Tuesday, October 26, 2010

13th UNA Film Festival Runs Through Sunday














Have you made it to this year's United Nations Association Film Festival yet? This is the 13th year that the dynamic Jasmina Bojic and her fleet of dedicated and passionate staff and volunteers (including our own Media Center volunteer par excellence Cathy Keys) have brought this burgeoning festival to our community. This "Festival with a Conscience" is screening 60 outstanding documentaries by international filmmakers tackling social, ethical, and political issues from around the world: Afganistan, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, China, Colombia, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Mali, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, New Zealand, North Korea, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Russia, Sierra Leone, Spain, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Senegal, Sudan, Switzerland, Thailand, Tuvalu, Uganda, UK, USA, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and West Papua.

Once again, the Media Center is a proud sponsor of UNAFF. Each year, we produce an overview of the UNAFF in advance of the festival: a half hour preview of some of the films with guest appearances by some of the filmmakers. Click here for playback times to watch on our channels or watch in simulcast over our website. A team of Media Center staff and volunteers organized by Production Manager Karen Adams is again providing valuable assistance in the taping and archiving of some of the festival events, like the many panel discussions. Where else can you walk right out your door and within a few minutes be rubbing elbows with so many passionate artists who are transforming the world through film?

The festival continues through Sunday, October 31. Visit the UNAFF website for information screening times and tickets. The screenings are either free or very generously priced. These films is is not a for-profit venture, but a real gift from UNAFF's heart to all of us.

(still taken from "All At Sea")







Friday, October 22, 2010

Dining with Obama!



Our ZOOM IN Reporter Joyce McClure caught an impromptu interview with Lindsay Franklin, who dined with President Barack Obama at the home of Marissa Mayer of Palo Alto last night. The interview was conducted by PALY VOICE reporter Suzanna Ackroyd of Palo Alto High School.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Media Center Covers Dalai Lama Visit


The Dalai Lama visited many Bay Area venues over the past few days, including Costano Elementary/49ers Academy in East Palo Alto! Many middle school and high school students from the EPA/Menlo Park area were in attendance, as well as some VIPs who have been supportive of the Ravenswood School District. His Holiness answered a handful of questions from local youth and was incredibly gracious and jovial in his responses. Before he spoke, Matthew Sloan of the Living Wisdom School of Palo Alto led his students and Tibetan performers in a pre-show that celebrated the history and culture of Tibet and the Dalai Lama's legacy.


The kicker is that the Media Center had exclusive LIVE coverage of the event! The event was broadcast live on Channel 30 and the web and was filmed by the Media Center's own Annie Folger, Chris Pearce, Lupita Segura and Becca Fisher and was directed by Jesse Norfleet! The energy was amazing and I, personally, was so grateful to have been present. We sported our Media Center t-shirts and represented public access front and center while the network crews filmed from the back of the room!


The Dalai Lama's visit was inspired by a curriculum of compassion he hopes to spread around schools in the Bay Area. The students have been learning about the Dalai Lama's history to prepare for his arrival and when His Holiness finally came, the students were glowing. Their questions, such as, "Do you ever have a bad day and, if so, how do you cheer yourself up?" and "If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?" were challenging and insightful and his answers were honest and open in the best way. He laughed with and inspired the students. He talked about how education was hard for him and how it took him a while to realize education is more than books and tests, it is about going deeper. It was a beautiful thing to watch!

If you missed the event live, there are multiple playback time scheduled for next week. Follow this link to our searchable playback schedule!

Also, you can view the video right now online: The Dalai Lama in East Palo Alto
Enjoy!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

MC and KMVT Co-Produced the Paly-Gunn Game!



Friday Night, Media Center staff and volunteers shot the big game: Palo Alto High School v. Gunn High School. This game between crosstown rivals is one of the most attended games in local sports and is always hotly contested. The shoot was made possible by Bobby Chastain of KMVT in Mountain View who graciously brought his "bread truck" with seasoned volunteer Lisa Tesler and Mr. Replay Tom Clark. Bobby worked with new-to-sportscasting MC volunteers Barbara Breuchert, Joseph Kautz, Ryan Wong (and me!) plus with seasoned MC volunteer and intern, Wes Rapaport. Bobby provided valuable training to our volunteers in field camera operation for sports plus cable wrangling for the roving camera on the sideline. And of course the breaking down part is always a challenge. Can
we get all the equipment put away before the stadium lights go dark?

Wes ran the sideline camera with help managing the cable from Joseph and Ryan. Both Ryan and Joseph got a crack at the sideline camera which can be dangerous and exciting if you get too close to the action -- never turn your back on the field, by the way.

Wes was pretty fearless stomping through players and coaches for camera position and got us some great close up shots. Barbara ran Camera 2 which got the medium shots, groups of players at the snap and during the play, and Lisa atop the announcers booth ran game camera and always tracked the ball and the action.

Bobby did the directing and live switching in the truck while Mr. Replay took the feed from all three cameras into his
software program and was able to provide the choicest shots for automatic real time play back. It was a very cool night.

Bobby and his team shoot maybe 70 sports events a year as
part of their contract with the cities of Mountain View and Los Altos. He provides these games to us to run on our
station. He says he'll help train sports volunteers at the Media Center. Sweet! We do have our own bread truck, so
what would it take to get our own volunteer sports coverage team off the ground. Maybe we'll find out this coming year! In the meantime, the shoot was fun, informative and team building. It's hard work but so gratifying
when the kids come up and want to know when it's going to be on TV and how they can get copies.

