Week 8 has come and gone. And it’s been a busy one.

On Monday, I came in the morning to finish an episode of history talks, and work on logging and sorting my B-roll footage for my self directed doc “Community Media Matters”. That afternoon, I finally shot the last footage for the doc! An interview with Bob and Devonna, two community producers at the station. That evening, I finally took the first installment of the studio class. It’s unfortunate that I missed some of the sessions due to snow, but better late than never. At least I’ve finally got official training in the studio.

The following day, I came in that morning to madly transcribe my interview. It was worth the effort. That afternoon/evening, I worked on the County Commission and City Council meeting respectively. I worked as switcher/director on the Commission meeting, and I’m starting to get pretty good at it.

On Wednesday, I came back for the final installment of the studio class, which involved setting up and running a shoot of the show “mission: nonprofit.” I worked on the audio board for this show, which was a nice tie in to my audio recording class.

I skipped the staff meeting on Thursday, and came back on Friday to work on a studio production of Thurston County Connection. This time I again worked on the set/lighting design, prepared the graphics, and operated the robo cams. This was a very complex shoot, where we got to try some new techniques. This time we incorporated previously shot interviews into the program, all of the people on set turned to look at a TV screen which started playing the interview, and then we cut to a full screen of that same video. I learned some new things about the switcher that day!

This week was interesting, with the snow and all, a few plans got cancelled.

After the holiday Monday, I started Tuesday by working on an editing project, the Tumwater History Talks. It was an interesting experience to learn multicamera editing on Final Cut. Not only did I have to switch between video, and I had to switch between the two audio tracks, sometimes matching one audio track to a separate video track. Later that evening, I worked on the Tumwater City Council Meeting. This night was a lesson in how to fix disasters. EVERYTHING went wrong.

We pulled up with the truck and plugged it into the building, and made all the connections. But audio wasn’t coming through, the switcher program wasn’t loading ANY of the CGs, and worst of all, the camera controller wasn’t connecting to the robotic cameras. All we had was three fixed shots which weren’t even pointing in the right direction. One by one we were able to fix things, switching out all of our cables to find bad ones, restarting computers. We managed to get the audio going. The graphics were all gone, but we were able to find the template for the graphics in the computer’s hard drive and remake the graphics by hand. But the cameras never quite worked. At first we just stood on chairs and manually pointed them in the right directions. But then someone restarted the rack mounted camera brain, to try and fix it, and once all the cameras rebooted, they returned to their default setting, zoomed all the way in and totally out of focus. There are no manual zoom and focus controls on these cameras, and the controller still didn’t work. Ultimately someone had to run back to the station and pick up a camera and a long HDMI cable. We just filmed the meeting with a single camera on a tripod.

I took the rest of the week off until Friday, where I planned to have a long day (9 am-9pm). I was supposed to shoot an interview for my Community Media Matters Doc in the morning, work on a field shoot with Robert in the afternoon, and return to attend the Studio Production class in the evening. Unfortunately my interview subject, and the class were cancelled because of the snow. So I had a short day. It was a fun afternoon, however, filming interviews. We did a standard technique, two over the shoulder shots, so we could see both the interviewer and the subject. It’s always good to learn new techniques.

Also, as an aside, on Saturday I did my first shoot in the studio for a personal project. I recorded a live set with the JNX! I produced and directed the shoot, and was able to get a few volunteers to help on camera and the sound board. I got to put together my experience from video production and my audio recording classes.

Last week marked week 6 at TC Media this quarter. I made lots of progress on my “Community Media Matters” Documentary.

I began the week by Finishing the promo for the Alliance for Community Media Summit. It was a great learning experience involving chroma keying, after effects, titles, graphic design, and studio shooting.

Next I worked at the Thurston County Commissioners meeting where I again got to work on the switcher! It’s fun to sit in the director’s chair.

I shot two parts for my sort doc, first an interview with the executive director, Deb. Second, I shot B-Roll for my first interview, a behind the scenes shoot of one of the members working on their show. It has been great to watch over my footage and refine the script. My first two interviews have been very long, about 30 minutes each. But after taking some time to refine my work, this next interview should be much more concise.

Well, thus far I’ve failed to give regular updates about my experience as an intern at TC Media. So here I’m going to dump  5 weeks worth of updates in one post. From here on out, it’s my goal to give weekly updates at the end of the week.

Week 1: This quarter I started by just jumping right in. I walked in on my first day back after the break and, after a brief discussion about schedules, proceeded to edit a program that someone had shot the previous week. The next day, I got right back into the government meetings which I had been doing last quarter. However, aside from the all the usual things, I wrote and got approved a pitch for a documentary which I’ll be working on all quarter long. Entitled “Community Media Matters”, this doc features interviews with community producers and station staff members about why community media is important.

