Article on ex-hometown operations

The drama is not close to ending for that Michigan House Bill that would eliminate franchise fees going to cities & townships for cable television operations, thereby sorely limiting a community's ability for its residence to produce their own local programming, sports spots, and so forth.

Though this article doesn't specifically focus on the pending bill, it does deal with the gradual rises in cable TV rates, and does imply that the department responsible for telecasting local events is operating at a loss. A loss of community programming ability is a loss of ability to express views and be known on a local basis. As has been said before, people actually do like to see themselves on TV, even if not on a grandstanding scale.

The last quote of the article just kills me, though: "On a sunny day you could go down to the river, watch the boats and take your laptop." Wyandotte: a city known for great parks and an excellent waterfront... and you want to take a laptop despite the surroundings? Great chuckle for the day.

Script props can be bloopers

Especially while going through sheer boredom the past week or so, I long for some of those old cable access programs I produced & hosted in from a decade ago, so I can laugh at what I was like back then.

I always made sure to compose a tape of bloopers/mistakes, which always turn out to be funnier than the finished product. Thinking back on the Four-Pro Forum sports show I used to host, it came to mind that 95% of those miscues came from reading a script, fastened together as a prop either on the table in front of me, or on an easel underneath the camera lens.

Of the four on-screen hosts, I was the only one that required a written script; even though the bulk of the show was impromptu sports discussion. Perhaps I didn't do my research until the last minute, as many shows saw me out in the hallway thumbing through sports magazines and writing down highlights.

I knew that once we got to my segment of the show, the conversation would flow normally. But when we would preview our subject material at the talk of the show, it did seem staged, especially my portion. And yet, this is where the bulk of the bloopers came from: in an urge for perfection in pronounciation, I would stumble over a word, and need to re-take the shot. I'm sure I exhausted my director's patience on more than one occassion.

One show, which was set in a classroom because the college studio wasn't available that day, was the most obvious. It took sixteen takes to get the forty-five second opening montage on film. I couldn't even bear to look at myself, as I had the worst case of the "giggles" ever (a prelude to bronchitis I would get two days later). I had to stick to the script because I thought, without printed words to guide me, I would be clueless and look froze on camera.

Turns out that speaking from the heart, and not from a prop, would have gotten us out of the classroom a bit quicker than it ended up being.

This is proof positive you need to do your research if you want a presentable program. Any script you follow should be committed to memory before the cameras roll. You should be able to talk freely about the subject matter without having to worry about sentence structure. I still can't say why it didn't jell with me, since there are many TV shows and movies I've seen over & over to where I have all the script lines memorized, with unlimited retainment.

Script props, as a result, can contain a block of their own, in spite of their obvious purpose to help the reader through his or her task. Don't rely on this art exculsively, especially if you need to compile a second full tape of blooper openings. Though looking at them was funny in itself, it also showed that a better system had to be in place for the show to look reputable.

Commit your scripts to memory, and look like you're the self-proclaimed expert on your subject matter before going "live". For if not, your act will look anything BUT "live".

Colorization has improved

Today I watched two colorized clips of The Three Stooges on SpikeTV, and I came away very impressed.

Old movie series and older television series are re-issued every so often with the claim "remastered". But with this, as well as last week's entry about the 1960s Star Trek getting dazzling (for it) special effects, I think those in charge of remastering have finally mastered the art - no pun intended.

I had to look twice before I could verify it was an actual Stooges flick (and with Curly & Shemp, no less). I remember about twelve years ago, when Alan Thicke hosted a Stooges retrospective, complete with the first-ever colorized feature film from them. The tint of the overall video was blue, and it looked very grainy. You could tell it was a color-up job.

Yesterday's airing on Spike made it look as if the episode was originally produced in color in the 1930s. There were no defining color tints; everything was in balance. Even better, the sound was remastered, meaning you didn't hear any of that audio garbage the old films of the 30s and 40s are known for.