So by the way you can watch the football game today at 2:30 on Channel 28 plus the following times. Check back as we schedule more playbacks during the coming weeks.

(pictures courtesy of Barbara Breuchert)

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Video Voter Resources


Check out our "Election Page" filled with links to candidate forums and ballot measure arguments for 15 different midpeninsula elections.

Every year since we opened in 1990, voter resource programming has been an essential goal for the Media Center. Since 2004, we've been able to put our election programming on the web as well so that voters can study candidates and issues at their own convenience. We also break out the candidate forums into separate segments so voters can go directly to specific questions that were posed and compare the candidates' answers.

If you have suggestions for future election programming, or if you'd like to volunteer on such shows, please leave a comment.

Meanwhile if you could help spread the Election Page link, we'd greatly appreciate it!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

HIGH SCHOOL BANDS AND FANS IN THE STUDIO





















The Media Center keeps growing its High School Band and Open Mic program. This month we added more bands, more fans and more youth volunteers into the show. We're doing these approximately monthly in an effort to open up the studio to more young people and present them with the flexibility and possibilities of what we're doing over here. We're here to enable people -- in this instance - young people to use our studios as a platform for creative and artistic expression. Hopefully some of the youth who perform and some who come to watch will check out our youth programs and get involved beyond the one night visit.

But beyond that and maybe even more important than that: we all had a great time last night. We had four bands and two rappers from almost as many high schools - Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Kehillah High Schools all had representation here -- which is great. It shows how we're pushing out the boundaries of who we reach. And they each brought a good draw. A majority of band members and fans stuck around for the entire evening.

The evening would not have been the success it was without first and foremost the Youth Executive Producer, Riley Smith. Riley's a student at Paly and is also the vocalist and front man for featured band Thank You For Asking. Riley put together the line up and interfaced with the bands, set up the Facebook events page and got 70 people to say they would come -- which they did -- and then some. He emcee'd for us and kept the bands on schedule. Great job, Riley! Thank you for making it happen here.

We were not planning on producing much video but we're a video outfit and once we set up one camera for a facebook ustream feed. well it was easy to set up a tethered roving camera and then why not set up Camera 1 in the studio? And those cameras were operated by Media Center Youth Interns and Youth Council Members Daria, Laura and Layla. These young women did a great job of getting the live facebook feed some great shots. So we did pop some blank tapes into the recorder and veteran youth volunteer and Intern Wes Rapaport popped the head phones on in the control room and effectively directed and live switched the evening for us -- a three hour job. And this was after Wes had lit the studio for us, one spot at a time. Thanks Wes!

Running the front, I was monitoring the Facebook livefeed and at one point we had 36 viewers. That was really cool. Now, I'm staring at six tapes from the control room and two tapes from the roving camera. I'll be recruiting more youth volunteers to turn them into clips that we can put on our channels and share with the bands.

In the studio, the evening opened with Tricky Zipper featuring Jack, Andrew, Connor and Max, followed by Surculiso with Harry, Adam, Jeff all out of Los Alto High school.

Then we had rapper Arian aka R.E.N. out of Mountain View High who gave us some provocative lyrics to think about and provided a nice break between the bands.

And penultimate band, Idea Machine featuring Ben, Scotty, Will and Beau with vocalist Helen sang a strong set of covers for us before turning it over to Thank You For Asking to close out the evening.

Finally, some strong shout outs to MC volunteer Scott Van Duyne who mic'd the bands ran the audio board and to youth services coordinator Becca Fisher for providing the volunteers and other materiel support. Last night's event was brought to us by the generosity of the Media Center's Executive Director Annie Folger backed by the Board who believe in building a strong youth program here.

If you are an organized, motivated young person and want to produce a band night here email becky@midpenmedia.org! Or if you're in a high school band and want experience performing here, send me an email.

Hey and we're looking for a name for the event. Some suggestions:
The Mix
The Blend
Media Center Band Night
The Sound Lounge
Media Center Fresh out of Fall Band Night
We're looking for a name that helps us get our brand out there, is descriptive and can be reused! Help us out here!




Friday, October 1, 2010

THIS WEEKEND WE'RE BRINGING IT TO YOU LIVE



FOUR important programs are coming live to you this weekend:

ONE NATION MARCH - Live Coverage From Washington DC - Saturday, Oct. 2, Channel 27, 9am -1 pm. 150+ organizations will "demand the change we voted for": Putting America Back to Work, Quality and Affordable Education, Equality for All. A Big Agenda? We don't think so, so we're bringing it to you, courtesy of Free Speech TV.

JOE SIMITIAN'S TOWN HALL MEETING - Live from Palo Alto City Hall - Saturday, Oct. 2, Channel 26 - 10:30am-12:00pm. Joe's our state senator and here's your chance to run down there and comment or watch at home.

GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS - Saturday & Sunday, Oct. 2&3, Channel 30, 9am-3pm. Twice a year we are happy to bring this conference live to our friends in the LDS community.

AND LIVE FROM THE MEDIA CENTER STUDIOS, OCTOBER 2 7:00 pm. We have five acts coming, all from local high schools: Surcoliso, Idea Machine, R.E.N., Thanks for Asking, Tricky Zipper! Come on down and join us. Or if you can't make, it, watch it live off our facebook page and click on the "Ustream" tab. You can also find our Facebook Page from the front page of our website.


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