Grosse Pointe North's Video Announcements are live every single day.  This time line of events will hopefully help you understand exactly what happens to make it all come together.  Going live every day is very hard to do, as not that many schools do it.  Instead, they will tape their announcements the previous day (or the day of), and then air them. Another way schools have done it is to do live announcements only one day a week, on a Friday for example, but they will spend that whole week preparing and planing that show.

At North we do things a bit different.  Our 2nd hour Advanced TV class is divided into 6 groups.  Every two weeks, three of those groups will be responsible for putting together the announcements. Mr. Stackpoole has assigned positions for them for every day, which gives everyone a chance of directing the announcements at least once.  While three of those groups are preparing the announcements, the other three groups are working on projects for the announcements for two weeks.  They can be intros, 3x5 news segments, or even public service announcements.  This rotation ensures that everyone gets a chance to do everything, and the students job in the class never gets too repetitive.

9:00am - 9:20am

At 9am, the two students that are talent for that day start working on the script.  It involves taking all E-mailed announcements sent in from teachers, organizing them in the proper order, and re-wording them into the form of a news story.  The talent work on the script, because it's much easier for them to read their own writing style, and in the end it means they don't need as many run thrus when reading it off the teleprompter.

Computer Graphics is the most challenging job for the announcements. Before the script is done, the person in charge of graphics should have the birthday list updated, the credits changed to the new days crew list, the talents graphics changed, and the Norsemen Sports graphic and music changed.  Once they get the script, they then must create a small corner graphic for every news story!  If there are a lot of announcements in one day, the graphics person could be working until seconds before going live.

Another job that can be done before the script is done is VTR. Their job is to cue up the video announcements intro for the day (which is in the picture to the left), and to make sure the proper hard drive is in the Casablanca editor ready to record the announcements.  Any special roll in such as a news 3x5 or public service announcement should also be cued up at this time.

The crew inside the studio have a few jobs which they need to take care of before the talents get inside the studio.  All of the cameras must be white and black balanced so that the colors look right.  And the announcement set must be set up with the desk, chairs, back drops, and microphones ready to go.

9:20am - 9:25am

The script is now done and the talent are in the studio!  Lighting can now be adjusted so that the talent are lit properly, and run thrus can almost begin.

The script can then be loaded into the teleprompter.  Operating the teleprompter is probably one of the more important jobs during the live announcements. Clicking the wrong button could cause the script to start going too fast, too slow, or even in reverse!  It's also important to vary the speed and read along with the talent to make sure they are reading at the proper pace.

Inside the control room, the audio person can now start their job.  By now all the jobs above should be done, so they will need to get sound levels on any videos we roll in (including the intro), levels on any music playing from the computer, and finally mic levels on the two talent in the studio.  Outro music should also be picked for the credit roll.

9:25am - 9:43am

Once everything is ready to go, run thrus start.  The run thrus at first usually do not have graphics, and we do not roll videos.  It's in this stage where the little adjustments are changed.  Some wording might be changed in the script, lighting altered, and camera shots are fixed.  The student producer makes sure everything is working properly, and that people are doing their job

9:43am - 9:50am

At 9:43 the bell goes off signaling the end of 2nd hour and the 7 minutes of passing time between classes begins.  We do one final run thru with the computer graphics if they are finished, and sometimes video roll in segments. Camera shots are then fine tuned with proper head room.  At 9:47 a warning bell goes off telling the kids in the hallway the hallway they have 3 minutes to get to class, and telling us we have 3 minutes before we are live in front of the entire school.

9:50am

When 3rd hour starts, so do the Video Announcements. When the bell goes off the record button is pushed on the casablanca, Channel 18 is switched from the slide show to the studio, and then we go live.  To see what happens after that, watch the Video Announcements!