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Education
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Who wants to join the club?
Brunswick students grounded in teamwork, community service
Jun 1, 2005
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by Lisa Horan
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They’ve been trained on high-end production equipment, produce weekly programming, and work with professional broadcasters regularly.
And many of them aren’t even old enough to drive.
They are the middle and high school students who make up the Brunswick Schools Video Club in Ohio. With their own remote production truck and ample support from the local broadcasting and business communities, members of this extracurricular club have gained some extraordinary experience. In addition to working in real world production scenarios at their tender ages, participation in the club also earns these students their varsity letter.
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| Brunswick Schools Video Club members are trained to use video equipment in real production scenarios. |
Club Structure
When John Wasylko accepted a position as the community relations director for the Brunswick City Schools, the school system’s community access channel (channel 22) was nothing more than a “message board” service, featuring lunch menus, school closing information, and other district news. It wasn’t until after he began recognizing there was a strong interest among students in video production that he conceived the idea for a video club.
“Students would always approach me when I was producing videos in their schools and ask how they could become involved,” explained Wasylko. “I shared this interest with our superintendent, who enthusiastically supported the recommendation to form a club.” With that, the Brunswick Schools Video Club was born.
Each week, the 15 club members, who range from grades 6 through 12, meet after school to discuss assignments for upcoming weeks, train on equipment, and critique previous weeks’ productions. In addition to their regular meeting, they also take time once a week for a social outing of some kind.
“It’s very important that we do something fun on a regular basis,” said Wasylko. “After all, they are still kids, and while we try to train them to be professional, we also want to give them opportunities to have fun and enjoy one another.”
It’s definitely not all fun and games, however. Wasylko spends between 20-30 hours weekly on club meetings, training, etc. “It’s time consuming but well worth the effort,” he said.
He advises those interested in forming a similar club to implement a plan that has the students’ best interests at heart. “Our goal is to equip students with skills that will help them to succeed in the broadcast field,” he noted. “Therefore, we’re constantly working on instruction and developing internship and scholarship opportunities, as well as unique projects that will challenge our students, entertain our viewers, and enhance the image of our district.”
An award-winning producer/director/ writer/videographer/editor with more than 25 years of experience in broadcast/corporate television, Wasylko said he consciously designed the club for both middle and high school students. The diversity has proven beneficial in a number of ways.
“Not only does it allow the club to produce a wider range of district programming, but also provides the club with more stability, as students who enter the club in middle school tend to stay through high school,” explained Wasylko. “Another advantage to having middle schoolers involved is the high level of enthusiasm they offer. I’m amazed at how video-savvy these young students are.”
The kids also are able to develop teamwork skills as a result of the collaboration. Often, the high school students in the club serve as mentors to the younger students.
Variety Show
Five years after its launch, the club has helped transform channel 22 into a true “community learning channel” that features 200 hours of programming a year, all of which is developed and produced by club members. In fact, all productions are set up, blocked, directed, and videotaped entirely by the students.
Programs include Brunswick Memories, which offers a glimpse into the history of Brunswick and features the life stories of longtime residents; The Kristoffer Carter Show, which features off-district entertainment; Hospice of Medina County and Bluecoats of Medina County, which both provide profiles of local nonprofit organizations; and Around Our Schools, two-minute news segments that provide coverage of district sports, arts, music, and news events. The news segments are inserted throughout the programs on a weekly basis and webcast hourly as MPEG-2 files on the school district’s Castnet message board.
In addition, club members have also had the opportunity to work on other projects created for local community businesses and organizations, including a promotional video for the nonprofit Hospice of Medina County, a live-on-tape concert for a local musician, a number of infomercials that promote the district to the community, and live-on-tape sports broadcasts that have featured professional sportscasters from local news stations.
“Each of the programs has provided students with a different set of opportunities,” explained Wasylko. “For instance, the video produced for the hospice was an emotional piece that gave students an opportunity to use their creativity and showed them the power of a good story.” The video ultimately helped to inspire community members to contribute more than $4,000 to the hospice as a result of the touching message it conveyed.
On the other hand, the rock concert, which featured a local graduate who had produced a CD in Los Angeles, gave students an opportunity to employ the full gamut of their production skills. From project conceptualization, staging, creative lighting, and directing to videotaping and editing, they did it all.
The students involved with the project had to converse with the musician to gain an understanding of the mood and “color” of each song so they could develop appropriate lighting. Then, they had to block each of the shots and ensure proper mic placement. “What resulted was a visually interesting concert that is filled with multi-layered images, creative effects, and a professional feel,” said Wasylko.
So developed have their skills become, in fact, that the club was selected from all Ohio districts that entered to serve as the documentary team for the 2005 Ohio SchoolNet Conference, the third largest educational technology conference of its kind in the United States. For the project, the club was challenged to produce a five-minute documentary of the conference within a two-day period.
“The kids taped over 20 interviews, obtained extensive B-roll footage of the trade show, the conferences, and the convention hall, and produced an extremely professional-looking video,” said Wasylko. In fact, according to Wasylko, SchoolNet representatives said the documentary raised the bar for future school groups because of its high level of quality and professionalism. The piece was featured at the conference’s awards banquet and will be used as the marketing video for next year’s conference.
Professional Involvement
Students involved in the Brunswick Schools Video Club are able to produce high quality programs with a little help from the equipment they have at their disposal. The gear they are using includes Panasonic DVCPRO cameras, an Avid Xpress DV editing system with MOJO, and LitePanels portable LED lights.
What’s more, the students have the very unique opportunity to gain experience using equipment on the club’s very own mobile production truck, the only such school-based, multi-camera remote TV production unit of its kind in Medina County. The exterior of the 14-foot Gruman truck is covered with sponsor logos, while the interior is filled with high-tech tools, such as a Chyron LEX CG, Mackie mixer, and Vinten tripods.
The students are trained to use the equipment in real broadcast production scenarios — they learn how to shoot ENG-style, how to setup a tripod, how to run camera for a multi-camera shoot, and how to edit. It’s not unusual to find an eighth grade student as the lead director on a shoot,” said Wasylko, who explained that his job is simply to show up and drive the truck to the shoot location. “All students are extremely strong in all forms of location production. I just sit back and watch.”
The club wouldn’t exist if not for the generous support of the Brunswick School District, the Board of Education, the city of Brunswick, and more than 60 businesses who contributed more than $50,000 in funds and services toward the purchase of video production equipment, including the production truck. In addition to financial support, local news professionals regularly volunteer their time and make appearances or serve as guest commentators at local sporting events covered by the club.
“As soon as we tell the news professionals that their time will involve youth, they are happy to come out,” said Wasylko. “I think they remember what it was like when they were starting out and are eager to lend a hand.” Professional involvement has made a big impression on the students, Wasylko added, and has motivated them to work extra hard to meet the high level of expectation placed on them.
Through their involvement with the club, students not only are exposed to working in a professional environment similar to what they would find in the real world, but they have the opportunity of earning varsity letters (for volunteering 100 or more hours of time and displaying exceptional production skills), volunteer credit hours on their middle/high school transcripts, and eligibility for scholarships/internships/distance learning opportunities. Ten of the 15 students have already logged more than 100 hours, and three are approaching 300 hours since the beginning of the school year.
The school system is so committed to the Brunswick Schools Video Club that a full-time staff member, whose main responsibility will be to run the club, will be hired in the fall. “We’re hoping that this person will enable us to produce more programs, add more students to the club, and further develop club member skills in all areas of news-style production, from nonlinear editing and graphics production to, eventually, animation and Web design,” said Wasylko. “We believe these skills will give these students a tremendous advantage as they enter college.”
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