Week 2: This week I had my first opportunity to do a Tumwater City Council meeting, which means using the mobile production truck. It was quite an experience driving out to the city hall, plugging this truck into the building’s wall mounted robotic camera system, and connecting it into the truck which acts as a portable (and very cramped) TV Studio. Then, I got commissioned by TC Media’s Community Relations Director, Andrea, to make a 30 sec promo video for the upcoming NW Media Summit, organized by the Alliance for Community Media. Finally, on Friday I worked on a studio for Thurston County Connection.

Week 3: A bit of a down week, I started by shooting the Media Summit Promo, featuring Andrea. I spend the rest of the week editing this video. Additionally I did the usual government meetings that Tuesday. I got to spend some time doing pre-production for “Community Media Matters”.

Week 4: After reviewing the promo, Andrea decided it needed to be reshot, so I began my week with a reshoot of this promo, and a re-edit. Also this week, I shot my first footage for “Community Media Matters”, an interview with one of TC Media’s Community Producers. It was quite an experience to write, direct, shoot, light, and record an interview on my own. I’m still learning, but from I’ve been hearing the industry is moving more and more toward one person doing all of the work themselves, so I think I’m on the right track. I finished the week by working on a contracted production in the studio. A series of interviews shot in an all black null space. Very intimate and intense.

Week 5: This week began with a practice session for the Tumwater Council Meeting in the mobile truck. The usual director of these shoots was out of town, and we decided to go a night early to practice to complicated set-up process. The following evening we executed it well! And, aside from a bit more work on the Media Summit Promo, I did an all morning field shoot on Friday with our creative director, Susan. We shot footage of the “Poverty and Economic Development” conference sponsored by the city of Olympia. It was an interesting process to craft a video out 8 all day-long small group discussions. I shot B-roll all day.

For my culminating paper, I wrote this paper entitled Cable Access to Community Media: Examining the Changing State of Public Access Media.

This research paper studies how public access television has been impacted by the rise of internet technology, and how it’s place in society is contested. While I heard numerous anecdotal examples through my internship about how these changes have impacted Thurston Community Media, I decided to focus this paper on Public Access as a whole, searching for nationwide trends.

I began by analyzing the foundations of public access in the early ’70s. I looked at who advocated for it and for what reasons. Then I examined what functions and services are offered by public access centers. By comparing the foundational reasoning and services with the possibilities offered online I try to answer the philosophical question of how access’s role in society has changed or been contested.

Next, I studied the material impact of changing technology, looking for station closures, budget cuts, and changes in participation and viewership. I explored the various justifications provided by municiple and state government for sacrificing this public service.

Finally, I turned back to local level and examined how particular access stations are adapting to changing technology. I approached this change through the shift from a “public access cable television station” to a “community media center.” I examined how exactly stations are being “community media centers,” what obstacles are holding others back, and what risks come with the refusal or inability to adapt.

I hope you learn a thing a two, I know I sure did. There’s very little scholarship on community media, and this is the beginning of my contribution to that limited body of work.

Check out the paper here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fBqEt-hx1XMj34YzYo8KV9dbQqDbAGAdHZn8vFXXdzY/edit?usp=sharing

I watched 2 episodes of the series Alternative Views, produced for Austin Community Television. The first was episode 30, “Marx and ‘socialism’ today, the promise betrayed?” Followed by episode 351. “Labor Struggles, Inside Views from the Bottom.” They were produced 10 years apart. Episode 30 is a talk show where the hosts interview a scholar from Yugoslavia who teaches at the University of Texas. They discuss how socialism works in the Eastern Block and how it differs in Yugoslavia, and how that version of socialism strays from the original liberatory ideas behind the movement. The next episode is more of a documentary, consisting of footage assembled from various labor groups around the country (such as interviews, picket lines, and people at work) to create a picture of the problems and success experienced by the labor movement at that time.

This series is often heralded as a success story of public access (see Hand-Held Visions, and Public Radio and Television in America). It is produced by volunteer community members for Austin’s cable access channel, but managed to gain popularity, and was played on access channels across the country. Episode 30 is made with extremely basic production techniques. A simple talk show, shot with only 2 cameras, cut together very awkwardly. It feels choppy, and the cameras are constantly zooming in and out. Episode 351, however, reveals a significant improvement in formal technique. While most of the footage was not shot by the Alternative Views crew, it shows how their popularity among the activist community allowed them to collaborate with producers in far flung regions to produce a compelling television documentary. Additionally the roll-in/theme song got a lot better.

Morrow Frank & Doug Kellner. Alternative Views. Austin Community Television, 1979 & 1988. Online, Archive.org.