Making Money with Your Video Production Department
The equipment I had was barely consumer grade. I needed to replace it with higher grade equipment as well as massively increase the quantities of everything I had so more students would have access to gear at the same time. I could get everything I needed but for one thing – I needed funds. The following story has a happy ending and it is filled with ideas that you can adopt to create the same solution to the money problem while at the same time giving your students a real-world education.
Want to Major in Sports Journalism? Now You Can
With the expansion of broadcast networks, the rise of heavily trafficked niche outlets, and ever-popular local coverage, sports journalism is one of the few beats that can be called a media growth industry. This fall, Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication debuts its bachelor and master degree programs in sports journalism, its first standalone degree programs for a specific beat and perhaps the first of their kind nationwide.
Sophomore Slump - The Beginning
Last year, we produced over 120 newscasts and over 130 live sports broadcasts. We received a ton of support from the community via social media and brought home a couple of awards from the NFHS Network. A colleague called us the “Rookies of the year” for bringing home the “Best New Program” honor and I called us lucky for bringing home the best highlight. Now that the new school year has started, I have a new concern… how do I follow last year? What can I do to continue to build the program and take it to new heights?
Riverside Military Academy Profile
For over 112 years, Riverside Military Academy has remained the nation's preeminent all-boys military college preparatory academy. Located in Gainesville, GA, Riverside Military Academy educates young men in grades 7-12. Our Corps of Cadets averages over 500 cadets from 30 nations and 30 states. The Video Production program, led by RMA Alumnus Zach Garrett, '11, introduces cadets to the fundamentals of storyboarding, filming, editing and producing digital media projects.
What Professional Development Should Be
Camp T&I meets each year during the first week of June. It is a partnership between the Georgia Department of Education and the Career Technical & Agricultural Education Resource Network. I first attended Camp T&I in the summer of 2012. I was blown away. Not by the dark room in the back of a community college in Savannah. Or the lack of internet access. Or the fact that as teachers introduced themselves, I was the newest to the profession by 4 or 5 years. (And had only taught part-time…) I was blown away by the fact that all of those teachers shared so freely. Shared lesson plans. Shared successes. Shared failures. I knew immediately there was something special here.
New Kid in School - Turning in My New Kid Card
We did a ton of really cool things. Invented new segments - Word On The Street Wednesday being the most memorable. We had some failures (The Tiger Wood vs. Santa Clause Joke that somehow made it through my review of the script). Overall though, I would say that the first year of the program was more than a success. We won NFHS Network Best New Program and Highlight of the Year but more importantly to me was that we won the hearts, minds, and imaginations of a new batch of students who had never experienced a video production class.
New Kid in School - Month 10 of 10
It’s all over. As of the 24th of May, the 2018-2019 school year was over for me. Graduation began at 8 pm and was over by 10 pm. It’s all over… So what’s next? Reflection and Preparation. What a year. Over 120 live sporting events. Over 120 newscasts. Hundreds of hours in the classroom. Hundreds of miles on the car. But it was all worth it when we got to place the first foundation stone.
New Kid In School - I Really Want to Complain
I only gave the school about 5 hours to plan for the coverage of my class. I had a sub plan. It wasn’t the best but it would get the kids and the sub through the day without causing me to have to go to a meeting. To be perfectly honest, I was tired. Physically, emotionally, psychologically, mentally wiped out.
What Chekhov Knew About Sitcoms
His heyday was long before the advent of prime time comedy but I often paraphrase Anton Chekhov whenever an aspiring screenwriter suddenly throws a contrivance into the third act that had nary a passing reference in the first or second. The objective is always the same: to try to jumpstart a floundering plot with a last-ditch surprise in order to keep it from dribbling off with a whimper.
Hightower Academy Revisited
Several years ago, we had the pleasure of talking with Ted Irving at Hightower Academy in Texas. Since that time, we have been following this program through all the success they have had. We felt that it was time to revisit this excellent program and share the progress with you. You can see our original article by clicking here.
Producing The Newscast
Conventional wisdom in broadcasting says your lead story will determine how many listeners or viewers will stick with your station for the rest of the newscast. However, at all-news stations and on web sites, nothing really leads the newscast because listeners and viewers are coming and going all the time. Even so, the half-hour newscast remains the standard for local stations around the nation, and it's important to know how such a newscast is created.
Video at MySpace or Yours
Using video and social networking as tools for education... SchoolTube TV is a consumer media company dedicated to supporting educational institutions and all their students to broadcast, watch, and share original videos as well as broadcast live educational topics worldwide through a web experience.
Never Run Out of Teaching Projects
Getting tired of the same old lesson plans from year to year? Maybe you have students that take your broadcast class more than once. RTDNF offers six lesson plans outlining activities that offer a range of perspectives from broadcast industry to ethical dilemmas often faced in journalism.
Stock Footage for Free
StockFootageForFree.com is a website dedicated to providing completely free stock footage from around the world that can be downloaded instantly and incorporated into any type of video editing project–personal or commercial.
How to Format Your Announcement Show
Everyone has different requirements for school announcements that are set up by the Principal, school needs and class schedule but many teachers want some ideas about the content, the order and elements that could help the show be professional and entertaining for the student body. I have a few tips with variations that could help you get a show off the ground for the first time or give you some new ideas if you are an old pro.
Why is News Important?
News is more than just facts and information; it is information that affects us. News affects how we live our lives, how we perform our jobs, how we function as students, and how we make decisions. We decide whether or not to carry an umbrella or cancel a picnic based on weather reports. We look to the media for sports scores, stock market reports and details about entertainment events.
Sound Effects Activity
Here is a sound-only activity that students can assemble and learn about storytelling through sound along with the basics of sound design, editing, and mixing. The idea is to tell a 1-minute story using only sound effects. For the best results, don't let them use any human voice, i.e. no recognizable words. The project is all about sound effects and how they can be used to convey a coherent story.
Designing a Middle School TV Studio
Adobe’s Visual Communicator provides a teleprompter, video creation capabilities, and an entire library of customizable graphics, effects, titles, music, and templates.Most notably, the green screen and teleprompter features make this a very powerful, and effective program. Its ease of use makes it the perfect system for elementary and middle school broadcasts and mimics the way professional studios write and present news.
High School Broadcast Journalism Project
The High School Broadcast Journalism Project (HSBJ), a journalism education program of RTNDF, promotes broadcast journalism by helping high schools establish and maintain outstanding broadcast journalism programs. With HSBJ’s support, schools, teachers and students receive the information, training and resources needed to create and run successful radio, television and online multimedia programs.
A Beginner’s Guide to ScreenFlow
Some of the more high-end, professional grade editing suites can do all this and more, but unless you’re a dedicated film school and you’ve got around $1000 to blow on a software license, chances are you’re looking for something which gets the job done well without maxing out your school’s budget. ScreenFlow 4 is, hands down, one of the most intuitive yet advanced video capture and production tools you can buy for under $100.