The Film and Electronic Arts Department (FEA) at Cal State Long Beach will be refurbishing the television studio and control room with new equipment in time for the spring 2012 semester.
Micheal Pounds, chair of the department, arranged for $250,000 worth of television studio and control room equipment from Advanced Media Productions (AMP) to be moved to the FEA department.
According to FEA associate professor Tom Blomquist, AMP is an independent production company that is part of the College of Continuing and Professional Education.
“Their equipment represents a significant improvement over what FEA students have been working with in our faculty,” Blomquist said.
FEA professor Stu Rosen thinks that these upgrades will greatly support his ability to teach students.
“This has been a long time coming with thanks to the people of AMP,” Rosen said. “At last we won’t have sandbags on our cameras! It’s very hard to teach this way.”
The refurbishments are scheduled for the beginning of the winter term and will replicate the professional environments that students will encounter throughout their careers in the television industry.
“My professor is constantly telling us that we need to know how things are done in a real studio,” junior film major student Rebecca Hawkins said. “So if we can get as close as possible to a real functioning studio, then film and TV education will be that much more worthwhile.”
The Steven Spielberg Studio, the production home for many media major students, will replace three existing studio cameras with more sophisticated and professional equipment as well as the addition of a teleprompter.
The control room will be upgraded with a better video switcher, monitors and racks of improved electronics, such as camera controllers.
According to Blomquist, the upgrades could not have been made without help from College of the Arts Dean, Raymond Torres-Santos.
“The interdisciplinary cooperation that this equipment helps to foster is exactly what our College of the Arts Dean, Raymond Torres-Santos, has outlined as one of his priorities for the College of the Arts,” Blomquist said.
In addition to the AMP equipment transfer, FEA has also received equipment donations from a number of organizations willing to help CSULB students shoot projects outside the three studios.
FOX News Channel, Camera Ready Productions, The Famous Group, Foothill High School and FEA’s self-supporting student production company, Surfside Productions, are giving an array of gear exceeding $100,000 in value to CSULB.
“After many years of concentrating mostly on narrative and documentary film production, it’s nice to see so many benefactors helping our department to bring its curriculum into balance,” Blomquist said.
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