ABOVE: Cameras at various angles point toward a large green screen in the DMC. Photo by Jaden Moon // AS Review
By Erasmus Baxter
Lights, cameras, action!
The new Digital Media Center (DMC) is making all of the above available to campus in one convenient location. Unassumingly tucked away inside the library, it features a full service TV production studio complete with everything needed to produce a TV show.
“Video is in everything,” said Deran Browne, head of the DMC. “Business. Science. Environmental science.”
He started on the job August 24 and has been in nonstop motion ever since, getting everything set up and working with people who want to use it.
Professors have already been taking advantage of the DMC for everything from preparing presentations to doing talk shows, he said.
Browne thinks a short video can be just as effective as a long lecture in a classroom setting.
“If you stand there and lecture for two hours, and ask if they get it: probably not,” he said.
Creating videos to show in class isn’t the only way the DMC can be used by professors. Classes from Huxley to Woodring have found ways to incorporate video production.
“You sort of have to have that media literacy,” Browne said. He sees video production as a necessary skill of the future. The fact that Western is incorporating it across disciplines is part of what brought him to Western, he said.
“In a lot of schools is with the film department, or communications department. No one else has access.”
Browne does not think that is the most effective structure for a video production program, because film can be a useful medium in a wide array of subjects.
“When I taught in China one of my best students was an engineering student,” he said. “[He] wrote, acted and did most of the post[-production].”
The DMC isn’t just for classroom use. Students working on projects or with ideas for productions can use the studio.
In September, before President Randhawa went on TV in Seattle he practiced in the studio to get used to the cameras. Western Window, a TV show about happenings at Western, films there too.
There are also eight production assistants working in the DMC right now. Each is required to produce a show each quarter.
Browne is working on getting the studio ready for winter quarter, when they will start holding workshops on using the DMC and hopefully open it up to 24-hour usage. In the meantime, Browne encourages anyone who wants to use the DMC to get in touch with him so they can help make their ideas a reality.
He is also looking to hire more production assistants. Due to the limited budget, they can only hire for work-study positions but there are spots for people to volunteer and get experience.
“Come and make stuff,” Browne said. “It’s here for all you guys.”
Entering the studio you come in to a high ceilinged room surrounded on two sides by a black curtain. Behind the curtain sits a green screen, and a white backdrop that can be used for filming or for photoshoots. The lights in the ceiling whir and click as they are activated. High definition cameras with teleprompters sit at the front of the room; behind them is a window looking in on the nerve center of the operation, the control room.
The control room has enough room for six technical directors to control everything from the cameras to special effects in real time, while being overseen by the show’s director. The L-shaped room is like a miniature version of the ones you might see in movies about TV shows, with the director calling out commands to “bring up camera one” or “go to commercial.” As well as eight monitors, there are two large screens that show the different feeds available. From there a technician can switch inputs using either a touchscreen or a lever. Most prefer the lever, Browne said.
A case stores the guts of the operation, including 16 hard drives of 500 Terabytes each. While that sounds like a lot, with HD video it actually goes by very quickly, according to Browne. In future, they are looking to set up a media server to share between ATUS, the DMC and others.
The studio also contains a mike set-up for coordinating the crew behind the scenes from the control booth. Soon they will have the capability to do live broadcasts to Western’s cable channel and are working on setting up live broadcasts to the internet. Perhaps one day the AS Review will feature its own online show, shot in Western’s own DMC.
“It’s about making good positive material that people get something out of,” Browne said.
BELOW: Technical directors can watch what’s going on from the control room. Photo be Jaden Moon // AS Review
