Getting ready to be prime-time players
School's TV classes are state of the art
Every evening, Waltham residents can tune in to cable and see the future of television grow before their eyes.
Music videos, silent movies, mockumentaries, commercials, and a talk show fill out the 5-10 p.m. schedule of WE-TV, Waltham Educational Television Station. Waltham High School's television and multimedia production program has given the city's youth a head start in broadcasting for nearly four decades.
''I've had kids come back and tell me that they were so far ahead of where their friends were in college," television teacher Patrick Daly said. ''They use state-of-the-art equipment. They just had a great opportunity here at Waltham High School."
The high school offers an introductory and an advanced television course, with a combined enrollment of 70 students, mostly juniors and seniors. In the introductory class, students learn the basics of film and television, developing the skills to create and edit programs. The advanced class produces a half-hour talk show, ''The Hawk," twice a month during the school year.
''The Hawk" came about because Daly, 27, and tech specialist Chris Hazel, 33, wanted an alternative to stale news shows.
''The problem with [high schools] doing news shows is it's old news by the time it gets on air," Daly said. ''So we came up with the idea of instead of reporting about the next football game, let's do a piece on the coach or the whole season."
Described by Daly and Hazel as '' 'Regis and Kelly' meets 'Chronicle,' " the show includes interviews, profiles, and news features about the school and the city.
''Everyone has their own claim to fame -- acting, sports, music. We produce our own show," said Kevin King, a recent graduate. ''We get to produce our own view of the high school."
Unlike most high school classes in which the teachers assign the work, students in the advanced course come up with their own ideas for ''The Hawk," Hazel said. The students do everything from preproduction planning to postproduction editing.
''The way we treat the class is almost like we're their bosses and they're our employees," Hazel said. ''It's like a business. All the events that go on in the high school, we 'hire the kids out' [to tape]. We don't pay them, but they go out and do that."
Their payment is being able to see themselves and their work televised in homes across Waltham. Many students find themselves receiving local celebrity status.
''It's really funny when you're in the supermarket and people recognize you from the local cable channel," said Jen Baglio, who graduated this spring and will be a television/radio major at Emerson College. ''I have people stop me a lot that I don't know. They love 'The Hawk.' They watch it all the time."
Martin Baker, who will study education at Boston College in the fall, said one of last year's seniors got a free pizza at Papa Gino's because an employee recognized him from WE-TV.
''They said his money was no good there because he was a star," Baker said with a smile. ''I haven't gotten that kind of star treatment yet."
Segments on ''The Hawk" range from in-studio interviews with administrators to light-hearted bits about senioritis and celebrity look-alikes. Autumn Beecy, who graduated this spring, said her favorite assignment was interviewing ''extreme girls' hockey fans," a group of Waltham High School boys who went above and beyond the call of duty when cheering for the girls' hockey team.
''They would bring flowers to the game," said Beecy, who was also a team member. ''Teams from other cities would call in and compliment our fans. To put them on TV was a way of rewarding them."
Through ''The Hawk," students interviewed such nationally known musical acts as Kevin Devine, Avery, and Dispatch. Hazel said that students either went up to the artists after a show or sent them an e-mail requesting an interview.
Experience from the courses helped Baglio win Fox Sports New England's ''Fancaster" contest not once but twice. The first time she got to do a Boston Celtics postgame report for the network and take a tour of the station's production van. More recently, she won the Stars and Strikes Fancaster contest. Hundreds of New England teens sent in audition tapes to win a chance to interview local athletes and celebrities at a benefit bowling tournament, which was scheduled to be held last Thursday.
Along with ''The Hawk," WE-TV offers other student-produced programming. Local community events such as dance shows, the senior prom, and graduation are aired during the week. The station has also televised Charlie Chaplin-style silent movies, commercials promoting the School Department or the station, and music videos.
Mockumentaries, fake documentaries with a comedic edge, have proven to be a hit with the station's audience. One about the school's urban legend of having a pool on the fourth floor prompted several calls from viewers.
''Someone called the school's switchboard and asked if they could reserve the pool," Daly said. The school doesn't have a pool -- or even a fourth floor.
Most recently, the station has been airing programs that star this year's graduating class, such as Kennedy vs. South Middle School basketball games from 2001.
When the studio opened in the 1960s, the school had just two cameras that recorded on 1-inch reels. Now the studio runs on state-of-the-art digital equipment and has several MacG5 digital editing stations that use Final Cut, a popular editing software used by colleges and videographers.
Hazel and Daly say the classes have given their students an advantage when entering their freshman year in college.
Many have gone on to major in television and film at institutions such as Emerson College, Quinnipiac University, and Ithaca College. Some have even returned to the high school studio to work on projects for their college classes.
WE-TV is funded in part through the city's cable companies,
''The Hawk" airs on Channel 10 on Comcast and Channel 13 on RCN in Waltham. The season finale will air at 5 p.m. July 1 and will announce next year's cohosts. 
