FEATURES: BROADCAST
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Setting up for success The studio floor
The DUT’s Department of Video Technology has been seeking to replicate more faithful working production environments through consistent technology upgrades. Simon Luckhurst explores the result for the university’s students WHEN PREPARING STUDENTS FOR THE REAL WORLD, replicating the proper working environments they will ultimately find themselves is essential. When it comes to television production, a big part of that experience comes from learning on and interacting with the same equipment in the classroom that they will be confronted with once they graduate. Furthermore, having trained many students throughout its programme that have gone on to enjoy careers at some on South Africa’s biggest broadcasting houses, Durban’s University of Technology’s Television School has a reputation to uphold. Having joined the faculty in 2000, Louis de Waal, technical supervisor and broadcast engineer at DUT’s Department of Video Technology, has been spearheading the university’s technical offering, steadily upgrading and modernising its infrastructure with new intercom systems, HD cameras, audio mixing consoles and digital intercom solutions in order to more closely match the setups regularly used by South Africa’s biggest broadcasters. “I used to be an engineer with SABC [South African Broadcasting Association],” recalls de Waal, “and I was basically the first proper engineer to join the school’s department – so moved up and quickly started running the technical side of things. These days, I also co-lecture some of my subjects, such as Television Media Technology and Outside Broadcast for first- and second-year students.” The DUT Television School’s new Bachelor of Applied Arts in Screen Arts and Technology degree covers all aspects of production, including researching, script writing, production management, camera operations, lighting, editing, sound recording, mixing and directing. It’s not a traditional engineering
course though, rather one intended to allow students to take charge of the operational aspects of television productions. Students create a variety of programmes as part of their course, from magazine programmes to inserts, public service announcements, music videos, outside broadcasts, dramas, documentaries, reality shows and webisodes. “The course has been running since 1994,” notes de Waal. “It’s quite established and is well-recognised by most of our major broadcasters in South Africa. We push out into the industry around 35 students each year. Furthermore, we are the only school in South Africa whose graduates have won four Emmy awards, the only school to train in outside broadcasting and the only school to train marine videographers.” To serve the students’ needs, the equipment in use has to be modern and able to faithfully replicate real-world
KP-3016 panels inside the OB
A student operates the new RTS DKP-3016 desktop panel broadcast working environments, yet also simple enough to use without extensive expertise. DUT’s facilities include two TV studios, a variety of digital editing suites, an outside broadcast vehicle, professional portable digital camera kits, a Jimmy Jib, specialist underwater housings and additional laboratories. de Waal has been dedicated to providing the students this technical platform. “When I joined the school almost 20 years ago, all we had was a very old PESA comms system and some outdated cameras. Moving from a big broadcaster with a lot of knowledge, I was keen to bring this into the institution. At the time, the setup was quite basic with one studio, some small edit facilities and an OB van that was not operational. My first priority was to get the OB van up and running with at least four cameras. “With the sort of budget that we get, upgrading those facilities is a difficult proposition,” he adds. “However, over the last 2–3 years we’ve saved money from our student levy and that’s allowed us to upgrade both our OB van and two studios.” A little over two years ago, de Waal began the process of replacing the old SDI cameras with newer Sony HSC100R
38 PRO AVL MEA May–June 2021
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