Corona del Mar Today: Live from CdM, it’s Trident TV

Just a few minutes until air time, and Corona del Mar High School senior Connor Mickelsen was feeling the pressure.

Standing in front of a bright-green wall in a converted space in the school’s front office, Mickelsen was ready to go. His hair looked good; his tie looked sharp. But new announcements that would have to be broadcast kept pouring in, and where was the student who would operate the teleprompter?

“They’re stressed,” said journalism teacher Laura Holk-Vaughnes, shooing away visitors and locking the door to the studio. “There are Internet issues.”

Tuesday was the second day of Trident TV’s live broadcasts of morning announcements. Six students had been working for months to create occasional video packages, but daily broadcasts didn’t go live until last week.

The Trident TV team spends an hour a day working on the three-minute broadcasts, which on Tuesday included a basketball update and a crawling news feed with information about a book drive and a middle school teachers meeting.

The program began this school year, funded with about $25,000 from the PTA, but Holk-Vaughnes said she had been pushing to add broadcasting to the school since 2010, when she and a group of students cobbled together a broadcast studio in the now-demolished 400 Building.

“We transformed the old darkroom in my room into a green room, where groups of four students produced their news shows for a week and then rotated with another group,” she said in an email.

The “Trident Show” used software that included virtual sets with scrolling type and other modern features, she said, but the school administration was not supportive of the program, and ultimately, when her classroom moved, the show died.

Then last year, she said, a student experienced in the medium enrolled in a journalism class.

“Kyle (Rodewald) possessed a passion for film and editing … and he resurrected the broadcast component of the journalism class,” she said.

He and a few other students began attending school functions to film and interview people, and the results were posted online.

“This is when (Principal) Kathy Scott took notice and encouraged us to go live,” Holk-Vaughnes said.

Last year, Holk-Vaughnes and a few students, along with the high school’s Associated Student Body director, visited schools that have broadcast programs, working out how to bring something similar to CdM.

Parent and PTA volunteer Michele Caston, who also is a television news reporter, helped facilitate the project, bringing in former colleague and television news producer Kyle Williams as a consultant.

“The idea was for this broadcast to take the place of audio announcements,” Williams said.

But organizers wanted the program to be able to grow, so top-line, professional equipment was purchased.

The camera, he said, is the same model as ones used to televise NBA games. All the equipment is portable, he said, so one day, crews could broadcast a game from the gym.

Bright-green paint was added to two walls in the studio. Green doesn’t show up on television, allowing the production crews several options for what will appear on screen — a newsroom or a sports show, perhaps, complete with a CdM logo.

Freshman Nick Gildenhuys operates the controls and said the live broadcasts are nerve wracking.

“But I was more in the zone than feeling pressure,” he said. “You just have to focus on what’s coming up.”

Monday’s broadcast was a hit, Holk-Vaughnes said, resulting in a deluge of requests for announcements to be made on-air. Last-minute announcements, nerves or maybe just bad luck with the school’s spotty Internet and firewalls spelled trouble for Tuesday’s show.

Everything looked good, but there was no audio. Teachers were calling Holk-Vaughnes’ room, asking about the audio. Later, back in the studio, the six members of the team looked crushed as they debated whether they should try to rebroadcast the show later in the day.

“You guys — this is the real world,” Caston told them. “This is so common.”

In the end, they did rebroadcast.

Trident TV will continue to grow, Holk-Vaughnes said. Applications are now available for next year’s crew. Writing tryouts and interviews are required.

Applications are available in the school’s front office and are due on March 20.

The announcements are broadcast daily at about 8:50 a.m. and can be seen in classrooms throughout the school. All broadcasts also are archived. The public can see them at https://www.ustream.tv/channel/trident-tv?utm_campaign=ustre.am&utm_source=ustre.am%2F1k1xa&utm_medium=social&utm_content=20150303091755

Corona del Mar Today appears Sundays in the Daily Pilot. Read daily updates at coronadelmartoday.com.