TKN Studio

While students and teachers see the studio on The Knightly News broadcasts every morning, many may not give it a second thought and others have no idea where the show is filmed.

“[Most people] think that we film The Knightly News in our classroom, but the studio’s in the library,” junior and producer Megan Strydom said. “It’s a cool location that’s totally separate from the rest of the school. For the most part, only students in broadcast know about it.”

Accessible through a door in the back of the library, the studio is where broadcast journalism students film Knightly News anchoring every day during first and second periods. Students not in broadcast journalism cannot enter, as it is used exclusively for filming the show.

The location itself is divided into two rooms, with a filming room and a technical room. The filming side is filled with the desks that the anchors sit at, professional-grade lights attached to the ceiling, cameras with teleprompters and any props needed for the show.

The technical room includes the control board, where the executive producers, seniors Michael Rosegrant and Shin Won Cho, direct filming of the show.

Last year, approximately $20,000 of studio camera equipment was donated to the program, giving the show a more professional look and transforming the look of the studio.

Darkroom

The photography darkroom is exactly what it sounds like: a room designed to allow no outside light. Photographers entering the darkroom, affectionately nicknamed the “batcave,” must step into a black revolving door.

The room glows a soft red due to the safelights, which allow a limited amount of light in so students can see, but the lights do not prematurely expose and damage the light-sensitive photographic paper.

“In photography, not only do we do digital photo, we also do more traditional forms of photo that stem from film as well as different photographic papers that need to be used under specific lighting situations and under certain chemicals,” photography teacher Betty Simmons said. “We do all of that in the darkroom because normal light burns the paper we use.”

The walls are lined with enlarger machines that are used to transfer images from film to photographic paper. Photography 1 students use the room to make rayograms and photograms, pictures that are made to look similar to x-rays.

The processes used in the darkroom may seem archaic in comparison to modern, digital photography, but the lessons learned in the room teach students about a wide array of photographic techniques. Photography 1 students are in and out of the darkroom frequently, whereas advanced students may use it more or less as they choose to concentrate in either traditional or digital methods.

Catwalk

Located three stories up and behind two locked doors, the theater catwalk is unknown to most students not involved in the drama program. The space is used only by lighting technicians to assemble, move and aim lights for shows in the auditorium. The narrow walkway can hold up to 1,000 pounds of people walking on the rickety planks, and the metal beams can house up to 30,000 pounds of lighting equipment. It is divided into three sections, each with a window viewing the stage.

“I come up to the catwalk once or twice a rehearsal to aim and adjust lights,” lighting technician and junior Ben Klosky said. “There are about 20 rehearsals per show, so I come up here pretty often.”

Sometimes shows require actors to use the catwalk, such as when an actress shouted lines from the walkway during “Radium Girls,” or when an actor shot a nerf gun through one of the windows during a children’s show.

People who use the catwalk must be careful and safe, so few students have permission to access the area. Only trained lighting technicians can enter to work on lighting, and for good reason. A false sense of security is put in place by what appears to be flooring outside of the walkway. While the floor appears solid, it consists of cardboard. If a student were to fall through, they would go through the roof of the auditorium and onto the auditorium floor. Additionally, the lights burn at approximately 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and one mistake in wiring the lights can result in electric shock.