The possibilities of livestreaming school events are endless—from news broadcasts to theater productions to graduation ceremonies. Not only are more teachers taking the lead on developing new AV programs, but students are coming up with creative ways to engage with viewers inside and outside their schools.
SlingStudio recently caught up with John Giumbruno (aka Mr. G.), Digital Film and Communications Instructor at Menlo-Atherton High School in California to get his take.
About Mr. G.
Mr. G. has been teaching film and video production for over 15 years and currently teaches digital filmmaking, digital communications and digital animation. He’s also the tech coordinator and Career Technical Education (CTE) arts media entertainment lead for the district.
He’s been using SlingStudio mostly for streaming live sports and theater events, but plans to use it for livestreaming graduations and try out the new green screen feature for morning news announcements. The flexibility of SlingStudio has opened new avenues for live shoots with his students.
Life Before SlingStudio
“Before SlingStudio, I would have two different types of productions going on when we were streaming. It was either in the theater with a lot of equipment or in the field with very little equipment,” said Giumbruno. “The biggest challenge was cable management, hauling it and which plugs go where, and it really took students away from the actual content creation.”
How SlingStudio Is a Gamechanger for Schools
Giumbruno said they can now cover every single theater event, a lot more sports, and have much better production overall. With SlingStudio, “the students love throwing in the graphics and they like to play with the picture in picture or the dual screens. Also, instead of having just one wide shot when I’m streaming live with an iPad, I now have students on the sidelines or students really close to the stage.”
SlingStudio enables the students to set up quickly and then when it’s time to shoot, Giumbruno hands the iPad over to them to start. “I barely have to give any technical instructions,” he said. “They start to understand exactly where to go, they swipe, drag it right in, and know how to switch between cameras—it’s very instinctive for them.”
Giumbruno also loves the new options with CameraLinks. “I can have my SlingStudio at the top of the stands, at the 50-yard line, and I can have one camera at each corner. In our theater, we can have three cameras going on—one up in the boom boxes, another down in the stands, and I can even have a third behind the scenes.”
One of the biggest benefits for Giumbruno is how much time SlingStudio has freed up for him. “It’s bought me time with my family, it’s bought me time to prep, and better connections with my students,” he said. “It’s not this haul, it’s not this chore, it’s now a pleasure to go out there and do a live shoot.”
We love hearing directly from our SlingStudio users, video production professionals, and content creators across genres and industries. Stay tuned for even more stories in future blog posts and check out the video below to hear more on Mr. G.’s SlingStudio experience!
The post SlingStudio in the Classroom: Pro Talk with Mr. G. appeared first on SlingStudio Blog.
