You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2009.
…for stating the obvious. The Internet abounds in contests and other such opportunities to make a name for yourself. And that is about all you get for entering…a few moments of fleeting fame, a handshake, and whatever you created belongs to someone else.
Take a read of this posting the articulate Amanda wrote. And her target is none less than Microsoft.
Let me think here…aren’t they one of the biggest, richest……
Got some incoming hits from a new site this morning and when I checked my email, it was revealed. A site called Learn-gasm, part of this site, made up a list of what are supposed to be the 100 best sites for journalism students to keep up with trends and learn. Somehow I made (the very end) of the list. Wow.
If you’re interested take a gander here. There are some old friends and some interesting sites I plan to look into.
Gonna be offline for a few days. Buddy Newell and I head for the hills early tomorrow to catch some fresh air, fresh views, and some yummy (over the campfire) home-made cooking!
Got the anchor desk hauled into the studio this weekend (love you Ron and Lexi for working in 100+ degree heat to haul that monolith) and went in this morning to snap some shots.
If you want a closer view, just click on the individual photos.
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- 1K Arri mounted in light grid
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- More musings from Mrs. Green’s videots
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- 2009 San Francisco 48HFP
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- View from control room to studio
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- Store fixture transformed into TV anchor desk
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- My videots are poets
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- Hole in the wall!!
Word of explanation – for the past three years I’ve taught broadcasting in “almost a studio.” It had the configuration, but I was also teaching English – which mean more than half of the room had desks, blocking off any ability to really do studio work. This year my English class is moving to another room, so the studio for the first time is dedicated to what it was meant for.
This past year the light grid was installed – and there it sat. I don’t have a variety of lights – just three 1K Arris, two of which were mounted by Theater Manager Brian Harrower last week. Big improvement – we can use the controls to light up and dim down AND no more potential disasters waiting to happen with power cords running all over the room.
My buddy Kathy Newell pointed out that TV station controls rooms do NOT look out over the studio…many times they are located elsewhere in the building. The response is – hey, I’m a teacher and have to maintain a visual on the kids. Besides, it kinda looks neat.
The anchor desk – formerly known as a store fixture – bought from the local Gottshalks, which is going out of business. Five by five foot platform with a four foot high desk. Just enough room for two anchors. It will be painted (most likely a neutral grey) before school starts. Oh – it has wheels, so we can roll it to any location we want in studio.
The hole in the wall!! I’m still excited about it. Just some corrogated plastic pipe and a couple of toilet mount fixtures. About five inches wide (I think). Mounted right below my monitors in the control room.
And the student comments and 48HFP (48 Hour Film Project) musings on the board…this is what happens when students are no longer learners but part of a team under deadline. I didn’t even really see these until I returned to the classroom the Monday after the event. Made me want to cry….
All scenes are reduced to both Quicktime and .avi files. The movie is edited (meaning cleaned up) and I’m adding music today. Will burn DVDs tonight and most likely mail out Tuesday or Wednesday…the latter at the latest since I’m going camping Wednesday.
Hope your summer is going great!
A large part of my philosophy of life is to give back once you have taken. Along your road of life many people will help you. Some of you will receive more help than others, while those others may not receive much at all. But the amount isn’t what matters. What matters is passing on – giving back – giving to people you may never meet or perhaps even realize you’ve helped.
Lately at my husband’s church (we have very different, yet in some ways very entwined religious spiritual philosophies) there has been a handout in the program for something called “S-O-S.” Short for “Seek or Serve.”
There are two simple parts to the website. Are you seeking help or can you serve by giving help. And the help ranges from material things to services to visits to simple prayers.
On the printed version before me people are offering drum lessons (something they can do that no one else can), mattresses, a freezer, prayer, clothing, errands run, transportation, dog sitting, and much more.
The “want” list is surprisingly short. One urgent request for toddler bed sheets, visitation for a mother and child, help with outdoor work, transportation, bible on tape or cd, furniture.
Kind of gratifying to see that more is offered that wanted…and somehow the two come together, take a gander at each other, agree on a trade and walk away with both sides feeling as if they’ve won.
Truth be told – both sides ARE winners. The side giving wins because they have a memory they can look back at, knowing they’ve done the right thing. The side receiving wins because their life is made easier by the gift they’ve received AND they will return the gift by passing along gifts of their own to others.
Simple choices. Both right.