This was a nice treat, although I may be the first to say that I won't lose my nostalgic feeling over the old quality of those films. Sometimes, seeing them in black & white, with audio noise and bad splicing, only add to the flavor of those films.

I would never hope to see these colorized, restored versions become the rule completely. They are nice, they show how advanced the art of restoration has become, and it can be used as a selling point to get the attention of new generations, who have seen nothing but color and heard nothing but Dolby sound.

But for those of us who remember a different era; the one classically defined as Hollywood's "Golden Age", a return to the old quality doesn't hurt our viewing pleasure; in fact, it enhances it.

No outlets for exposure

The theme of my household changing cable companies/satellite providers is nothing new. In four years, this is about the fourth switchover we've made. Each time we get frustrated with the cable company, we switch the service over to the competitor.

Comcast doesn't have the best customer service reputation in these parts, but at least they provide much more of a local influence as far as local cable access goes. Their access channel serving this area provides over 35 hours of programming per week, and really gives the average Joe a voice over the airwaves.

WOW, however, provides the channel space, but in ten years of existence in this area, has not made one move towards providing facilites for the community. Equipment for cities, maybe. But that's only for use by city personnel. The average Joe sits at home, shouting at his set at any local garbage tossed his way, but where's his say? WOW does not provide the ability for a community forum, so indirectly, they really don't cater to the customer in every regard.

Cable access is a dying art, even though it is a right for a company to provide space, equipment, and personnel for the community to use. That's how I got involved in television in the first place. I can say firsthand that it is a rewarding experience, and when a production goes flawlessly, it is a true testament to true teamwork, a great character builder.

Now the Legislature is trying to pass that bill which would cut cable funds drastically for those purposes. I'm sure WOW is probably reading the papers and laughing, saying they're glad they never got involved in providing the community an outlet.

If only they knew what they're missing. Cable access is another realm away from what movies such as Wayne's World portrayed. You wouldn't believe how many local city politicians use access to get their point across, outside of the council chambers. For those who care about their cities, this is a welcome sight, because it shows those politicians as locals, and human - when it comes to addressing the issues honestly.

I miss that with the system we have now. If only I knew the magic formula and had the magic cash to get my own operation going, I could help put respect for the local medium back into place, and make it a little more fun. People love to see themselves on TV. It'd put a smile on my face to feed off that happiness.

"Sport" versus "Game"

It only took me one day of having cable television in the house again to find one thing I didn't miss skimming past when I didn't have it: the over-proliferation of Poker on TV airwaves.

I am not knocking the game; I know it has a popular following, and I guess it's my fault I'm not a fan. But like other card games, I thought poker was exactly that: a game. Why is it classified as a sport, as it fills critical time slots on networks like ESPN and FOX Sports Net?

I wrote about this in my computer blog about two years ago. Enjoy it for what it's worth, even though it may not fully "stack the deck":

... Never mind the fact that I don't understand the game. It is gathering almost as much airwave coverage these days as professional wrestling.

I tie many things to the term "slow news day." For example, when the CNN ticker says "Today is ___day; there are 'x' days left in the year," you can tell that was a space filler. All informercials today are space filler because the stations cannot find any programming suitable to run (their poor excuse). Poker gets a "filler" grade in my opinion, and it wouldn't bother me so much, but WHY is it getting airtime on ESPN, ESPN2 and FOX Sports Net? When was poker ever considered a sport? Would you even think of considering it a spectator sport as compared to baseball, football, basketball or hockey? Absolutely not! How can you think of possible scenarios in televised poker when you don't get much advance notice by seeing the person's hand?

In baseball, you think of when the hit & run could be employed. Do you go for an on-side kick in football? The pick-and-roll play in hoops? Those games let you become an at-home manager as you decide what should be done and then yell at your TV set when it goes wrong. In Poker... what's the viewer to do, other than repeat the same line over and over: "What's he got next? What's she got next?" Piddling, isn't it?

Re-master of a classic

Obviously, the superinformation highway doesn't pass me at more than an idle speed. This morning, I caught a glimpse of an episode of the original Star Trek series, and it was markedly different than when I've seen then before: the special effects have been improved ten-fold.

