Training

WCCA conducts five workshops per year and each workshop is eight weeks long. Workshops take place Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Additional training is provided during weekday evening hours as needed. WCCA also conducts HTML training each quarter with an average attendance of three students at each training. WCCA trains twenty-five community producers, fifty interns and sixty youth each year video production as follows:

o Introduction field production, including camera and basic SVHS and mini DV camera use and tripod set-up.
o In Studio production basics including: training in studios A&B, introduction to studio cameras, audio, Trinity Digital switching, lighting applications, floor director, teleprompter, technical director, production design considerations and director's duties
o KidsNet/Youth Channel media literacy and career skills in communications
o Computer applications : character generator, HTML, vlogging, posting content on the web.
o Studio orientation and facility policies
o Advanced one on one courses on Trinity Switcher and Titlewave programs and Adobe Premier
o Digital and Analog Editing classes

At the end of the training the producers are “certified” on the equipment as a prelude to producing independently. If a producer does not wish to take the training courses, they can certify through a test and if they pass they can use the studio and equipment.

Cost to the public for the eight weeks of training is $35.00. If a community producer does not have the money for the training, WCCA provides volunteer opportunities such as front desk reception, cleaning or assisting with production in lieu of the fee.

Fifty interns are trained at the facility each year. The internships are intensive, ten hours per week for twelve weeks. The interns are responsible for all areas of production and provide assistance, one-on-one to community producers.

WCCA estimates that it now has two-hundred and fifty active producers and production crew members because of its training.

WCCA has placed on emphasis on training youth to produce programming by creating the KidsNet/Youth Channel program. Staff estimates that approximately sixty youth between the ages of thirteen and eighteen complete the program each year. The goals of KidsNet/Youth Channel are laudable. They are:

o To provide students with hand-on experience in a real television station.
o To offer students outside the classroom work in the real world.
o To encourage expression through technology applied in television arts.
o To furnish students with a link into the community, to nurture a sense of belonging while at the same time developing real career skills.

WCCA accepts students through an open enrollment process as well as through affiliated groups such as the Girl Scouts, local schools or youth organizations in the city.

Participants engage in the following training:

o Production Basics - 6 week training course which includes camera basics, lighting basics, audio basics and editing basics.
o Production Clubhouse – reinforcement of the basic training and introduction to additional skills; an intermediate level component which is on-going.
o Power Team – designed for advanced youth; they invite promising youth from the Club House to work with them on advanced projects where they learn additional

skills and production techniques.

In addition, WCCA will provide customized training and media experiences to groups that make a request.

Participants in KidsNet/Youth Channel produce a youth show, Teen Central, which includes community public service announcements and feature specials, such as the recent democratic rally in Worcester with a follow up interview with the now Lt Governor elect, Timothy Murray.