Creative minds at work in Vicksburg High School are helping reintroduction of a course reach a growing audience that appears eager for more.
Overseen by instructor Anthony Lindeman, the school’s TV Production class returned to VHS last fall after an absence of more than a dozen years. Lindeman, who shared details of the elective class with Vicksburg Board of Education members at a January 13 meeting, said the success and popularity of the student-led production has been fun to witness.
Lindeman said a step in re-starting the class involved taking inventory of the equipment the school had on hand and what it would require to meet the modern needs for quality production and presentation. Some of the critical needs included tripods and video-stabilizing gimbals, high-quality microphones compatible with cell phones, higher-quality lighting and stronger in-studio acoustics. Lindeman said the support of VHS Principal Adam Brush was essential in ensuring the success of the production effort.
Next, Lindeman set out to find students with not only an interest in the course, but students with the skills, personalities and ideas to make VBTV – Vicksburg Bulldogs TV – a quality product. Lindeman said he recruited a few students specifically whom he knew had knowledge in technical areas critical to the success of putting together such a production. Considering the response from the school’s student body and staff so far, Lindeman said it appears he hit the jackpot with such a strong ensemble of talent.
“Our No. 1 goal when re-starting this class was to shine a light on Vicksburg High School. And I told the kids on our first day of school, ‘Be comfortable with being uncomfortable,’” Lindeman said. “From the onset, what intrigued me the most was the idea of kids going out and getting that face-to-face, students interviewing other students, students interviewing staff, covering sporting events, homecoming and being able to deliver it from a news perspective.”
Lindeman said nearly all the content for VBTV broadcasts is captured by students on their cell phones. He said students have learned how to effectively record, edit and upload material to make it ready for eventual broadcast. The process involves a software program called WeVideo, which Lindeman confessed to his students he would have to familiarize himself with as they would, too.
Brush, meanwhile, laughed as he shared an anecdote that confirms how quickly and effectively the students figured out WeVideo.
“When the class started, I remember how Mr. Lindeman told the kids, ‘OK, we’re going to do the videos, we’re going to start putting things together, start editing and the goal is by the end of the first marking period to have something pushed out,’” Brush said. “Well, in no more than two weeks, the kids were already sending out material. It was really impressive how quickly they learned and how good their content was right from the start.”
The first, full-length VBTV broadcast aired Oct. 30.
The class is comprised of 16 students representing all four high-school grade levels. It meets daily for a 50-minute period.
Lindeman said his students were involved in a December field trip that proved valuable beyond his wildest dreams. The group spent the morning and early afternoon at the studio of WWMT, Channel 3 in Kalamazoo. Lindeman said Kirk Mason helped facilitate the visit and went out of his way to make it a quintessential learning experience for the up-and-coming broadcasters.
In his 26 years as a teacher, Lindeman said far and away it was the most rewarding and valuable field trip he has ever been a part of. A highlight? The class was in the studio to witness the live presentation of WWMT’s noon news broadcast.
“The most informative part of the visit, in my opinion, was talking to the cameraman,” Lindeman said, noting that he calls his student team a crew. “He talked to the crew about the rule of thirds, headroom, angles, stabilization, tripods. These are compositional things I’ve been preaching about all year, so it was really satisfying that the kids were hearing the same important things from a professional as they have been hearing from me since the start of the school year.”
VBTV broadcasts are released to YouTube and on Instagram roughly every other week. In addition, brief segments – called “Bulldog Bites” – are released more frequently as edited content becomes available. He said full broadcasts are anywhere from 10 to 12 minutes and feature a rotating, two-person team of anchors positioned in front of a Green Screen. They showcase school news, varsity sports, fine arts and a lighthearted, student-favorite segment centering on comedy.
The Oct. 30 broadcast, for example, featured a laugh-out-loud segment called “Boom or Doom.” The lunchroom clip focused on random students offering interviewer Braden Heeres a critique of their lunch.
“THAT’S A BOOM!” a student emphatically yelled into the microphone after eating a Dorito chip; a nifty “BOOM!” graphic followed. Conversely, a visually pleasing graphic followed a student’s “doom” assessment of her brownie dessert.
Lindeman said he is impressed with the creative ideas students pitch as potential segments. As another example, he said one clip called “Locked or Unlocked?” featured crew members checking cars in the student lot to find whose vehicles were locked and whose weren’t.
Another segment, called “Generations Collide,” showcased a staff-versus-student trivia competition. Sound effects accompanying correct and incorrect answers added unexpected levity to the piece. Yet another feature was a three-point challenge between physical education teacher Cody Caswell and a member of the school’s varsity basketball team.
The first VBTV staff profile was a two-camera, sit-down interview with high school English teacher Dan Oullette. He fielded a battery of inquiries from interviewer Ivy Gray, who focused on Oullette’s role as a member of a blues band.
Another memorable segment featured Brush sampling chicken wings. Hilarity ensued as intensity of the sauce increased with each wing and Brush clearly struggled – and ultimately failed – to maintain his composure.
“That was an important clip because the kids who pitched the idea went to Main Street Pub, explained what they were doing and Main Street was kind enough to provide the wings,” Lindeman said. “That opened the door to the idea of possibly getting some local advertising on VBTV, maybe even the kids coming up with a script and making a commercial for a local business. We acknowledged Main Street during the segment, of course, so it was a real win-win.”
Lindeman said the goal of VBTV is eventually to livestream school events such as sports contests, a school play, band concert, and a prom red carpet, for example. The opportunity would allow family members unable to attend to view such events.
“I didn’t realize how infectious and fun this would be,” Lindeman said. “The crew has exceeded my expectations. It’s a very organic collection of students, and I am extremely proud of them and the content they are producing.”
