I realized one of my more immediate goals early on in my TV production career by producing & hosting a local history show, Pages Of Time. I had thought of the idea while doing a mini-cam remote in Grosse Ile on the history of trolleys, trains, and inter-urban transportation in Michigan.
I was so engrossed by that presentation that I wondered why suburbia's history wasn't presented more often. Detroit is obviously the focal point of all documentaries, but the suburbs had a rich history as well that wasn't just all about riverfront industry. I decided to fill that hole by immersing myself into detailed research that was a pleasure to do, was well-received by many older locals, and nearly won myself a production award in doing so.
Time constraints on my part limited its run to one season only. I shot much footage for the final show, but I never ended up putting it together.
When I was active in the field, I never had anything less than 100% motivation behind my efforts. If I was lagging, I knew something was wrong. It was extremely difficult (and ultimately proved impossible) for me to gather the footage I shot to detail the history of the Wyandotte Car Company, a major toy-maker during World War II.
Part of the reason, I hate to admit, was my discomfort of dealing with a museum manager who will remain nameless here. He eyed me suspiciously throughout the taping, as though I had a motive. I had no motive, unless you count the desire to publicize history as an instance. I could not be faulted for that, and yet here I was, anxious to just pack up the camera mid-way through the shoot while saying "Thanks, anyway." My professionalism carried me through that long afternoon, although I came home wondering why I made the trek there.
Editing the piece proved impossible. The atmosphere at the taping kept getting to me. And with that, a dragged-out feeling, knowing that not everyone appreciated their history being known. For what purpose, especially from a museum curator, I have no idea. Within two months, the program idea was dead, and it was unfortunate.
What was more unfortunate was the demise of this curator. I respect him enough to not detail what happened, but I will say I wasn't too surprised when I learned of the circumstances. It wasn't out of revenge that resulted in lack of surprise, but I just nodded my head and said, "It figures."
I also figured I saved myself a giant headache -- in spite of the result being that the program itself had died. I appreciate local history as much now as before, but much more so as a casual listener & appreciator, versus a documentarian.
Some things are just better left off for others to tape.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
When it was about teaching
YouTube has a great library of Sesame Street segments from the past, when I swore I was its number one fan. Sadly, these clips (save for a brief resurgence on the Noggin network in 2001) are ancient history and have never been appreciated by the generations growing up today.
What has Sesame Street been whittled down to today? Mindless junk segments meant only to make noise (and keep the infants awake), versus teaching something. Whoever made Elmo more than a supporting character should be barred from media altogether.
When I watched the show from ages 2-4, the emphasis was on learning letters and numbers. You would learn pronounciations, etc., on The Electric Company, but with time, you could understand the conversations the people on the street or the Muppets would have. Skits were creative, and yet simple for the youngsters to understand. Parents could watch the shows with them and appreciate the teaching tool the show provided.
Now Elmo takes 1/3rd of the show? With his third-person references, as in "Elmo wants, Elmo likes?" I was never told to say "Kevin likes, Kevin dislikes." The NBA has an image problem because so many of its athletes talk in the third person sense. Elmo may not have trained them directly to talk like that, but I'm sure the character influenced them. The emphasis is on visual humor these days, versus learning something.
How come the show still airs on PBS, which prides itself on being a teaching tool, I wonder.
I am grateful for the images YouTube does have, and reviewed some of them last week. I caught a glimpse of some commentary about this segment, which to my dying day I will credit for me learning to count to 20. There were many "far out, psychadelic, 'great' influence for the kids; what drugs were they on" comments, which caused one person to literally say: So it had some psychadelia, so what? People remember it, because the segment TAUGHT something.
How true. I'll never remember an episode of "Super Grover". But I'll remember all the things the show did teach me, and the fun ways the lessons were taught.
Call up YouTube sometime and type in "Sesame Street", looking for the old cartoons and viginettes. You'll see what I mean quite clearly.
What has Sesame Street been whittled down to today? Mindless junk segments meant only to make noise (and keep the infants awake), versus teaching something. Whoever made Elmo more than a supporting character should be barred from media altogether.
When I watched the show from ages 2-4, the emphasis was on learning letters and numbers. You would learn pronounciations, etc., on The Electric Company, but with time, you could understand the conversations the people on the street or the Muppets would have. Skits were creative, and yet simple for the youngsters to understand. Parents could watch the shows with them and appreciate the teaching tool the show provided.
