“Two minutes”

The voice from the control room floats over the TV studio full of children. This is not your ordinary studio, however. The target audience is hospitalized children, and each program is geared to making their stay at the Minnesota Children’s Hospital a bit easier.

Today, the studio is hosting students from the Hovland Conservatory of Music. About a dozen children are there to perform on the piano for the cameras during “The Clubhouse” show. Their host, The Dude, wears his hair long underneath a stocking hat, Captain America shirt, NBA wrist band and a personality that resembles a cross between Mike Myers’ character in Wayne’s World and Jack Black’s character in School of Rock.

“Is anybody nervous?” he asks the students in the audience. Silence. He looks around sheepishly and slowly raises his hand. “I am.”

The Show’s Intro Package Begins

In one form or another, Star Studio has been a part of Children’s Minnesota since 1978. It began as an electronic get well card, but closed in 2006. Not long after that, it was opened again – funded entirely by donations. The current Minneapolis studio opened in 2010 with HD equipment. Between the Minneapolis and St. Paul locations, they’ve recorded about 3,000 shows since 2008.

Once the theme song ends, the show is underway. The Dude takes calls from children currently in the hospital to answer the poll of the day – “What do you do in the Snow?” The choices are make a snowman or make a snow angel.

Making a Snow Angel Takes an Early Lead

In the studio’s control booth, “Mister Wizard” and “Mister B” transition the shot from one camera to the next. Three Vaddio® RoboSHOT® 30 cameras help capture the show for broadcast as well as live streaming on the internet for patients who want to keep watching the shows from home.

One camera captures the audience from the front of the studio. Another is directly above the set to get overhead shots, which is especially helpful for this day full of piano performances. The third provides secondary coverage of the set. 

Each RoboSHOT 30 camera is connected to a Vaddio Quick-Connect™ CCU to enable adjustment of camera color and image for a more accurate representation.

The CCU also delivers high-quality HD video, power and control over Cat-5 cables. The outputs allow for flexibility in system design so they can broadcast and stream simultaneously.

A ProductionVIEW™ Precision Camera Controller allows Mister B, or Ben Diger, Star Studio Broadcast Engineer, to pan, tilt and zoom each of the cameras during the show. This is his favorite piece of Vaddio equipment. The sturdy metal case and smooth camera movement are among his reasons.

“Image was a second factor for me,” he said. “It’s more about the camera control than image. It feels like you are using a camera – they are so smooth and fluid.”

During the show, he stretches out often to adjust a camera for the different heights of the players. It’s almost automatic and barely takes a glance to use the controls.

Star Studio shoots about 12 hours of original programming a week between 10 regularly scheduled live shows, many live show special events, and several pre-filmed shows. One live show special broadcasts remotely from the Minnesota State Fair annually, with current patients calling from hospital rooms to tell the crew where to go next.

The children get attached to The Dude, Diger said. “It’s something that is always surprising to parents. They say when the show is on and their child calls in, it may be the first time the child has smiled in weeks.”

One by one, The Dude interviews children who come up to play the keyboard in front of the green screen wall. Each student plays for a few minutes, then votes on the day’s poll. After 50 minutes, they wrap up with The Dude playing name that tune with his recorder. Sometimes he gets an assist with sound effects from Mister Wizard in the booth.

The show wraps up with some group songs for the holidays to finish the recital.

Today’s poll results – 15-12 in favor of making a snowman.