Reality TV: 'The Morning Wave' Teaches Students Real-World Skills

The news broadcast will air live in just a few minutes, and things are not going well.

Camera 3 is out of focus and Camera 1 can't be found on any of the monitors. Nobody seems to know where the prerecorded pasta dinner promotion is supposed fit into the flow of the broadcast, and the "talent" is stumbling over its lines in a hasty rehearsal.

All the while, the boss is shouting directions: "Camera 3! Get your shot! Wake up, Camera 3! ... Where's pasta dinner going? WHERE'S PASTA DINNER?"

Snow delays have interrupted the production schedule, and the boss is scrambling to make up for lost time. 

But under the pressure of deadline, the staff remains calm, and when the cameras go live a few minutes later, the broadcast goes off seamlessly—a polished production to rival anything seen these days on network television.

The broadcast includes segments on a school talent show, energy drinks, the weekend weather, the mysterious distinction between "partly sunny" and "partly cloudy" and, of course, the promotion for the marching band's annual pasta dinner. 

Such is life behind the scenes at The Morning Wave, the work of Ocean City High School's television/media production classes. The 10-minute news show airs live every Friday across monitors in every high-school classroom, and it is rebroadcast on the local public-access channel over the weekend.

The class is the work of Greg Wheeldon and Steven Trauger. Wheeldon is the teacher, "the boss," a former professional animator, while Trauger is the technological expert as the school' s audiovisual engineer.

The two men have assembled a studio filled with all the technology to make professional productions, but their most impressive creation appears to be their staff: students experienced in their tasks and working together under real-life pressure.

"Our goal is to get them ready for other work," Wheeldon says. "It's all about responsibility. You have to be on time. You have to meet deadlines."

And as in the real world, students deal with a boss who doesn't always have the time to sugar-coat his instructions.

"They either love me or hate me," Wheeldon says.

Wheeldon came to the newly renovated high school in fall 2004 and created the studio in spring 2005. The facility has benefited from grants that have helped purchase new equipment over the years.

Students can take three years of television/media production classes, and The Morning Wave is staffed by students in the second and third year. Each student rotates to every job on the set to experience all facets of television production.

Wheeldon says a number of graduates already have moved on to work in the field, and the show has received many awards. It's also been regularly featured on schooltube.com, a nationwide collection of the best school videos.

The students already are at work preparing their "finale show," an end-of-year production that students try to make bigger, better and funnier every year.  And as they showed during Friday's broadcast of The Morning Wave, they clearly have the talent to pull it off.

See The Morning Wave from Friday.
Learn more about The Morning Wave and see an index of all shows. 

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