Now Elmo takes 1/3rd of the show? With his third-person references, as in "Elmo wants, Elmo likes?" I was never told to say "Kevin likes, Kevin dislikes." The NBA has an image problem because so many of its athletes talk in the third person sense. Elmo may not have trained them directly to talk like that, but I'm sure the character influenced them. The emphasis is on visual humor these days, versus learning something.
How come the show still airs on PBS, which prides itself on being a teaching tool, I wonder.
I am grateful for the images YouTube does have, and reviewed some of them last week. I caught a glimpse of some commentary about this segment, which to my dying day I will credit for me learning to count to 20. There were many "far out, psychadelic, 'great' influence for the kids; what drugs were they on" comments, which caused one person to literally say: So it had some psychadelia, so what? People remember it, because the segment TAUGHT something.
How true. I'll never remember an episode of "Super Grover". But I'll remember all the things the show did teach me, and the fun ways the lessons were taught.
Call up YouTube sometime and type in "Sesame Street", looking for the old cartoons and viginettes. You'll see what I mean quite clearly.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Wrestling: Two views
This is in relation to the local wrestling show I helped produce in 1994-95, billed as Pro-Wrestling Ringside, and later, Wrestling Hot Seat.
The first point applies not only to this show, but to other shows that went "live" over the cable system. All "live" shows happened to be call-in shows, where viewers could call, comment, and contribute to the proceedings. This was a huge draw to volunteer crewpeople on shows like the previously-mentioned charade show.
But with the wrestling show in particular, I think call-ins were a downfall.
In regular network programming, it's called broadcasting; specifically, you are showing something to a general, broad audience. In local programming, though, you strived for narrowcasting, as each program was tailored for a specific, small group of people. You weren't out to please everyone. Each show was supposed to have its niche, narrow-cast, and therefore be the opposite of what television popularly was.
Narrow-casting, however, can weed out small groups of people who might be profane, as you would undoubtedly find when you are at a wrestling event. It's not just for the kids anymore, anyway. This is what we would be saddled with on any given production. We had to end up screening calls, half of which we couldn't put on the air anyway, because people thought the whole thing was a prank. They weren't shy about spouting profanities on the air, which we couldn't bleep out because a bad word could come without a moment's notice.
No current wrestling show on the air these days has unstaged, live calls. And look how rabidly popular they are with the audience they capture. I think the show could have done better, and many red faces could have been eliminated, if we had just shut the phone lines off and left the talent to do their scripted routines. Some of them were quite funny, and the calls would throw them off.
The second point is about marketing. Detroit has a rabid wrestling fan base, and many of them do go to the local events, where names WWE has never heard of headline as if they were legends. The show host was even a wrestling manager in character, and he had a line of tapes he'd sell to fans documenting past interviews & matches.
Why he never chose to market these tapes better, I'd have no idea. He spent a lot of time thumbing through matches, picking out the best, and providing additional commentary for them. They mean something to the narrow-casted few. It should have been pursued with the same rabid rawness that is the atmosphere for locally-produced matches.
One man's opinion only.
The first point applies not only to this show, but to other shows that went "live" over the cable system. All "live" shows happened to be call-in shows, where viewers could call, comment, and contribute to the proceedings. This was a huge draw to volunteer crewpeople on shows like the previously-mentioned charade show.
But with the wrestling show in particular, I think call-ins were a downfall.
In regular network programming, it's called broadcasting; specifically, you are showing something to a general, broad audience. In local programming, though, you strived for narrowcasting, as each program was tailored for a specific, small group of people. You weren't out to please everyone. Each show was supposed to have its niche, narrow-cast, and therefore be the opposite of what television popularly was.
Narrow-casting, however, can weed out small groups of people who might be profane, as you would undoubtedly find when you are at a wrestling event. It's not just for the kids anymore, anyway. This is what we would be saddled with on any given production. We had to end up screening calls, half of which we couldn't put on the air anyway, because people thought the whole thing was a prank. They weren't shy about spouting profanities on the air, which we couldn't bleep out because a bad word could come without a moment's notice.
No current wrestling show on the air these days has unstaged, live calls. And look how rabidly popular they are with the audience they capture. I think the show could have done better, and many red faces could have been eliminated, if we had just shut the phone lines off and left the talent to do their scripted routines. Some of them were quite funny, and the calls would throw them off.
