“We’re opening with play of the game and highlights. Ready to roll in three... two... one. Go to camera one… Go to camera two. OK, fade up the audio...”

Pickwick is directing “Courtside with Tony Ingle,” a weekly TV show on the Kennesaw State University (KSU) men’s basketball team.

Each week, Kennesaw State University’s Coach Ingle sits in the production studio for a post-game interview. Chattahoochee Tech students also travel to KSU games and tape footage for the highlight reel.

The results are impressive: “Courtside with Tony Ingle” has all the high-speed action of an ESPN show.

“We teach students to use the medium to tell the story,” says Chattahoochee Tech Entertainment Technology program Director Ian Feinberg, who won Emmys during his 20-year tenure at WXIA-TV. “Everything they do is real-world.”

In today’s media environment, we’re surrounded by images, and there’s a fast-growing demand for skills in video and TV production.

Chattahoochee Tech and West Georgia Technical College responded by introducing Entertainment Technology programs that train students in the art of camerawork, editing, audio, lighting and scripting.

Chattahoochee Tech debuted its Entertainment Technology program in 2001, and the awards piled up right away. That year, students produced “Red, White and Bluegrass,” a documentary on bluegrass music in North Georgia. It won three national awards from the Broadcast Education Association, and was nominated for a Southeastern Emmy.

“The program has garnered nearly a dozen national awards in three years and is in many ways setting a national standard,” says Chattahoochee Tech President Dr. Harlon Crimm, who began talks with the Georgia Film Commission about industry training needs in 1992.

Metro Atlanta is a good market for people with video skills, being home to such businesses as CNN, Turner Broadcasting, Turner Movie Classics, Cox Broadcasting, The Weather Channel and corporate production studios at Coca-Cola, IBM, Home Depot and UPS. And Chattahoochee Tech graduates are in demand. Just ask Abigail Scott, a 2002 graduate. One day, Scott was at a public library, and she struck up a conversation with a man who turned out to be the art director at Cartoon Network.

“When I told him what programs I had learned up at Chattahoochee Tech, he was just blown away. He wanted me to come down for an internship right away. Three months later, I had a job.”

It’s 30 minutes until showtime, and West Georgia Tech students are loading video cameras, locating cables, testing sound equipment. Suddenly, they realize one tripod is missing a small but crucial part. Student Mike Merideth does a fast improvisation: He whips out some duct tape and lassos a video camera to the tripod.

“You learn to adapt,” says West Georgia Tech Instructor Kelly Finley.

West Georgia Tech’s Entertainment Technology students are taping the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra’s performance of “Peter and the Wolf,” which kicks off the Azalea Storytelling Festival.

“We’ll edit this into a 40-minute show,” explains Finley. “Then, the symphony will have it for advertising, brochures and fund-raising.”

West Georgia Tech introduced its program in Fall 2003, and it’s attracting a wide range of students. Judy Merrill, for example, runs a local Dairy Queen with her husband and plans to use her new skills to create training videos for her business, as well as preserve family memories.

“I have a new grandson — and my student project is a video of his first year.”

Another important part of the program at West Georgia Tech is WGTC Studios, a state-of-the-art facility run by David Arnold, director of Video Production Services. The studio produces “Technically Speaking,” a weekly TV show hosted by West Georgia Tech President Dr. Daryl Gilley and featuring interviews with faculty members. Students also produce videos for outside clients.

“The Video Production Services Department and the Entertainment Technology program are the first components in what we see as a new and exciting educational opportunity,” says Dr. Gilley.

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