Swain Facilities

Swain Multimedia Facilities and Equipment for Media Studies and Production in the Department of Communication Studies

Swain Hall houses the core of the production facilities for the Department of Communication Studies, consisting of several large broadcast and recording studios, a hard-disk audio recording studio, equipment room, a primary instructional non-linear multi-media computer lab and satellite non-linear multi-media editing suites.

The large broadcast and recording studios serve as rehearsal spaces, instructional spaces and video and film studios.  A non-linear audio editing studio, featuring a 24 track 8 buss Mackie board with surround sound capabilities, operates as a control room for one of these studio spaces. Additionally, this studio contains a chroma-key set (384 sq. ft green screen), and sound isolation baffles.

The equipment room, which serves both the faculty and students, inventories assets such as Sony PD-170 MiniDV cameras, Canon Xl-1s MiniDV cameras, Fostex Field Recorders, DATs, Bolex 16mm cameras, Arri 16mm camera, Sony TRV-950 cameras, Sony HVR-Z1U and V1U HDV cameras, Panasonic HVX-200 cameras, Mathews dolly w/ tracks, spider-dolly, Fig-rig, Steady camera rig, Mole-Richardson and Lowell light kits, and a large selection of microphones and accessories.

The second floor of the production facility houses fourteen G5 Apple workstations designed for NTSC and HDV video editing, web authoring and interactivity, animation, compositing, and audio production. Each station features a Sony DSR-20 (DSR-25) DVCAM deck and Sony NTSC monitor. In addition, HDV decks (Sony HVR-M10U/25U) and cameras (Sony HVR-Z1U/V1U ) are currently being integrated into the program in the HD initiative. Recently we have added Panasonic HVX-200 cameras shooting with the P2 technology. Final Cut Pro HD Studio, Flash pro, Logic, Dreamweaver, PhotoShop and After Effects are among the software packages used for instruction and media authoring.

Furthermore, through our UNC community, students have access to several streaming media servers, Student Television, WXYC radio, and pod-cast aggregation.