The second point is about marketing. Detroit has a rabid wrestling fan base, and many of them do go to the local events, where names WWE has never heard of headline as if they were legends. The show host was even a wrestling manager in character, and he had a line of tapes he'd sell to fans documenting past interviews & matches.
Why he never chose to market these tapes better, I'd have no idea. He spent a lot of time thumbing through matches, picking out the best, and providing additional commentary for them. They mean something to the narrow-casted few. It should have been pursued with the same rabid rawness that is the atmosphere for locally-produced matches.
One man's opinion only.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Computerizing was tough
Happy New Year! I figured I'd finally act on an undeclared New Year's resolution and start updating this blog every eon or so.
When I think of my television career to this point, the past must be referenced, because there's really been no "present" to speak of. I took the day shift at work to try and pursue volunteer TV efforts in the area. In three months, I've been to one shoot - and the guests were both no-shows. So I often think to a happier time when I surrounded myself with the genre, and many happy times that resulted.
However, I found out I preferred older recording & playing methods barely three years into my experience. In my final year of college, computer systems were installed in the old analog video editing labs, and we were required to get a crash-course on how to use them. Initially, I thought this would take some of the fun out of the old way of editing projects, simply because the old way was the only way I knew how.
But I would never had guessed how the fun would be siphoned out: the computers themselves. The brainy idea to "go digital" was years ahead of its time, but the manufacture of the product was woefully short in planning. I prided myself in editing hour-long and half-hour-long shows. You couldn't do more than about two minutes' material before the computers would run out of memory.
This, provided they even worked at all. My friend John was the TV person at the college, with a great background and a smart television mind. But his resources were under-utilized for a semester, as he was always in the labs, cursing in trying to find a fix to where we could edit projects, while waiting the inevitable wait for new computer chips to be ordered and brought in.
That final semester required that our last three projects be edited digitally. They were edited the old-fashioned way; we had to, in order to actually have a product to show the teacher. He could not deny us our passing grades, because we had made the effort to use the computers as much as John put forth the effort trying to maintain them. I, of course, had little patience for them, and gave up on them quicker than most other people. Like a good technician should, I recognized the technical problem quickly, and devised plans to work around it.
Now I see where digital editing is the only place to go these days, and I do find myself lacking in the requisite computer skills. It wasn't because the college refused to teach it that way. It was because the idea was years ahead of its time, years ago, and we were very slow in accepting it.
Where passing grades mattered, it left forward thinkers like me no other choice.
When I think of my television career to this point, the past must be referenced, because there's really been no "present" to speak of. I took the day shift at work to try and pursue volunteer TV efforts in the area. In three months, I've been to one shoot - and the guests were both no-shows. So I often think to a happier time when I surrounded myself with the genre, and many happy times that resulted.
However, I found out I preferred older recording & playing methods barely three years into my experience. In my final year of college, computer systems were installed in the old analog video editing labs, and we were required to get a crash-course on how to use them. Initially, I thought this would take some of the fun out of the old way of editing projects, simply because the old way was the only way I knew how.
But I would never had guessed how the fun would be siphoned out: the computers themselves. The brainy idea to "go digital" was years ahead of its time, but the manufacture of the product was woefully short in planning. I prided myself in editing hour-long and half-hour-long shows. You couldn't do more than about two minutes' material before the computers would run out of memory.
This, provided they even worked at all. My friend John was the TV person at the college, with a great background and a smart television mind. But his resources were under-utilized for a semester, as he was always in the labs, cursing in trying to find a fix to where we could edit projects, while waiting the inevitable wait for new computer chips to be ordered and brought in.
That final semester required that our last three projects be edited digitally. They were edited the old-fashioned way; we had to, in order to actually have a product to show the teacher. He could not deny us our passing grades, because we had made the effort to use the computers as much as John put forth the effort trying to maintain them. I, of course, had little patience for them, and gave up on them quicker than most other people. Like a good technician should, I recognized the technical problem quickly, and devised plans to work around it.
Now I see where digital editing is the only place to go these days, and I do find myself lacking in the requisite computer skills. It wasn't because the college refused to teach it that way. It was because the idea was years ahead of its time, years ago, and we were very slow in accepting it.
Where passing grades mattered, it left forward thinkers like me no other choice.
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