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A Short History of Television Production firsts at
Churchill Area / Woodland Hills High Schools
- 1965 Hired as Physics teacher the day before school
started. Was AV Director and taught Photography, Computer I
& II and TV Production.
- 1966 Built first TV camera from ATV Research circuit boards -
pickup tubes donated by WQED & KDKA
Televised rained out
graduation from gym to auditorium.
- 1967 Produced video of state band festival with borrowed
equipment - tape was used by Panasonic's NY office as a demo reel
Built 12 channel light
dimmer system for auditorium with experimental SCRs from Westinghouse
Research.
- 1968 Obtained a used pre EIAJ Panasonic
NV-8000 Recorder and WV-033P camera.
Won a state grant for the first mini computer in district.
Radio
Shack Color Computer for Physics experiments and later TV graphics
generator.
- 1970 District grant for first generation
EIAJ recorders, Sony
AVC-3200 cameras, thee bank monitor, Sony
SEG-1 switcher
Sony AV-3400 Portapack
and camera and EIAJ video tape machines.
Built first TV studio in
unused storeroom and
students constructed first video equipment consol.
Modified Sony Switcher
with add-on for more special effects.
- 1972 Wired Auditorium, Gym and Football field location is the
school and later to the TV studio.
- 1973 Obtained DuMont Image Orthicon
camera from WQED for use as a prop for "Bye Bye Birdie"
First Band Trip Video with
Sony PortaPack to Winchester Apple Festival - in the rain!
Students won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in RPC's first video
arts festival plus 2nd Place in Elementary.
- 1974 Built full featured switcher and special effects generator
that passed PBS's technical standards.
- 1975 One of the first schools to do Middle States "School
& Community Report" as a three projector slide show.
TV Production became an accredited
high school course.
- 1976 Obtained a deal on three JFD 606 Cameras and four
Panasonic
NV-8100 EIAJ Machines for classrooms.
Cameras were upgraded to Plumbicon tubes donated by Bruce Graham.
Wired English, Social Studies, Science and Foreign Language classrooms
to studio.
Moved TV Studio to old cafeteria dish washing room after it was gutted
by a fire.
Obtained RCA TK-60 Camera
and zoom lens from WQED with enough cable to
reach all remote venues.
- 1977 Used our equipment and crew for one of the first demonstrations of
return access feed on Valley Cable
Ohio Scientific C1-P
computer shooting off monitor on film chain for TV graphics
- Used surplus
Cartavision electronics to convert Panasonic
VTRs to color.
First
RCA 25" Color Monitor
- 1978 Rick Harris helped pulled the cables from the
press box to the rat cellar so we could produce games from the studio
.
8-track recorder and 4
tape decks for use as cart machines in audio consol.
Produced morning
announcement program "Before the Bell" aka Churchill Radio
in 1978-1980.
Radio crew set record for Children's Hospital Christmas collection.
- From the '70s on we televised virtually all the school musical
concerts,
home and away football and basketball games.
We also did wrestling,
volleyball, swimming, numerous band festivals and winter guard competitions..
- 1979 First VHS VCR recorder Panasonic NV-8300 $900.
- 1980 TEAK 4 Meter Bridge. 1/2" Video tape cost $15 per
reel.
- 1981 Made arrangements for Fred
Rodgers to do his Neighborhood's first major remote at the school.
See
Video - Churchill segment is at 7:00 (sorry about the adds.)
-
1985 Obtained first Panasonic WV-3180 Nuvicon tube
color portable camera and PV-3000
Portable VHS Recorder
Used camera and
recorder for "Color Instant
Replay" with our black & white cameras for football games.
-
1986 Moved studio back to old location
- removed incinerator to make space for a control room.
- 1987 Obtained CEI
310 color camera and Crosspoint
Latch 6112 switcher as a donation from Westinghouse.
Switcher was used for many
years but required genlocked cameras.
Were using two Panasonic
S-VHS decks and edit controller for editing and slo-mo.
CAHS became Woodland Hills High School
- Video recorded every WHHS musical from 1988 to present using VHS,
S-VHS and HD digital for Blu-Ray disks.
All the WHHS graduations
through 2012 with the Sixth Grade Olympics as a warmup.
- 1987 First WPIAL Football team to use VHS video tape instead of
exchanging game films. Coach Novak, "I like the color!"
Partnered with athletic
department on Panasonic NV- 8950 slow-mo analyzer.
Installed broadcast booth for
basketball games in the old gym.
