Making Quite a Production of Campus News

“Quiet on the set!” bellows floor manager Christopher Sledge.

“Roll tape!” says the director, Will Pate.

The well-groomed morning news anchors, My Nguyen and Erika Armenta, shuffle papers and look into their cameras. They are interrupted only by their producer in a corner of the studio.

“Homeroom students! Homeroom students! Settle down,” says David Massey. “Let’s take roll--quickly!”

Why, two minutes before a live broadcast, is the producer taking attendance? Because he is a full- time teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The studio is a classroom with the desks cleared away. The anchors are teenage students, and the viewing audience is limited to Chatsworth High School.

“CHS News” is a weekly broadcast of campus announcements, launched last winter by students in Massey’s advanced video class to take advantage of a closed-circuit television system being installed at the high school. The class chose Wednesday mornings during homeroom, when there is no competition. Traditional public announcements over the loudspeakers are left to Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The broadcast begins after the 8:45 a.m. bell and lasts no more than 10 minutes. It is a mix of club announcements, appeals from the yearbook staff--”get your baby pictures in!”--and brief news items on coming games and events. But the look of the student-run show is professional. There is a musical lead-in, snazzy graphics show the announcers’ names and a three-camera set-up allows for the tight close-ups and switching familiar to local news devotees. Students run it all--they are the on-air talent, the camera operators and the technicians in the booth. Massey, as the school’s video instructor, supervises.

About 60% of the campus’ 3,271 students can see the broadcast. The students who put it on say the entire closed-circuit system will be hooked up to all classrooms by the end of this school year.

“The idea is to provide a service for the school, while giving students an opportunity to learn production by doing it,” Massey says. “It’s their show. They make decisions.”

The broadcast is the pride of one of Southern California’s most solidly established high school programs in video and filmmaking. Chatsworth first offered video classes more than a decade ago at the urging of a teacher, since retired. Massey, who first taught photography, took over in 1998. Students now can take three years of video; classroom work ranges from heavily academic theory to projects that require students to handle the production themselves. Such intensive instruction is rare in the district.

Massey, 45, is a graduate of the American Film Institute. He worked as an independent filmmaker for years before signing on at Chatsworth. In 1992, he was an Academy Award nominee for the live action short film “Last Breeze of Summer,” his film institute thesis project. During summers, he works on documentaries. A film on the women’s movement in Ghana and a project on Cuban health care are in the works.

That does not translate into celebrity treatment at Chatsworth High.

Like other teachers, Massey handles a full load of six classes, five of them introductory video courses and one advanced. His video students make do with outdated analog equipment.

“There’s enough here for us to be professional,” says Pate, a senior who has directed three of the news broadcasts and plans to attend Pierce College next year. “I’ve learned that I like anything that has to do with directing or editing.”

For their first broadcast of the new school year, students begin by turning the video classroom into a set. A blue wall divides the class in half, providing a background for the anchors. Desks are cleared away, and cameras set up in spots already marked on the floor. In the soundproofed control room in the back, a crew of six--including the director--runs through a series of checks.

Jerry Davis, a teacher’s aide and alumnus of the Chatsworth program, works with senior Chris Duguay, who is in charge of graphics, on how to change the screen, or “transition,” from the static “CHS” lead-in graphic to a shot of the anchors.

“There aren’t many high schools where you can get this kind of experience,” Davis says. “This program is a big reason I have my own video production company now.”

Massey jumps between the studio and control room, dwelling on details. He reminds the students that the call to “Roll tape” must be confirmed in the studio with the reply, “Tape rolling.” He detects that camera No. 2 is not balanced. He insists on four rehearsals in the half hour.Much of Massey’s concern is focused on the anchors. The drama department typically supplies camera-ready talent, but with 10 minutes left to broadcast, they haven’t arrived. Two telegenic members of the student crew, Armenta and Nguyen, are drafted as substitutes, but both are visibly nervous.

Rehearsals are rough.

Armenta reads an announcement for a hip-hop dance team meeting that has already happened. Nguyen can’t bring himself to smile. Massey resorts to putting his thumbs in his ears, waving his fingers and sticking out his tongue at Nguyen to crack him up.

“What I need from you anchors is a little more life,” urges Massey. “Pretend like you’re happy to be there.”

Two minutes before air, DJ Cosgrove, a polished drama student, shows up. He has been held up in government class. But after some coaxing from Massey, Nguyen remains as anchor.

With the school watching, the substitute anchors brighten. After the Pledge of Allegiance, voiced by the anchors over a picture of an American flag, an announcement from the Key Club tops the news. There is also a Drama Club event and news about ticket sales for Friday’s football game.

In the first year, much of the focus has been on technical mastery. But Massey says the students will make journalistic improvements. Full news reports on school issues will be added.

Students are filming highlight reels of sporting events and other school activities.

For a first broadcast, the morning news goes well. The graphics and lighting are spot-on. The anchors don’t stumble. “That’s a wrap,” says Massey, to applause from the crew, who will do a thorough breakdown of the tape at the end of class Thursday.

Until next week, the news is off the air.

And homeroom is over.