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Union Elementary students become TV stars for a day
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .A.J. Pepperney (left) was called up to center stage to complete a weather broadcast. Host Micheal Carrell (far right) tested out Pepperney on pointing to north, south, east and west.
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Carrell also taped the school's fourth-graders as they danced and added those recordings to a DVD. The recording showed the fun of a day's worth of the "Lights, Camera, Action" program.
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The final activity of the event included the taping a dance party of the students and teachers in each grade level that Carrell spliced together for a tape of the whole school’s day of fun. For the fourth grade class, teachers Anna Ratliffe (back left), Michelle Landers, Marilyn Johnstone, Mary Kasper, and student Sam Scottford (front) busted a move.
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Nicole DeMartino (left) and Josie Mayle couldn’t help but laugh as they had to stand in front of the green screen and pretend to be ghosts.
By SARAH FOOR
The students at Union Elementary were ready for their close-ups on May 25, when they welcomed Mobile Ed Production’s “Lights, Camera, Action” program to their school to learn about television effects and video production.
Michael Carrell, who splits his time between his company J.D. Dovetail Productions and Mobile Ed, hosted the show and worked with the Union students to reveal the secrets of TV and movie magic to each grade level.
“Today, I want to take away the mystery of how things work on television and movies. The kids get to see how visual effects are made, how people on the news do weather reports and public service announcements. The kids are doing every job, but running the equipment,” shared Carrell, before working with Union fourth-graders.
Carrell ran through a quick review of special effects, including the cut, fade, wipe, and slow motion effects. Then groups were chosen to show the magic of green screen effects, with different groups shown water skiing, jogging through a neighborhood and transformed into ghosts.
The final activity of fourth-grader’s presentation had student Sam Scottford dance in front of the green screen with the fourth-grade teachers behind him.
Carrell recorded the green screen dance party as well as the crowd, and did the same during his presentations to each grade level. By the end of the day, Carrell and a group of student helpers spliced together the clips for a complimentary DVD showing all the students of the school.
“I love this work,” Carrell shared between presentations. “I’ve been doing this for 18 years and working with the kids never ceases to be rewarding.”
Carrell’s enthusiasm seemed to matched by the students. After their presentation, many of Marilyn Johnstone’s fourth-graders said they’d love to be videographers when they grow up.