Kids go behind the scenes
Bethany Lutheran students are no strangers to watching TV shows, but this week they learned a little about how to create them, too.
Each grade level at the Naperville elementary school participated in the "Lights," Camera, Action" assembly as an introduction to the technology behind their favorite programs.
"It'll give them a better understanding of what really goes on when they watch TV," third-grade teacher Kirk Bolt said.
Derek and Gretta McDonald of Mobile Ed Productions went over TV terms like panning, tilting, editing and cutting and showed students how a video mixer can create special effects on the screen.
While two brave volunteers stood still in front of the camera, students watched a monitor that showed them turning blue like Smurfs and flipping upside down.
They also learned about chroma key -- the technology that uses a green screen to make it appear actors are in different locations or situations.
"We don't have to go anyplace if we don't want to," Derek said. "We just bring the place right here into the studio."
It works, he said, because people don't have green or blue in their skin so those colors can be edited out.
Using the chroma key, student volunteers got to pretend they were water-skiing while others looked like rock stars dancing on stage, decked out in bright oversized sunglasses and wigs.
Derek encouraged them to be creative and have fun in hopes it would help them retain what they learned. The school will receive a DVD compilation of each grade's performances.
"If you come up in front of the camera and you don't have fun, then when everybody's watching the DVD they won't have much fun either and they'll just go, 'zzz,' " he told them.
Fifth-grader Sarah Bergrud got to take the performances a step further and create her own commercial for orange juice.
Though she stood in front of a green screen, students watching the monitors saw a farm scene behind her. As she followed along with cue cards held by her classmates, she also ad-libbed, creating a story about waking up early to milk the bears and eat worms for breakfast.
"I liked that I got to do as much funny stuff as I wanted," Sarah said.