After Thanksgiving

11/26- 2 hours
11/28- 2 hours
11/30- 6 hours. total 143.5 hours

By Friday of this week my Microsoft Office package still has not arrived, which is frustrating because it is very difficult to complete projects without the appropriate software on my computer. However, I do have InDesign, which is very important because I officially started the brochure this week. I've been planning the layout and wording for the last few weeks, though it wasn't actually put into motion until this week. It's going to be an interesting experience because I've never worked with InDesign before- the good thing is that it is very similar to Photoshop and so it shouldn't be that hard to figure out. This version of the brochure isn't going to be much different from the last version except that the fonts will be different and the information will be more up to date.

I've also been working on collecting more information for the upcoming conference that we're to be hosting late next year. While it seems like a year is a long time to plan something, in reality it's a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. One of the benefits of hosting the conference though is all the publicity the TV station will get, which is good because having a community television station that not a lot of people know about is kind of pointless. Like I've been reading in a lot of the articles about public access television, the station is only as good as the community, and if the people of the community are not interested or involved, it's not going to be a very good station. In addition to planning for the conference, we've been trying to figure out how to revamp our training classes in such a way as to include more media literacy information. The most important aspect that we have to incorporate into the training is the part about HOW to get people's ideas out- how to communicate clearly and get the point across in the way in which the producer intends. These are ideas that have been kind of lacking in the research articles- there's information about the technology and getting people to show up, but a lot of the articles are lacking in I guess it would be diversity, in the idea that people have differing opinions and goals when producing shows and there doesn't seem to be a good way to get the people to understand how to be creative and actually communicate their main ideas effectively. "Making Public Access Television: Community Participation, Media Literacy and the Public Sphere", authored by Donna L. King and Christopher Mele, published in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media/Fall 1999 kind of hit on this idea but it seem so far to be the only article addressing this issue. That is, the issue being public access television being dismissed as amateur television with no depth when in fact it could have depth, if the people producing the shows were better prepared to express their ideas.

Another issue I've come across so far this semester is the fact that I have ideas for TV shows but not quite enough time to get them produced. I'm considering waiting until next semester and just producing a series each week, which would be something similar to the Colbert report or the Daly Show. I had the idea for the "Bubble Wrap" show where I did a quick little skit on different ways to pop bubble wrap, which would have been funny but overall not any kind of intellectual contribution to the channel. Then I had the idea to do something like a series of random flash animations/short cartoons, which would also have been interesting or amusing but not really any useful kind of contribution to the channel. It was then that I realized, if I were to have a show that was like a half hour each week, I could incorporate these mini-ideas into the show, and even have (the coolest thing ever) Alice Appreciation time, where during each show we play an Alice Cooper song and discuss how great Alice is (because he's my favorite musician ever, by far). In addition to all of the trivial ideas here though, I would also format it into a sort of talk show, where I could discuss real issues, whether it's something to do with public access, school, customers at restaurants who should be nice to their servers, etc. It would be a show that is both amusing and somewhat informational, which is more of a contribution to the sphere of public access. Giving opinions and backing them up, and hopefully getting a response. I could have guest appearances- so far the only person I have lined up is TJ, the other guy who works here at the TV station, but it could expand. I've decided though that this must be a project for next semester, which is kind of bad because I know I had put in the objectives that I wanted to produce my own show, but it just seems like it would be better to learn more technical stuff about running the equipment and stuff now and making a better show later on. I do, however, have a flash movie that I've been working on partially in my art class and mostly here at the station that I could use as a show; as long as we put it on TV it counts as a show, and this is a real possibility. For my Digital Art Studio we had to make a flash presentation of our family heritage project, and mine totally rocks. It's got animations and narration done by TJ and myself. It's pretty funny, and I think that it shows a lot of my technical skills that I've learned this semester. To do the audio, we hooked up a microphone to a video camera, and then connected the camera directly to the editing computer so when we recorded the audio it went straight to Final Cut Pro. I also got to use my Photoshop skills to make the initial image, and then the best part was using the skills I learned at the conference to animate and incorporate everything into Flash. When it was all finished, I had a 3 minute video about my dysfunctional family history. Even though it's kind of fulfilling two requirements for different classes, I think it's impressive that I used the skills learned in my internship to do my homework.

This kind of ties in with my realization that I didn't do a very good job when writing my objectives at the beginning of this semester, partially because I just didn't know what to expect. I think it'll be easier next semester, now that I know more about the functions of the station, my personal functions as an employee and other related topics.