous 32" tube televisions hanging above my camera operator ghosts.

The equipment archive is another story. It greets my eyes with old camera parts and days of linear edit bay equipment. 80-pound decks that managed to survive, only as playback of source material well archived in an adjacent tape archive (not pictured...yet).

Technically there is also a "radio room" (also not pictured). I put it in quotes because I remember when I first started teaching broadcast, I ran into some radio kids that didn't burn discs at the time because technology would not fix the burners back then. The kids handed me VHS tapes for program and my jaw dropped.

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A MAN OF ACTION

Here is my game plan. All to be done within the first semester of school:

1. Tear up the old studio
2. Clean the studio (make sure to take allergy meds those days)
3. Design a Re-boot (including re-purposing salvaged equipment)
4. Order furniture
5. Order virtual set green screen material
6. Install new layout of design
7. Install equipment
8. Test equipment
9. Begin instructional design and curriculum design for coursework
10. Train freshman news team
11. Hit Daily, 10-minute TRT's
12. Produce & post newscasts, how-to videos for crew & talent
13. Celebrate!