So, how did you do on last week’s quiz? That’s great.
Not only did we have pen-and paper quizzes in the classroom, but there were hands-on quizzes in the lab workshops. Remember a few weeks ago the crazy camera movement quiz Propel had on the floor of the television studio? That counted as a quiz. And even if that activity wasn’t a graded quiz, the material learned from it would be possible topics for a later quiz. Of course, the camera movement game would not have been undertaken only for show – there would have been a reason for us participating in it. Aside from some strange fancy of Dr. Propel’s, that is.
All our quizzes came back to haunt us at the end of the semester. That’s when we students faced the dreaded “Final Exam.” I learned early in my freshman year to ask – if the instructor did not make it abundantly clear – if the final would be cumulative or not. If it was cumulative then everything from day one in the classroom was fair game for the test; it not, then we knew to focus on material since the last major test.
Dr. Propel smiled and said cumulative, as if that were a surprise. It wasn’t that bad because a few of us that were both in the class and put in time doing radio news or sports got together and pooled our resources. We put together a fairly comprehensive study guide of vocabulary terms and list questions (e.g. name two of the five FCC commissioners) to prepare ourselves. Of course this sort of thing worked great for the classroom final exam.
Not as much for the lab final, where we corralled into Studio 3 and waited our fate with Dr. Propel. He had us sit in a row of numbered chairs along one side of the room, though either the third or fourth chair had been pulled out into the center of the studio. We took our seats but were told not to get too comfortable as we’d be up moving around a lot during the next 90 minutes (the length of time designated for each final exam). There was little surprise when Dr. Propel explained he had another “fun” activity prepared and, just as before, we were supposed to be quick and on our toes when participating.
Our final would be to prove our mastery of the audio and video equipment by both operating it and answering questions about its role in the radio and television environment. When we began, the first student in the row was called forward; Propel then instructed everyone to move up a chair (this meant the person who originally, and reluctantly, took the third chair in the middle of the room was now against the wall in the second chair, and the person in the fourth chair now sat unhappily in the center of the room).
The first student was directed to follow Propel into the control room. There he was to cue a record on a turntable and identify its parts (e.g. motor, cartridge, etc.). He or she was then sent back to the studio and took a seat at the back of the row; the next person in line was called forward. This next person was asked to properly thread a reel-to-reel machine and record his or her voice. Then the following person had to operate the camera and zoom in on the person seated in the center of the studio. Another person had to record something to cart. Then the next person had to mix his or her voice with music from a CD and record this to a reel-to-reel. The subsequent person had to move the camera according to Propel’s instructions. And so on.
Those of us in the studio were always moving from one chair to another. Sometimes we were in our chairs for only a few second (Propel had asked something either relatively easy or the task at hand took very little time) or sometimes it felt like minutes crept by slowly. Through this cycle each student would be tested on some aspect of each equipment, though it differed for each person (discussing it afterward, another student and I discovered that while I had to mix my voice and music from a CD and record to cart, this other person had to mix voice and music from the turntable and record it on the reel-to-reel).
At any rate, I still remember to this day the one thing I faltered on. I was able to get through most everything without issue except for the downstream keyer. After doing something with the video switcher, I was asked the name of the last, or final, keyer in the switcher. I choked. I had no idea. The only reason why I remember the answer all these years later is because Dr. Propel began giving me non-verbal clues. It was like a bad game of charades: he sat in his chair and pretended he was casting a fishing line. My mind went blank, mostly as I tried to figure out what on earth he was doing. He then moved his fluttering hand away from him; this, I could only guess, was supposed to be a fish.
I finally said I didn’t know the answer.
“Downstream keyer,” came his answer.
“Fine, now what were you doing?”
The clue was that I had to cast the line “downstream” to catch a fish. I would not have guessed that in a hundred years. But such was the final exam (which I passed) and such was the final time I interacted with Dr. Propel.
And yes, we also had to spell potentiometer.
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Downstream
(Morris Gould)
Irresistible Force
From the album Global Chillage
1995