On autumn Saturdays, junior Mike Sholiton is a surehanded wide receiver for the football Bears. On a recent Tuesday afternoon, however, he quarterbacked a different winning endeavor.
At the helm of an eight-person Washington University Television (WUTV) crew, Sholiton served as producer for the fledgling station's live broadcast of an address by Bill Gates, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp.
The Oct. 13 speech was part of a program titled "Careers in the Next Millennium" at the University Field House, held in conjunction with a separate Universitywide career fair sponsored by the National Society of Black Engineers' WU chapter.
Netting a speaker the stature of Gates is a major undertaking; getting in to see him was yet another. By Microsoft's request, the program was open only to St. Louis-area college students -- 2,000 from Washington University, 1,200 from other metro-area schools. Distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, the tickets proved to be a hot commodity and left many students on the outside with no clear view in.
As they say in the television business, "fade in" WUTV.
With a crew of eight, the student-run station used three cameras, one switcher and some borrowed two-way communication equipment and broadcast the event to large-screen sites at Graham Chapel, Crow Hall, Wilson Hall and Anheuser-Busch Hall on the Hilltop Campus and to Barnes-Jewish Hospital on the Medical Campus. In addition, the feed was carried live on Channel 22, the station's on-campus frequency -- quite an endeavor for a station that one semester ago was broadcasting one hour a week.
"We've really had to work hard to justify ourselves and show people that we're actually worth something," Sholiton said of the station that now includes a staff of 30 and a 24-hour broadcast schedule. "That we were even asked to do this and then that we were embraced in such a way -- with people going out of their way to help us -- was meaningful. If we needed to borrow wires or cords or if we needed expertise or advice, there were people there. That really helped the project along.
"Technically, the whole broadcast went almost flawlessly," Sholiton said. "We were right on when Bill Gates had us cue the tape. We did as well as we could with our equipment."
The student-run aspect of the production is an important component to the story, according to Sholiton. One of the sound and lighting engineers hired a professional director, presuming the WUTV crew didn't have the experience for such an undertaking. Sholiton said no.
"At a university that is not a communications-oriented school, we're trying to build up a program with hands-on experience," Sholiton said. "The eight people who had a chance to work on the Gates event will have an experience that they can talk about and will have a tape that they can show someone and say, 'That's my camera work,' or 'I was the switcher.'
"My whole argument for not hiring the professional director was how do you get experience unless you get a chance?" he continued. "The worst thing that could have happened was switching to the wrong camera at the wrong time.
"A few people commented that we had too many audience shots during the [preliminary] Bruce Roberson speech," Sholiton said. "But the same guy who wanted to hire the professional director was in my ear the whole time telling me that we needed more of that. After the Gates speech, the same two people who complained during the Roberson talk thanked us for doing a much better job."
Sholiton said the WUTV crew sensed the gravity of the event, both for themselves as individuals and for the station. "We were told just to dress in jeans and T-shirts and to be comfortable -- but everyone wanted to wear a shirt and tie," he said. "Everyone was just so happy to be a part of something important.
"It wasn't that we were 'students' and they were 'professionals' -- we were all professionals in that regard," Sholiton said. "I didn't realize that I was talking to the regional director for Microsoft -- I was just talking to someone who needed to get something done. A colleague."
In addition to Sholiton, the WUTV crew included freshman Dan Beckman, who worked the switcher and served as director; freshman Erika Palmer, who was a runner; and freshman Mihal Bryc and junior Shekar Sathyanarayana, who both served as camera assistants. The three camera operators were juniors Jason Gross and James Mann and senior Adam Rosenberg.
With this experience as part of its broadcast history, WUTV now hopes to broadcast live for Assembly Series speakers at Graham Chapel, for concerts and plays at Edison Theatre and for sporting events at the WU Field House. "We're looking to purchase enough fiber-optic cable to run just about anywhere on campus," Sholiton said, citing some one-time funding needs. "Then we'll be able to flick a switch and go live to a remote site."
"This was the 'make-it' event in terms of showing what we can do, given the opportunity," Sholiton concluded. "It was nice to know that the University had the confidence -- in a pressure situation -- to let the students handle it."
