What type of stuff would my school need to be able to have thier own television thing?

Sariat wrote:

What type of stuff would my school need to be able to have thier own television thing?

First off, I am by far not an expert on this subject, but I'll tell you what I know. Here is the bare minimum that you need:

An I-Mac or Macintosh G-4. They now come with I-Movie, which is one of the crappiest most evil programs ever made, but hey...it's free. I used a program called Final Cut Pro. It retails for $1000, but your school can get it at the academic price for $300. If you are going to get Final Cut Pro, you'll definately want to get a G-4 instead of an I-Mac.

DO NOT get a PC for anything to do with video. The programs that are out there are terrible, and it is a pain in the neck to get it all to work. As much as I used to hate Macs, getting into video converted me.

Other programs that you might need...Adobe Photoshop is the obvious choice for graphics, but it's a bit pricey. For graphics Macromedia Fireworks is actually not that bad, and you can buy it bundled with Flash and Dreamweaver etc for only $200.

The lightsabre effects were done using Adobe After Effects, another insanely expensive program that doesn't even have a good education price. Basically all you need is Final Cut and a decent graphics program and you're set.

As far as a camera goes...a mini DV camera is the best way to go. Make sure that they have firewire output so that they can interface with the computer. Canon and Sony make pretty decent mini dv video cameras. Canon has a pretty nice one out right now (I forget the name) for about $700. If you can spend more, buy a Canon GL-1, which you won't be able to find new anymore because of the release of the GL-2 this summer. Those should run about $1700-$2200, although you might be able to find one that is a bit cheaper. A GL-1 is basically broadcast quality, so there is no need for anything more.

Audio Technica makes excellent microphones...you're probably going to want a shotgun mic, and the Att3b is an excellent model, going for about $280.

Once you get going you'll find that you are going to need or want a bunch of other stuff, but those are the basics.

If you try and get the bare minimum it will probably cost about $3500-4500. Getting what you really need is probably going be be about $7000. I don't know how willing your school would be to start up a program like this, or to foot the bill.


Last year we were incredibly lucky at my high school. The administration liked what we did with the program my Junior year, and so gave us over $120,000 for new equipment. You can imagine the loads of stuff we had...five GL-1s, four JVC 450's (really, really nice cameras), eight souped up G4's etc etc etc. You could always just move to Blaine!

Sariat wrote:

How did you guys get it started up, though?

The TV program at Blaine has been around for a long time, so there was some equipment already there (although most of it dated back into the 80's). When my friend and I started the news show up my Junior year we had two computers with Final Cut 1...a decent G4 and an I-Mac. We only had 2 cameras too.

If you are trying to start up a TV program, I'd start fundraising if I were you. Or give some sort of proposal to the administration, demonstrating how beneficial a program like that can be.