"An Idaho Family Christmas" for 2007 began taking shape in late August. Shortly after school began, seven students and Professor & Mrs. Ytreeide met for an eleven hour marathon planning session. During that session it was decided to abandon the "variety show" format of previous years, and attempt to weave the music into a story instead. The basic plot of the story was outlined and a sketch of the set developed.

Professional designer Julie Vukas of Boise's Flamingo Design was then hired to design the set, and her drawings led the construction crew in creating the 360 degree set in our studio.

Nine students were hired to produce the show, including several freshmen, under the guidance of Senior Producer Lynelle Thompson. Each producer was responsible for several scenes -- meaning they had to find and organize the talent, find any major set pieces such as the barber chair, and generally make sure that the director had everything he needed to create the world and the scene called for in the script and in the director's notes. The producers were:

Robert Uehlin, Matt Henry, Eric Lahouwey, Scott Christianson, Matt Hasselblad, Katie Thompson, Chris Vanderschaaf, Troy Watters. The Procucers and Directors attended a weekend planning retreat in mid-September to start nailing down the details of the show including floorplans of setups, budget, schedules, crew list, and so forth.

First-year student Eric Lahouwey also performed double duty, being assigned Background Director for the show. In this capacity he was responsible for obtaining, scheduling, outfitting, and directing the dozens of extras we used throughout the shoot. It was a huge and complex job which he carried out with professionalisma and diligence.

Meanwhile, the construction crew, under the direction of First TA Adam McFarlane, began building the set. It took close to a hundred clock hours, and over a thousand person-hours, to build, paint, dress, and decorate the set. One of the most tedious jobs was painting several thousand cobblestones on the floor of the studio.

Also during this time, the student Engineering Team worked with the faculty to fine-tune all the cameras and equipment, and install new capabilities such as an audio/video feed to the Green Room.

It was at the end of this process, and because of his great dedication and leadership, that Executive Producers Arnold & Elsie Ytreeide decided to grant Executive Producer credit to senior Adam McFarlane as well -- an honor never before given to a student. This title is reserved for those who are most directly responsible for making a show a reality, and this most definitely describes Adam in the case of IFC07. Adam personally put in over 250 hours on the project during the fall semester.
Production






In previous years, IFC was shot as a variety show, was shot in a large home somewhere (the Governor's Mansion in 2006), and was shot in one day using a rented 48' production truck.

The new format of IFC07 allowed us the more professional and beneficial opportunity to shoot in our own studio over several days. Prior to 2007 this was not possible as the facilities were not fully broadcast capable. Due to the hard work of the department TA's and faculty, and large donations of equipment from NetWest Communications Group, the studio, control room, and other facilities are now complete and fully broadcast capable.

IFC07, then, was shot over 7 days instead of one, allowing us time to light each scene properly, rehearse, and shoot multiple takes. The multi-day schedule also allowed each student to thoroughly learn his or her job, and to absorb more of the production process.

The first day of the shoot was actually on location on the Pediatrics floor of St. Luke's Medical Center in Meridian, Idaho. The hospital scenes open the show, and we return to them a few more times throughout and at the end of the show. It was decided to shoot these scenes on 16mm film to give them a different look from the village dream scenes. A full crew spent an entire afternoon and evening at the hospital -- a 12 hour day for those students involved. Senior Adam McFarlane directed these scenes.

After that, it was six long days and nights of shooting in the studio. Besides the network-quality cameras, a $100,000 Fisher Ten dolly and a 14' crane were used in the production. Three students shared the directing of the scenes -- Adam, senior Jeremy Wiese, and junior Rodney Stryker.

Once all the scenes that take place in the village had been shot, the crew built interior sets in the middle of the studio. The same walls were used to create a children's home, a church, and the pastry shop.


Post Production

The hospital scenes for IFC07 were shot on 16mm film. This was flown to Seattle for processing, then transferred to DigiBeta. Video during the studio shoot was recorded directly to computer, with backups on tape.

The department owns and teaches both Avid and Final Cut Pro editing systems. While all previous broadcast shows have been edited on Avid, after much debate it was decided to edit this particular program on Final Cut Pro for various reasons. While the crew sometimes regretted that decision during the post process, FCP did perform admirably during most of post.

Each student director did a rough edit of his own scenes. They then sat with faculty to fine tune and color correct the show, with students doing almost all of the hands-on work.

Students also did all of the work on the soundtrack. Each music group, with the exception of the Buckhorn Mountain Boys, was pre-recorded in our audio studio. The entire soundtrack was then built from scratch during post in Pro Tools. Students did all the Foley work (creating sound effects such as footsteps and doors closing) and built the soundtracks of the hospital, village, and interiors using a variety of sounds. They also mixed the multiple tracks of each song.

Sophomore Matt Henry produced the graphics for the show, then all of the above elements were brought together in one Master sequence -- again almost entirely edited by students.