One Button Studio

THE One Button Studio is a high quality recording studio that includes a 3 light setup, a shotgun mic, and a professional green/blue screen.  Along with the recording equipment there are two monitors that face the speaker(s). One that shows the camera’s framing and another that’s placed directly above the camera which the speaker(s) can plug in to or Chromecast to and display their slideshow or script as a teleprompter for their performance. To use the studio, a speaker inserts a thumb drive into a USB port on the cart.  This turns on the lights, activates the camera and the OBS program. When ready, the speaker can press the One Button which triggers a 10 second countdown to begin the shoot. When done, the speaker presses the button once more to end the recording and compress the video to MP4 format that is saved to the thumb drive and to a faculty shared drive on the computer. 

We choose to build the OBS to engage more teachers and students in alternative means of assessment. While phones and webcams allow students to produce their own movies or presentations, the low audio and video quality can have a negative impact on the product; no high school teacher wants an essay handwritten on binder paper.  So we're building the OBS to offer a high production quality recording studio that's accessible to all at the touch of a button.  Students and teachers alike are eager to record their debates, essays, interviews, monologues, speeches and presentations in the studio! We'll book studio use using the Google Calendar Room Reservation tool, which will send requests to the studio manager and also prevent double booking.

The OBS was created by Penn State.  On their website they have a list of all the necessary equipment (including a price list), directions for installation, and an app in both the Apple and Android stores.  In a neighborhood school that's short on space, we repurposed an underused storage room for the OBS. In the front of the room we built a more efficient maintenance closet and opened up the remainder of the room for our stage. The studio side of the room is roughly 8' wide and 10' deep.  The photos and drawings below document the planning and construction process.  We're hoping to complete construction and open the studio for business by mid November, 2019.