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Western Carolinian Volume 68 Number 06

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  • a, Sa? New Television and Recording Studios Push WCU Ahead of the Curve by todd jambon | WCnewsmagazine 2.0 3407 LNSGN LS After more than three years of funding, planning and building, Western Carolina University will open the Regional Workforce Development Center for Applied Technology, a new building with state-of-the-art television and recording studios. The facility, which will begin hosting classes for the spring 2004 semester, is the only one of its kind in the state. There are three main players in this project from the staff at WCU. Don Connelly, who has been involved with commercial radio and doing television voice-over work for over 20 years, has been involved with the project since its beginning. Dr. Bruce Frazier, an award-winning composer for both movies and television, has worked along side Connelly from the start. Padraig Acheson, who has had extensive television experience-working at different times for ABC, NBC and CBS, joined Connelly and Frazier last year. While designing the facility, Connelly and Frazier went to different colleges around the country, looking at how other television and recording studios were set up. During this time, they noticed that normally the recording studio is in the Music department and the television studio is in the Communication department, but the two departments never talk to each other. At WCU, the Music and Communication departments will work in unison. Connelly said that he and Dr. Frazier designed this facility so You can come here with a project: we can shoot it; we can do post-production; we can score the music; and you can walk out of here with a complete product. When this building is complete, WCU will have a distinct advantage over most colleges in the world. WCU will encourage professionals from a variety of different performing fields to utilize the new facility and studio space. Students will then be able to work one-on-one with professionals while they are still in school. To make all of this happen, WCU has purchased a lot of new Seles oe The equipment is absolutely state-of-the-art, Acheson said. There is a Sony MVS 8,000 switcher, the core of the television studio, which is one of only 83 in the world. And WCU is the only university in the world that has one. Eighty-eight different video sources can be fed into the switcher simultaneously. This is the same type of board that NBC used for the Olympics and that has been used for the Super Bowl the last three years. There also is a 96-channel Solid State Logic audio-mixer, one of the first of its kind in the world. WCU is among the first customers of SSL, a company based in Oxford, England. This soundboard can record and mix 96 individual instruments or audio tracks. You could do a major motion picture on it if you wanted to, Connelly said. In fact, the facility may even receive a 24P high- definition movie camera, the same type of camera used by George Lucas in the production of his new Star Wars movies. Dr. Frazier said that the new equipment would also make it possible to produce professional quality CDs and DVDs with 5.1 surround sound. Everything in the new building is connected through a digital routing system, which allows the Wired! Don Connelly, assistant professor of recording and television studios to work together Communication-Electronic Media, poses with simultaneously on projects. The facility will also be ee ee ee : digital TV and recording studios in Westerns connected to the new Performing Arts Center upon its Regional Laborforce Development Center. completion. Several new classes will be offered next semester with the buildings opening, and many existing classes will be able to move out of the classroom and into an environment with professional equipment. Television Production III: Professional Projects will be offered as a new class. The Set Production for Theater class curriculum will be expanded to include production of sets for television. The facility also makes it possible for classes from different departments to work together. For example, Acting for the Camera, Directing for the Camera and Television Production I will be offered simultaneously. On lab days, these three classes will work in unison to produce television programs. For students who will be working in this new facility, Connelly said this new equipment launches them ahead of the curve. One sports pickup company has even said that it will take any graduate from WCU who can run the MVS 8,000 switcher. The future looks very bright for electronic media, Acheson said. Im excited. ova @ ea @ eee} eal ay &eRDH OES HE Rh AAA AAAS PT TT TTY eA yet Ce i pt 2g Lag Sy Paley 4 pt a! ces APPA E PEEL DAL Bet sehghh ht AS So oA se cay o> GRIFF ELOD SY V2 ete ee Ah Sah Hyg i s WC REAL NEWS ARCHIVES Commercial and Electronic Music Program on a High Note at WCU Western Carolina University is installing a new state-of- the-art digital production console designed by Solid State Logic in the universitys all-new, interdisciplinary recording arts studio, which is scheduled to be ready for classes in the spring semester of 2004. We need to train our students on equipment they will find in the real world, said Bruce Frazier, Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Commercial and Electronic Music at Western. The new console (called a C200) is a marvelous teaching tool for the concepts of digital audio. It offers displays that show dynamics, limiting, gating and the like, so you can visually illustrate these things. With its dedicated knob per function control surface, the C200 is excellent for mixing complex sounds used in music or entertainment, where hands-on access to a large number of controls is essential, Frazier said. This familiar design should help students transition seamlessly into the business world, according to Solid State Logics representatives. Most of our students have gone through some previous recording arts training using analog consoles. To make the move to the digital arena with the same type of console layout really appealed to us, said Frazier, who has been twice recognized by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his contributions to dramatic underscore and sound mixing for television programs, nominated for several Emmys for his role as music editor on the TV series Quantum Leap, and nominated for a Golden Reel for his work on the TV show JAG. Also, we found there are a lot of Solid State Logic consoles in the marketplace, both digital and analog, so our students will be able to walk into a Solid State Logic-equipped facility and be familiar with the layout. It is our job as an educational facility to provide the very best learning experience, and the C200 gives us state-of-the-art training possibilities, Frazier said. The basic layout of the C200 offers a standard mixing strip that is laid out very logically, said Tim Caldecott, staff engineer with Sony Systems Integration Broadcast & Professional Company, which is working with Western to prepare the new facility for commercial and electronic music students. Other manufacturers of digital consoles use a multi-layer model where only a few knobs perform multiple functions. Solid State Logic uses the channel strip model that is ubiquitous through the audio world. When you are training newcomers to audio, the C200 gives them the knowledge to work on consoles used in the industry. Frazier and Donald Connelly, assistant professor of communication and theatre arts at Western, recently saw the console in action at its debut during the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas. We love the automation system and its ability to store different projects and call them up instantaneously. Obviously, we will have many different student projects in progress at any one moment, and we have very short periods of time between lessons and between classes, Frazier said. If we have a 10-minute change over from one project to another that requires the kind of recall power this system offers, youre not having to completely zero out the console and completely reset it from one project to the next, he said. We are looking forward to completing our studio so that our students will have access to the C200 and other equipment that will give them a competitive edge in the music world. nsonennennonenannentancanonaneaninte r i % Ps * Fe PREES *AORREEEEEAOE e * Py he _" eeue &ee#eeh @ 6 @ & 4 4 the RERRES
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