- ???? Obtained four TK-45 professional studio cameras from WTAE-TV.
WPGH and WSMV in Miami donated
enough old camera cable to run two lines to the field, gym and auditorium.
- 1989 Obtained Panasonic D-5100 modular color cameras with viewfinders, zoom
lens and genlock adapters.
C-mount adapters to use the
cameras on microscopes and the school's telescope.
- 1990 Installed TV studio under the stands at Turtle Creek Stadium to broadcast
live football games on Comcast Cable.
Obtained an Amega
500 Computer with genlock adapter for Character
Generator.
- 1990 Joint telecasts with Big East Consortium: Wilkinsburg, Penn Hills, Plum and
Gateway
Installed a 10' satellite C & Ku Band dish and became an official
NASA downlink site.
Added Hard Drive to Amega
so we could run Pro Video Plus
Obtained Panasonic
AG-456UP S-VHS Camcorder
- Used for everything for many years (Date Aproximate)
- 1991 Bought Videonics AB-1 Edit Controller One of the
first schools to do Middle States "School and Community
Report" on video..
- 1992 Awarded Fellowship to NEA's Christa McAuliffe Institute at
Stanford for work done with educational television.
Bought Sony Hi-8 Camera and
ended up making the "offical" video for the Institue.
First time on the Internet.
Designed computerized multi-screen slide projections for "Lil' Abner"
using printer port IO on IBM 5150.
1994 February: Cell phone and unlimited service donated
by Bell Atlantic Mobile used to build remote unit.
First
"cable radio" broadcast on WHHS-TV was a boys basketball
playoff game versus N.A. from Char Valley.
Provided first Internet access for school district via
dial up connection - Authored first unofficial WHHS Web site.
- 1995 Designed onstage video sets and cameras for "Jesus
Christ Superstar" - First place in the Kelly Awards.
- 1996 Created First
Web Site for the school district - was Web
Master for many years.
- 1998 Retired from teaching after 32 years
- 1999 Wired TV Studio at Junior
High school with connections to the auditorium
First football video posted on the Internet
- 2002 Installed current high school TV studio and control room.
Installed wiring to the new gym and
auditorium.
Designed and installed three screen
video projections for "Evita"
- 2004 Dual Core computer for editing DVDs
- 2005 Canon GL-1 Mini-DV camera.
- 2006 Moved stadium TV studio up to the press box when they
renovated the field.
- 2010 Designed and installed four camera robotic production
system for school board meetings.
FiOS return access
installed.
- 2011 Canon XA-10
HD camera
- 2012 First Football games streamed live over the Internet
Dell i7 computer for
editing and mastering Blu-Ray disks. First musical
in HD
Installed Video Server at high school
cable head end. One
channel for cable feed and one for in-house programming.
Installed and wiring
for three hallway display monitors at the high school.
Numerous Churchill
and
Woodland Hills Television alumni are working in radio, television,
theater and film industries:
Michael
Hissrich - Emmy-winning producer of the West
Wing,
Larry
Berger - (Founder and Executive Director) manages
day-to-day operations and serves as host of The Saturday Light Brigade
Adam Gusky - WHHS
/ WLFP Sportscaster and media producer Gateway
Gator Productions
Brian
Behler - Videographer WKYC-TV Cleveland has returned to
Pittsburgh
Bruce
Graham - Engineer at NBC Universal Studios (Ret)
Brian
Mroziak - General Manager at WMBS
Radio
I was
there 1995-1997.. My best memories were both selling and airing the
football and girls basketball playoff games that year, with both teams
making the state finals.. I remember the two of us working the Football
Semi Final Game together, when Bush decided not to do the game, that was
my 1st crack at football play by play and a lot of fun.. If it wasn't for
the shot you gave me, I probably wouldn't have the job I have today so I
really appreciate that.. It was nice that we had good community support as
well, especially when we needed sponsors to air the playoff games, I see
you still have Pat Lanigan involved. He was one of our 1st sponsors,
so I'm glad he has stayed with the broadcasts.. Keep in touch..Thanks for
the kind words..
Rick Harris - Radio
Historian
Matt Bush
- Announcer for NPR Washington
Matt Shaffer -
Lighting Designer
Tonny Renolds -
Hollywood commercial producer
Joe
Slick - Audio Specilaes - Does the sound for WHHS Musicals
Larry
George - Tech department of Greensburg Salem School District
Lee Schaeffer III
- WHHS football
videographer and Web producer, WPCB-TV
and Web Landings
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