01
Background
Hale School's Media Studies program had outgrown its facilities. As student numbers in the program grew, the school wanted a space that matched industry standards rather than approximating them — somewhere students could work in a genuine broadcasting environment before they ever set foot in a professional one.
FocusAV was brought in to design and install the studio.
02
The challenge
A teaching studio has to be two things at once. The gear needed to be professional enough to replicate real production workflows, and simple enough that a student could operate it independently without a technician standing behind them.
Get that balance wrong in either direction and the room fails: too basic and it teaches nothing transferable, too complex and it sits unused. The build also had to leave room for the curriculum to grow and for the kind of content the department hadn't started making yet.
03
The solution
FocusAV delivered a complete broadcast fitout built for the Media Studies department.
- Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2 as the primary camera, with a full set of professional Blackmagic accessories.
- An ATEM Camera Control Panel for live production control, so students run multi-camera shoots the way a broadcast gallery does.
- A Panasonic 4K camera integrated into the same system to extend coverage and picture quality.
The whole studio was tied together with customised programming, which is what makes the difference for a teaching space — the complexity is still there under the hood, but the day-to-day operation is simple enough for students to drive on their own.
04
The outcome
Students now work with the same tools used in television and media production. They produce genuinely high-quality content, build confidence in front of and behind the camera, and come out with practical skills that carry into a media career.
For teaching staff, the programming means complex production workflows can be taught in a simplified, engaging format on a platform that behaves the same way every lesson. Hale School has set a new benchmark for educational media facilities in Western Australia, in a space with room to grow into as the program expands.
