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 In between stints operating a camera and TelePrompTer for WILL-TV’s local productions, Janet Painter happened to let it slip that she had a more ambitious goal for working in television.
She wanted to do a children’s show about science. A doctoral student in physiological and molecular plant biology at the University of Illinois, she wanted to help get kids excited about the natural world. WILL-TV production supervisor Tim Hartin overheard her talking about her goals. “We could do that here at WILL,” he told her. “Write up a proposal.” That’s how
Dr. Janet’s Science Planet was born.
The 11 one-minute segments air between school-age children’s programming on WILL-TV. The light-hearted segments take a simple approach to common science knowledge like how DNA copies itself, static, acids and bases, magnetism, and chemical reactions.
Filmed during the summer in the WILL-TV studio, the segments were produced by Janet with the help of Julius Bolton, production manager for the project, and Eleanore Stasheff, project editor.
Henry Szujewski is executive producer. “I had a lot of help from lots of people at WILL, who contributed things like artwork and lettering as well as production. Everybody’s been so enthusiastic,” said Janet, who received her doctorate and has moved to Arizona. She hopes to return to Champaign-Urbana to do more segments, perhaps filming some of them in labs on campus.
Tim said he had seen Janet in some local theatrical productions and knew she could act. “I knew she could deliver a character as well as having the science knowledge,” he said.
The production also gave student members of the production crew experience of working on a fun studio project, he said. “Janet was a very popular member of the crew, and she enlisted the volunteer help of her friends on the crew,” said Tim. “That enabled us to go ahead with the project.” |
