CHIMACUM — It is 7:45 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, and people are starting to filter into the studio.
Today’s project is to film a commercial. Three stationary cameras are set up, the split-screen monitor and audio-mixer are on, and actors get ready to hit their marks and say their lines.
Only this studio is also a Chimacum High School classroom. The camera operators, production crew, floor manager and actors are high school students.
They are taking in a class on four-camera video production.
The class gives students hands-on experience by taping live events in a film style used for sports, concerts and news shows.
“It prepares students for the outside world,” said Gene Talvin, a retired television and movie camera operator. “It gives them a pretty good idea if they want to seek a job in video production.”
Talvin, who lives in Port Ludlow, is an adviser for Chimacum’s video program. It is taught by Brian Moratti, who has his own production company, Dream City Enterprises.
After speaking with Moratti three months ago, Talvin realized the school had the equipment needed for a four-camera shoot of the annual Pi String Orchestra concert. He filmed the concert last spring.
“It was the type of work I came from,” he said. “My last project was ‘Third Rock from the Sun.’ “
Besides live events and news shows, four-camera work is used for television sit-coms because it is faster — an advantage crucial to shooting a weekly sit-com like ‘Third Rock,’ Talvin says.