"The Doomsday Machine", one of my personal favorite episodes, was the one played (it's the one about the giant planet killer which featured Commodore Decker), and all the outer space effects looked as if they came out of Star Trek: Enterprise, produced 30-plus years later. I saw updated phaser effects and a much-improved shuttlecraft launch sequence, which I always thought was poorly portrayed & laid out in its original incarnation.

The "cliffhanger" of the episode always surrounded the Enterprise transporter malfunctioning while Captain Kirk is trying to beam back aboard. With the improved effects comes another reason to raise the pulse: you really get a birds-eye view of both the shuttlecraft and the disabled starship Constellation veering so close to the planet killer, as if you are really seeing the action from Kirk & Decker's vantage points.

Modern technology has enabled older television series to improve small things like effects and musical backgrounds without destroying the plot or pacing. Yet, an unwritten rule forces me to miss the old effects, even if they are cheesy. People always say that you shouldn't mess with a classic. But I think in this morning's case, change actually is for the better. As well-preserved as the show's picture quality has become, the new scenes fit right over the old footage, as if it were designed to fit in like a glove.

I was very impressed, and also surprised that the show aired on my ABC affiliate in Detroit. I never recall ABC claiming ownership rights to any show in the series. But perhaps that superinformation highway grinds to a halt for me on occasion, too.

Very well done, effects people! Star Trek will always be an important franchise to preserve no matter which series airs. You've done what you wanted to do, and it only added to the quality of the show - I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope my ABC affiliate doesn't do this as a "once-and-done" proposition. I wish I had my VCR set up to tape it.

Over one-fourth mumbo-jumbo

It's likely that any critics of this post will mention that I turned on the television at the wrong time of day (5:00 AM in this case), but as biased a time as that may be, the point was still noted by me: Out of 65 channels in my new cable subscription package, eighteen of them were showing "Paid Programming".

It is a sad reality that these are what keep station budgets afloat, and we will never escape or turn back. A local author, Gordon Castelnero, published a very entertaining book in 2006, TV Land Detroit, which chronicle shows of a bygone era: locally produced comedies and interview shows. Dubbed the "golden age" of Detroit television, the age lasted until about 1985, when syndication went the popular route.

Castelnero notes that these paid programs make tasks easier for the local programming station, as they no longer have to budget for sets and crew to fill air time. They simply are given the tape of the infomercial and are paid by the sponsor simply to air it. Sounds like the easy way out to me.

I would understand it to a point, since the goal of local access television (which I worked on) was to end up producing those programs with volunteer staff. But in this area, those channels have been virtually silenced as well by threats of budget and department eliminations.

The advent of mainstream cable television likely demanded that these stations should be on the air twenty-four hours a day. But if the station is unwilling to air reruns of classic local fare, for example, what programming material can they rely on to fill those odd hours of the night? Hence, the informercial.

These days, storage warehouses abound in this area. I'm not one for building up an area, but if we need to have those warehouses around, why can't one of them store tapes of old shows for playback later? What budget would need to be exhausted to re-air what's already there; programs that would bring back memories for the generations my age and older?

With the classic programs, yes, they may seem a bit dated in the technology and content factor, but you see real human TV personalities whose aim at that simpler time was to entertain. Critics of TV today are correct in pointing out that the original purpose of TV, to entertain, has been lost in the shuffle, coining the phrase "idiot box". And just look at the type of people that are feeding life into that phrase: idiots who do informercials.

Also consider what else I found this morning: Four stations were playing the same Donald Trump informercial at the exact same time. And can you believe MSNBC had two more hours of paid programming scheduled after 5:00 AM? With all that is going on in the world with the war, presidential candidates declaring, and everything else, why isn't an information station MSNBC do its job (airing news & viewpoints) 24 hours a day?

Believe it or not, there are sites on YouTube which pay homage to station sign-offs during the days when 24 hour operation was not possible. When people post these clips online with a great wave of nostalgia, you know something's wrong with the 24-hour choice.