Oh yeah…the VJ tie-in? Journalism (to me) is more than a job. A true journalist serves their community by covering meaningful events and explaining issues so that the public/audience has a better understanding of the community. Journalists are both givers and takers. They take from individuals, organizations, everyone…and give back to everyone. If you’re in it for fame, for money…you need to rethink YOUR philosophy.
Lemming (public domain)
Just joined the digital generation…have the feeling I’ve been lagging behind lately. Now on facebook and was viewing a video buddy Kathy Newell posted on her facebook. Views of Half Dome at dusk.
Got me to wondering what Ansel Adams would be producing had he been of this generation. The man who wandered the West looking for haunting images which he froze for time in silver halide.
Would HE have a facebook or a twitter account? Would HE reveal his moment by moment activities and thoughts to the world?
And another icon – personal favorite: W. Eugene Smith. A man tormented by war injuries and a commitment to social justice…who literally lived with his subjects as he photographed them. How would HE fit into today’s narcacistic society? Would he break for a second from documenting mercury poisoning in a small village in Japan to tweet his followers – “Hey, got the greatest shot ever…”?
Is there a Dorthea Lange out there right now setting up a blog, snapping with her new iPhone, prepared to tell the world of new injustices?
Probably. But they may never be known. What made each of the above unique – memorable – is that they were explorers, passionate…but most of all, first and standing alone in a field doing what no one else had done in quite the same way. When you do it alone and break ground, you are remarkable. When you do it simultaneously with a million others, you are part of a pack. And its getting harder and harder to be unique as the size of the pack explodes.
Can you say “lemmings”?
Life is GOOD.
In the past few days something in the universe clicked and said, “Let’s be kind to Cyndy.”
Yesterday I went into my TV studio at McNair High School and the district techies were meeting with the contractor who is wiring me up so we can send a signal campus-wide for daily bulletin. Been waiting two years for this to happen.
Then Brian Harrower, our theater manager, came in and hung two of my 1K Arris on the light grid and hooked up to the lighting control panel.
In the meantime I’d pulled all of the equipment and cables out of the control room and was cleaning and setting things up in a more organized manner for school this year…buddy Kathy Newell was down helping and she figured out that the Focus Enhancement MX-4 switcher was NOT broken…the kids had just punched about every special effect they could and it took her more than half an hour to sequence through everything to reset it.
Finally – and this is big – I went in this afternoon and THERE WAS A HOLE IN THE CONTROL ROOM WALL!!!
Another battle won! Steve, the contractor with Bright Wire Corp had gotten the OK to cut a hole and fit it so I have a place to run cables from control room to studio. Up until now we’re been propping the door and running cables thru it. Not practical cause noise comes out of the CR and there’s always the danger of cables getting clipped if the door shuts.
So this year Ronald E. McNair High School starts the year with a fully functional, professional control room and studio.
Oh – and the final Whoopeee is I won’t have to teach English or non-broadcasting classes out of the studio, as I have the past two years. Explained to my principal that would entail spending half of each broadcast class dragging desks/furniture out of the way and back so we’d have room to do studio work. He said check with the VP, but he was okay with me teaching one class in a real classroom.
And Newell and I are heading to the hills for a couple more days of girl time with cameras before I settle back into my role as mom/wife/teacher.
Once again, life is sweet.
Added June 25:
Sorry for the delay guys. Here is the short list of possible nonlinear computer editing programs. For more details, check out Andy Dickinson’sblog. He has a great overview of the programs. Little heads up – he’s British so the occasional word or phrase might throw you.
And a couple of hints – don’t make your folks take out a second mortgage for technology. Start low and slow and work your way up. I list the low-enders first Second: many of these companies offer educational discounts – as much as 50% and more. So what could be a thousand dollar purchase could suddenly become affordable.
ADOBE – Premiere Elements, Premiere
AVID – PC/Mac/AVID Express is a low end version of what is considered the movie industry standard
APPLE – iMovie (low end), Final Cut Express, Final Cut Pro
CORAL – Ulead Video Studio, Media Studio Pro
MICROSOFT – MovieMaker/free with Windows OS
PINNACLE – Pinnacle Studio/low ender program/pretty basic
SONY – Vegas Movie Studio + DVD
Now I can’t really give you good insight about which to purchase…Andy gets into it better in his postings. From experience I know iMovie, MovieMaker work well at the low end. Final Cut Express and Premiere have similar desktops and work along the same lines…Andy says the Pinnacle does too. Good luck…I’ll post again when I’m ready to mail the DVDs. Oh – I have an extra tape (FujiFilm) that I think belongs to either Tom or Matt. And Tom and Emilio, you both forgot your workbooks…they’ll be in the mail too.
