As
it has for every Olympics since 1984, Asbury College, in Wilmore, Kentucky,
will send a professionally trained contingent of students to Beijing, China, to
help international broadcasters televise the 2008 Games. The school will send
56 students enrolled in its Media Communications department to China who have
been training on professional broadcast equipment from Thomson and other
vendors since 2005.
Asbury’s technology savvy
Media Communications department, which produces a variety of sports and
entertainment telecasts in and around the surrounding region, is now building a
new 40-foot HD-capable truck; complete with a new Thomson Grass Valley Kayak HD
250 switcher.
The new truck, which will
hit the road in August and begin producing a variety of local events that will
air on the local cable TV system, will be used to train students for the 2010
Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
“This
year’s students will begin leaving for Beijing on July 15 while others will be
ready for the start of the games on August 1”, said Jim Owens, chairman of the
Asbury College Media Communications department. Asbury College is the only
school in the U.S. in which its junior- and senior-level students work in
actual paid entry-level professional broadcast positions for various
broadcasters at the Olympics. They have done so for nine Olympic Games.
In support of commercial
broadcasters, Asbury College students perform a number of tasks, from footage
to video and audio editing to operating cameras
. Unlike other college
volunteers, the Asbury students — who are trained by Asbury College
faculty who have worked numerous Olympics games between them — are paid
for their work with the European Broadcast Union, Canadian Broadcast Corp., the
host broadcaster, and others.
The Asbury College Media
Communications department currently operates two Thomson Grass Valley Model 200
switchers, one in a production control room attached to its on-campus
television studios and another on board a 24-foot mobile production truck.
“We really like Thomson
Grass Valley technology and have come to appreciate its reliability and how
easy it is to train students on it,” said Owens. “Once our students leave here,
they can operate a Thomson Grass Valley switcher anywhere in the world.”
In 1996, for the Atlanta
Olympic Games, Asbury College sent 173 students to support the worldwide
broadcast, while about 75 students were in Salt Lake City, Utah for the Winter
Olympic Games in 2002.
For
information about Thomson Grass Valley products, please visit www.thomsongrassvalley.com.