Vol. 49, Issue 5, 24 pages
Thursday, February 29, 2024
cutting-edge coverage PHOTO BY ANNA OPALSKY/FALCONER A STATE-OF-THE-ART STUDIO: Karina Shukla (10) and Madeline Guillory (10), anchors for Falcon Vision, practice their Feb. 16 live show during a rehearsal on Feb. 14. This month, the filming of Falcon Vision, the TPHS student news and school-interest broadcast, moved to a new $50,000 studio that enhances their coverage with three screens, new lighting, and an adjoining control room.
New studio installed for Falcon Vision broadcast class Anna Opalsky
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
For viewers of Falcon Vision, the TPHS student broadcast that airs once a week, the usual reporting setup looked different on Feb. 2. Instead of the plain table and white backdrop checkered with the Falcon Vision logo, anchors Karina Shukla (10) and Madeline Guillory (10) opened the show at a sleek desk, flanked by two widescreen TVs and illuminated by a backlit TPHS Falcon emblem. The new Falcon Vision studio, a $50,000 addition to the program, was installed in late January in the G Building, marking the latest development in a program that has only grown since its inception in 2021. While TPHS aired TPTV in the early 2000s and again starting in 2016, Falcon Vision, as a class, took off under teacher Kara Adler in 2021 and now boasts a staff of 66 students across two class periods.
“As the program grew [and] as we created awesome stories … we made a name for ourselves on campus,” Adler said. “As the class grew and grew, it made sense that our program grew with it, and part of that was getting a studio that helped to replicate the awesome work that we were doing.” Funded by the TPHS Foundation, the district Career Technical Education department and community donations, the new studio provides the program with both a broadcast set and a control room separated by a glass partition. This replaces last year’s set: a table and backdrop displayed in a room in the classroom — what Foundation Executive Director Joe Austin called “a broom closet, essentially.” “To see Kara and her students working with basically a [banner] clipped to the wall behind them and makeshift lighting, it felt like a middle school or even an elementary schoollevel program,” Austin said. “They were
doing great work, so to give them a set commensurate with the work that they were doing felt like an awesome thing to put some energy into.” Adler agreed. “Prior to the new studio, our stories were really strong [and] our anchors were good at being on air,” she said. “But, when we went back to the studio shots, it just didn’t look as professional as the work we were doing.” Now, videographers work with multiple camera angles, anchors read from multiple teleprompters and graphics are projected on three screens — developments that Adler said enable students “to feel like they’re on an actual news set.”
“[The studio] has really changed a lot,” Lauren Panebianco (12), the show’s graphics and social media manager, said. “People have been putting more effort into their [stories] and more effort into learning how to use the studio. It’s been really exciting.” Designed by Broadcast Design International, the studio was adapted to the space, which served as a testing center last year. In the absence of high vaulted ceilings, backlighting was built into the set. To allow for live interviews, one side of the studio was made longer, according to Adler. This semester, Falcon Vision will air live every Friday at 11 a.m., with a live continued on A2
Broadcast journalism has been present on the TPHS campus since 2016. What began as a broadcast club has become the Falcon Vision class, a 66-student operation, now with a new studio.