Hillsboro High School offers a variety of courses with unique experiences, and one example is the recording studio in the audio-visual pathway. From news broadcasts to music videos, the possibilities are limitless. With features such as the green screen and disco ball, Hillsboro boasts the best example of a state-of-the-art broadcast studio in Metro Nashville.

Here, at Hillsboro High School, in the Audio-Visual Pathway which is part of the Academy of International Business and Communications. AIBC is one of the three Academies at Hillsboro and is one of the few academies that has earned the prestigious designation of Model Status recently during its accreditation process.  The HHS Burro studio is a real studio that the students get access use with top equipment. One can get to see and use it as soon as your first year in the A/V pathway, which is your sophomore year. The studio is used only by Audio/Visual students.

According to Dawn Marek, an Audio-Visual and digital design teacher here at Hillsboro, “in the studio now we can do chroma key, we can do music videos, we do news weekly. We can do interviews there, it’s a beautiful thing. So we’re very, very happy to have the studio.”

One of the most important aspects about the studio is that has brand new studio equipment and visitors to the studio need to be aware that they need to be careful around the equipment. One wall in the studio serves as a green screen. A “green screen” is “a green background in front of which moving subjects are filmed and which allows a separately filmed background to be added to the final image” which enables scenes with to use special effects (Oxford Dictionary).

These scenes are usually edited in post-production to show images and video superimposed behind the broadcaster. It is a great tool to create interesting and eye-catching backgrounds. The green screen is just one aspect of the studio. Another aspect is the news set. It is a professional set that is designed to model a real newsroom and broadcast desk. It is the perfect prop and set for a news broadcast.

While the broadcasters are on the news set, there are students who are working in the control room with desktops, as well as other control devices you would find in a studio. This room is where somebody serving as the producer can monitor sounds. Being a producer working to produce a product on state-of-the-art equipment can be very exciting.

“We would just love to have anybody who thinks they want to learn about this world because video is in everything. From Instagram, to TikTok, to movies,” Ms. Marek said. “Any student who would love to be a part of [The Audio-Visual pathway], we’d love to have them, because we are the future.”