Building a Video Production Lab - High School - Part Three

Ok so you've read the last two entries and answered the questions found I posed in those entries. Guess what! More Questions. In the final set of questions we figure out what kind of production scenarios you will use to teach with. I have worked with instructors who teach all the style i have listed here in Texas. The scenarios they teach in have a lot to do with what their back ground is or requirements from the adminiistration. I break it down into three common workflows: Multi camera sudio, EFP and ENG. They represent the three modes of production we see in the real world.
Different production scenarios in teaching television production require different groupings of equipment. Basic operation and skills in operation of the equipment cross over between the disciplines but the workflow and the skills they teach will vary.
Multi Camera Studio. The multi camera studio is the predominate scenario in the education environment. Multi camera studios work well for schools but replicate an environment that is rare in today’s workforce. A studio keeps all of the students, equipment and learning activities in a central location that is easier to manage and supervise. A live or live to tape news cast is a group leaning activity where all students can work on the same project simultaneously. Positions or tasks can be share or rotated through giving all the students equal opportunity to learn skills. News cast are repetitive allowing students to practice skills over and over until proficient. News casts allow students to learn group working skills. The work group skill leaned in a studio environment can be just as intense and deep as group sports since a news cast is a very intricate and timed sequence of event s and require team work of a demanding level to do.
ENG / Electronic news gathering closely associated with the multicamera studio. Doing a news cast requires stories other wise it is a grouping of shots of people reading from pieces of paper. This is neither challenging nor entertaining. ENG is the recording of news stories assembling them and editing them so they are formatted to fit with in the news cast. The news story work flow also closely matches that of documentary filmmaking. Documentaries use the same production techniques but are much longer in length, deeper in depth, and are generally less neutral than news. This lesson plan is a challenge to the instructor since it usually means the student and equipment must leave the confines of the class room or studio to “gather the news”. After the news is gathered it is brought back to class room and is edited to be included into the news cast. This type of learning experience is more individualistic with students working in groups of two or three. One student will act as a reporter another student operating camera and maybe a student working audio. Students learn planning and individual work skills. Additionally the students will practice higher order thinking skills when analyzing a story or events as they report them. Some schools use the guise of reporting a story to teach other lessons. Requiring a student to do a story on civil rights will require them to lean about civil rights in order for the to put a story together, or a report on new school rules may lead them to learn more about political and governing processes.
EFP / Electronic field production, EFP cover pretty much any other work flow not covered in the studio. TV commercials, Movies, Training Videos, music videos etc that are not shot with multiple cameras in a studio all fall into this category. While studios work well for managing students, less and less of the professionals who work video and film industry actually work in a studio. Studios are expensive to set up and operate. Very few corporations or production companies own a studio. In most cities the only full time studios are owned by the broadcast television stations and there are usually only three or four. The rest of the production occurs on location. A training video for a pipeline company will be taped on location where the pipeline is. A TV commercial will be shot at the stores location. A movie may shoot on dozens of locations. The camera crew will usually travel to shoot the message where the CEO is rather than have the CEO travel to a studio. A draw back to EFP is that most of the work occurs out of confines and safety of the studio. Additionally the crews are smaller and more time is required to create a finished product. A thirty minute news cast requires thirty minutes to tape whereas as a thirty second commercial may take a day of taping and a day of editing. An EFP lesson plan will require much more independent work of students utilizing greater planning skills and teach higher order thinking skills of a much higher level.

NOTE: Many technical skills leaned in all three cross over. All three types of production utilize similar technical skills that will cross over from discipline to discipline. i. e. A properly adjusted camera and exposed image is crucial in all three. Workflow skills will vary greatly among the three