Television Production
Trenton Public Schools television started in 1978 by English teacher Dennis Hamilton. Students in the Television Production Classes - Introduction to Electronic Media Production and Advanced Electronic Media Production - are trained to conceptualize, research, shoot, design graphics, and edit television programs.
The present television facility was conceptualized by Hamilton in 1981, built, and dedicated in October 1982. Hamilton, and the late Superintendent Neil E. Van Riper, negotiated an agreement with then cable company United Cable of Michigan, to split the monies allotted to the City of Trenton's Public Access Studio between the City of Trenton and Trenton Public Schools in order to equip the television studio constructed in the former vocal music room in the high school. A total of $186,500 was spent, specifically on television equipment for the district.
Since its 1982 dedication, under the direction of Language Arts Teacher and Television Coordinator Dennis J. Hamilton, the program flourished into a nationally recognized curriculum which would be adopted in school districts in Vancouver, B.C., New York Public Schools, West Virginia Public Schools, schools in Chicago, Texas, and Sri Lanka. Hamilton went on to author a monthly column entitled "Production Pointers" in TV Technology Magazine published by Knowledge Industry Publications for several years. Even as a high school teacher, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) solicited one of his articles for publication in their International Newsletter.
Student projects have always be wide-ranging. Hamilton's students were present at Pope John Paul's visit to Detroit(1987), President Ronald Reagan's visit to Southgate, Michigan(1984), as well as the only high school students present at Michigan hosted presidential debates between George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, and Independent H. Ross Perot on October 19, 1992 at Michigan State University. Then Governor James Blanchard, Democratic Congressman John Dingell, Senator Carl Levin, the late Wayne County Executive Edward MacNamara, and present executive Robert Ficano are only some of the political figures Trenton Production Students have interviewed or video taped live.
TPS Television (Trenton Public Schools), as the facility became known, would go on to include documentaries on such notable Detroit landmarks as the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Historical Museum, the Detroit Science Center, The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, the Ford Rouge Assembly Plant, the former Tiger Stadium, the Detroit Opera House, Music Hall, the Gem Theater, Ford Field, and Comerica Park. From the Morley Candy Factory and Frankenmuth to the Kellogg Cereal Plant and Roush Automotive, TPS has been there since 1982.
Leanne Shultz currently runs the program.
Read more about this topic: Trenton High School (Michigan)
Famous quotes containing the words television and/or production:
“Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy.... In other countries, the business of laughing is left to the viewers. Here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)