Unfortunately, cable television providers would balk at seeing eighteen channels off the air, showing only color bars and that annoying tone. They are thinking of the bottom line, which is live airtime. But when something from Ronco or ITV becomes more ingrained in an insomniac's mind than shows which strive for Nielsen ratings... there renews the "idiot box" phrase time & again.

I was without cable TV from August until yesterday... and it didn't take long to rediscover the one reason why I preferred boredom over late-night viewing.

Reflection: Televising Improv

Today, my thoughts went back to my most ambitious creative project that skimmed the ground briefly before running out of gas.

About the same time my sports show Four-Pro Forum was being produced at the college, I met up with a man who was a graduate of Detroit's chapter of Second City comedy club. Jerry was a specialist at improv, a comedy niche I knew something about, but not totally. What I did know was that nothing of that nature was televised before, it had only been staged.

I attempted to break through and produce a variety show, Kaveman's Korner, that would combine Jerry's comedic talents with my take on a Tonight Show / Late Show format.

It was an interesting premise as we devised the script for the first show. I expected interest to come from a lot of the students in the production classes, but either they were unsure, or scared, to see something that major being produced. No one had tried to produce a variety show of that magnitude in the small, cramped studio on campus, and I quickly found this out -- although I was willing to work around it.

"Kaveman" was perhaps the most challenging show I had come up with or worked on. I can't count the re-enactment of Annie Hall that our class did, or the remake of Pulp Fiction that I edited for my final class project. This show would be a one-hour, straight through, with previously-recorded roll-ins introducing various comedy sketches.

Those side sketches, called "wrap-arounds" in the business, were the easiest to produce, and were very naturally funny. The actual studio segments, though, were quite hard. We had to squeeze a curtained stage, interview desk, and platform for a four-piece live band into a 150-square foot area, then strike the set when finished. There was action in all corners of the studio, but as I found later, not enough lighting and not enough microphones. My friend Alan always salivated at the prospect of assisting on major productions, but even he became frustrated with the lack of mobility, and frustrating him was something that was not easy to do.

But what became the most tedious was the reaction to Jerry's material. I found out that improv does not produce the same type of pacing as regular comedy or interview spots do. On the first show, he opened with a two-minute explanation of what improv really was. To say I wasn't shaking my head to myself would be a lie, but I was hoping for the best. I didn't think for one moment I was in over my head, but I guess the lack of interest from staff members may have dictated otherwise, though I would never have admitted it.

All good comedians will tell you that audience reaction is do-or-die; they thrive off positive reaction and are encouraged to become funnier off-the-cuff if the reception is warm. We had no room for an audience, so I had to insert a laugh track in post-production. But in presenting material before the cameras, he had to rely on banter with his bandleader and nothing else. This disappointed him more than anything. I wasn't keen about shooting on location, and to make a long story short, it contributed to the premature ending of this idea and the parting of ways.

I regret all partings that happen before their time, and I do wish that I had put forth a little more effort into being more flexible. That's part of who I am as a producer: I will admit faux pas, even though they may come late. Would this be a show I would do now? I would definitely try again, given better facilities, and a better understanding of how the genre of improv works.

Apparently, improv is not at its best when staged deliberately. If the natural aura is killed, so must be the enthusiasm. I only wish I knew - it would have been a very interesting & unique pedigree on my record if it had gone through.

Read about forward progress

On my sister blog, Through The Passive Mind Of One (which I will link to on this one), I began detailing about my job searches to resurrect my career. On January 26th, I was looking into three possible out-of-town jobs that would get me back into a career I love.

Fine time for the internet to go down, however... and with it, a recurrence of an old back injury I suffered at my current job some time ago, which won't help the search process.

The internet should be reconnected at the house by the 9th of February, at which time I will resume and expand my job search. This forum will now detail those attempts to get back to where my mind knows I need to be.

Keep reading... and keep them fingers crossed.