June 24, 2009
This for the great group who just completed three days of Digital Video Camp at Delta College: you guys rock! My head hurts from pushing you – and you managed to take everything you were given and did it! WOW.
Stay tuned to this spot – right now I’m capturing all of the video from the movie plus your edited material to my home computer. Then I’ll head back to campus to clean all of your animations and basic shots off the computers there…bring them home and get everything shipshape so you can get an encoded DVD with all of your animations, basic shots, and the movie. Plus a second disk with the raw video in two file formats so you can put it into iMovie or MovieMaker and play with it yourself. The second disk will also have the script and some additional resources. Oh – and Loren yours will have your music – no I didn’t forget.
Later tonight I’ll post more. Had a blast – hope you enjoyed yourselves too.
Click on over to Viewfinder Blues and take a gander at his latest musing.
Yeah – the new iPhone and its ilk. Lens has a valid point – ain’t never gonna be the same. A device that lets you make TV AND watch it.
Now I just picked up my daily does of local by walking across the wildflower and weed infested area I call a front lawn. This news is already twelve hours old.
Somewhere on this plant something newsworthy is happening and most likely it will be on the Internet before I head out in twenty minutes. Think on it. We no longer want to wait for the complete story – we want to see it as it unfolds. From a million viewpoints. The old order of neutral news crew gathering information may be gone, giving way to the masses of humanity shooting what is there and posting it (first responders) and then grabbing what they see and commenting (second responders and more akin to what we do now).
I guess what I really like about the old order is the simplicity. Once that ole daily rag goes under it’s gonna take a HECK of a lot of time to hunt down and devour my daily dose.
The years fly by and I forget how long I’ve been doing stuff. Back in the dawn of digital did a video workshop at Delta College with co-conspirator Larry Nance. Two aging geeks with a fire for new. So we proposed a one day video workshop to introduce the world to nonlinear and basics of production. An entire six people turned up as I recall…
Then my mentor Willie Kee passed away and I began to put on workshops for college students under the umbrella of SFBAPPA. First few years well attended and then – SURPRISE!! Twenty still photogs turned up, all clamoring to learn video. Although the Platypus movement predated this by more than a decade (it ain’t a duck or a fish or a mammel – it’s a mixture), this was the first I saw how the times were a changing.
The avalanche began for real. I was out of news and in the classroom and now I’m teaching kids what they need for jobs that haven’t even been dreamt up yet.
Today I packed bags of gear and goodies back to Delta College for the (is it the fourth???) Video Boot Camp – or Digital Video Camp. It’s not a money maker. It’s not about deep knowledge. It is all about instilling a passion for video. So skip the in-depth for now about how to set up a program and the minutia and details that make your a pro. For once I say, let’s make a movie kids!
Two quick lessons on using the camera, editing basics, and animation (for team building) and we plan and shoot and go with the KISS plan. (keep it simple silly)
For the first time I have access to Delta’s TV studio and a ton of wonderful iMacs with Final Cut Pro (thank you Professor Will Story). And for the first time I prodded and cheered a tiny band of summer-crazed videots through a two hour session in the basics of Final Cut. At which point they could cut a clip, lay in timeline, add titles over black and video, and add transitions. Don’t know how the students felt, but my head hurt. But videots they are – they were focused and playing with adapting and personalizing the titles and playing with transitions like pros. I had to pull them away to get them started on the animation assignment.
Tomorrow they finish the animation shoot – run it through FC and we’re off to plotting and shooting the movie.
I debate with myself it I’m doing the right thing here. In the past I’ve taught using iMovie – easy to learn but a dead end if you want more. I could cruise thru editing and focus on the rest of it all.
Teaching Final Cut is harder on all of us – but students can see the power of real editing. And to tell the truth the computers available only have iMovie 9. (everyone say, “OH NO!!!”) A pox on it – a bastard program that takes us back back back to the land of editing for dummies.
Oh – back to reality here. I have two more days of fun with my videots and then it’s back to my studio at McNair High School to rewire the control room and set up the lights on the lighting grid. And try to find out what caused our switcher to crash right before the studio assignment this past term.
Enjoy the sun…enjoy the summer.
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