Melrose Tweens and Teens Produce “YouthTube” (not Boobtube)

Getting tweens and teens to wake up before noon during summer vacation can be challenging. (Just ask their parents.) This week, however, 16 Melrose boys and girls rose out of bed, because of a TV show.

No, not to watch listlessly, but to actively produce, film and edit, too. 

This summer's Melrose Massachusetts Television's (MMTV) "Youth Tube" program — don't call it 'camp' — returned for another successful summer run. If you walked inside or by MMTV on Main Street any afternoon during the week of Aug. 9, you might have seen 16 Melrose youths captivated and engaged by the talented staff, the state-of-the-art technology, and the results of their own proven creativity and teamwork. 

According to Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis, Community Outreach and Membership Director, Youth Tube is open to girls and boys entering sixth through ninth grade. Making up the Summer 2010 group were four sixth graders, six seventh graders and three eighth graders. The week-long session, composed of five, half-days, is held from 1-4:30 p.m. A small team of experienced MMTV counselors and counselors-in-training assist McAteer-Margolis and MMTV deputy director, Mike Miner, in running the program and providing on-site coaching.

McAteer-Margolis started the program ten years ago after joining MMTV, which has operated in Melrose for about 20 years. Advertised each spring through the local media, including Melrose Patch, the popular program attracts the interest of many teens and "sells out" quickly. In fact, this year half of last summer's group returned.

A hands-on learning experience

Each year, the students produce a Public Safety Announcement (PSA) which communicates an important community message, like pedestrian safety or recycling. 

"We have them do a PSA versus a silly skit," says Margolis. The pragmatic end product helps engage the students.

This year, given the size of the group, two teams were formed, each charged with producing a PSA focused on safety and calling 911: one about safety while hiking, the other on healthy eating and what to do, how to call 911, if a person suffers a heart attack.

There's no boring lectures or "how to" Powerpoint presentations. Within the short span of a total of 20-22 hours, kids learn the basics of TV production; how to use portable camera equipment; then larger, professional cameras in the studio; then the control room, installed right before last summer's program. Early in the week, a field trip to Action Ambulance in Wilmington provided a tour of the facility, as well as footage of the equipment, all fodder for the brainstorming session. 

"Then we let them go with it," Margolis explained. 

With a real-time, Friday afternoon deadline looming, each team creates a scene, a script, and starts producing their show. To the teens' surprise, they are not prevented from, but encouraged to put their hands on MMTV's state-of-the-art equipment and technology. It's the only way to learn hands-on various technical skills like using the camera, directing, audio/sound, editing, and even some photography. The proven learning approach is all hands-on and interactive, leaning heavily on trial and error. 

Most importantly, the teens learn how to work together as a team. On Friday, family members and friends are invited to tour the studio and view the final product which will air within two weeks on Channel 15, MMTV's educational television channel.

Kids realize their own talents

Last year, Andrew Dell Isola, a Summer 2009 "Youth Tube" participant, entering eighth grade at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School (MVMMS), edited the final product just minutes before "showtime," while his parents, other families, and friends sat in the studio watching another show. He found he had a natural talent at it. 

"It's what I do," Dell Isola said.

"The talent and ability of kids grows each year," stressed Miner, who himself became involved with MMTV when he was ten, interested in producing TV shows.

"Unlike me, they're growing up with Facebook, Twitter, the web. It makes it easier for them to navigate the technology," he said, adding, "They understand on a deeper level what goes into a program — the pictures, music, audio, etc.  Kids pick up on how to use the technology intuitively."

Ethan Weiss, 11, soon to be a sixth grader at MVMMS, agrees. While he doesn't consider himself "super" on using technology, he loved how students were allowed to use all the technology in the studio, "especially the sound board and cameras." Already, he plans to enroll again next year. 

Same with Jesse Orton, a resident of Melrose, entering sixth grade at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School (MVRCS) in Malden. 

"It's really fun," Orton said, adding she planned to tell her friends about it, too.

Abraham Zimmerson, on the hiking safety production team and in Youth Tube for the first time, is entering eight grade at MVMMS. Like Weiss, he also likes using the camera, and was also shocked to learn they could – and would – use the custom-built control room "because there's a lot of buttons to press, a lot to learn.

"But they (the staff) are strict about rules in there, like no food or drink," he adds.

No wonder. 

"The control room is very state of the art, custom built for MMTV," says McAteer-Margolis. "Many other community TV programs are envious."

Olivia Weber, 12, entering MVRCS seventh grade, returned to MMTV after being wowed by last summer's program. Last year, she went into the program thinking she'd like to be behind the camera. One uncle is a cameraman with MSNBC in New York. 

But because the program moves kids through all aspects of production, she discovered she liked being in front of the camera.  Another uncle, her mother's twin brother, was extremely impressed with the technology, too. And he would know.  He's also in the biz, working at New York University's radio station, WNYU (89.1 FM)

Program graduates continue to learn after the summer ends

The end of the program doesn't mean the end of learning, or use of the equipment though. During the year, McAteer-Margolis calls on "graduates" of the program, like Jack Callanan, a second-year, Youth Tuber and entering sixth grade at MVRCS, to assist in filming various events around Melrose.  Callanan was more than happy to help film portions of last year's Victorian Fair.  Weber, fellow seventh grade MVRCS classmate, Bridget Tully (this writer's daughter), another second-year Youth Tube student, and Dell Isola kept the energy of their MMTV education going since last summer.  They produced their own show and also filmed various Melrose events, which they edited and produced as shows, later broadcast on MMTV.

"That's the idea," says Miner. "Every year, one to two kids stick around, for a long time." Like Miner, who's been at MMTV since 1994 in various capacities, from volunteer to his current capacity, a few students of the program continue, becoming counselors themselves, producing their own shows while in high school, even pursuing the field of media/communications in college.

As the group assembled on Thursday, deadlines pressing down on them, one boy expressed surprise when Patrick Casey walked in, an eighth grader at MMVS, and Youth Tube first-timer . 

"I thought you weren't coming today."

"I wasn't," said Casey.  "But I decided I didn't want to go to the beach.  I'd rather be here."

MMTV, open year-round, offers memberships for students and seniors ($15), individuals ($25), families ($40), and organizations ($100). For more information, call 781-665-6688 or visit mmtv3.org.