You are in monthly Archives.
April 30, 2008
I don't think this would happen in the majors
Nice story about a home run, an injury, and sportsmanship.
April 28, 2008
Breaking News!
No, really... it was a movie that we almost made, called "Breaking News." It even had Channel 13's own Dan Winters. We were going to make it the summer of '03, but we started and it sort of fizzled out. Anyway, we got some hilarious footage and this is what became of it...
ISU Student-fee-gate!
Among other things, ISU paid almost $300,000 for surveys, focus groups, consulting, and marketing getting ready for the vote to increase student fees last February. I think I'm going into whatever business that is.
Airplane!
Wright stuff
If you're interested in more of the context of the Jeremiah Wright sermon (and here)... it's a little sad that the media only shows four seconds of it and that it has swayed voters. I'd mind less if viewers saw the whole thing and still were swayed, but still, it is still guilt by association...
April 24, 2008
Sound bites
On Obama's 37-minute race speech last month:
Obama's speech has now been played on YouTube nearly 5.5 million times, with viewers presumably watching at least a few minutes of it. It turns out the Obama campaign planned it that way. [They] took great care to make sure that no sound bites were included. In other words, they intentionally avoided any of the snappy lines that they know reporters and TV producers are trained to recognize as useful for representing the entire story.
Whenever I saw clips of it in the news I noticed (but maybe not verbalized) that there weren't really any good sound bites to it. When I watched it, too, it was very spread out, difficult to summarize in a single short bite.
Originations...
Before there was 1800 Seconds, there was a show called Ordinary Iowa on what was called STV 9. It was produced by a guy named Fritz Junker, who has produced a short film about beef jerky (for $500,000... how is that even possible?), sued David Arquette, and helped create the Des Moines Music Coalition (some might say he's done more harm than good).
Looking back, the show really wasn't very good. It was an hour long, had awkward interviews, its share of unfunny skits (hey, so did 1800) and pretty poor production value, even for a student-produced show. Notable guest interviews include Alexander Abian who thought blowing up the moon might be a good idea (and that time is the missing mass in the universe) and two transcendental meditation club members who believed people could levitate if they tried hard enough. Come to think of it, maybe the interviews were funnier than the skits.
It did have a couple pretty funny taped skits, and some hilarious stuff by Grandma Mojo's member Jason Taylor, who was a natural comedy writer.
Anyway, I joined on as a writer as a freshman in the Spring of 1997 after my first semester in computer engineering didn't go so well and I switched over to journalism.
I wrote a couple different things (I might post some scripts, stay tuned), but this was the first real thing that I shot and edited. It was the first video I did with real editing equipment; before this it was just me and my brother Jon making short films with in-camera editing and titles like "Revenge of the Doll."
It's pretty rough: no tripod, a bunch of jump-cuts, some out of focus shots. I didn't know what I was doing. Plus, it was shot on U-Matic 3/4" tape, so I had to lug around this huge recorder attached to the camera. You might be able to see some of the things to come for 1800 Seconds, though.
Another note: I edited this once on my own (with Mark helping) on the linear tape-to-tape system. Fritz had me redo it with tighter edits and I got some help from another student. It was a good lesson on tightening up shots.
The show was a lot of fun. It sparked the idea of creating a new comedy show someday, but that wouldn't come until senior year. Junior year I did work on a show called "Hello Squirrel" but that mostly convinced me that we could do a lot better (but it got me in touch with Abby and Trent who did a lot to get 1800 Seconds off the ground. Michael Dahlstrom was in my journalism broadcast writing class junior year and showed a really funny short film in class -- I asked him if he was interested in working on a comedy show the next year and he said yes).
The next three years were great for ISUTv, and it was fun to be a part of it. The channel is pretty much dead now, I think due mostly to lack of enthusiasm from students and faculty.
Anyway, enough with the backstory, here is "The Kung Fu Epic" (oh, and I didn't ask them to put up the graphic about me directing it).
April 20, 2008
Hillary can still win!
It's true...
April 18, 2008
1800 Seconds..
Need something to do this weekend? I uploaded a bunch of old 1800 Seconds skits to YouTube.
Sorry about the quality, it's from VHS.
Any requests for others?
Earthquake!
We didn't feel this earthquake, but I think our two birds did because they starting flying around in their cage right around that time last night. Who needs a seismograph when you have birds?
April 17, 2008
ABC, Mitt, and Texas
Did anyone else watch the "debate" last night on ABC? I caught most of it. It is making its way around the Internet this morning for how notably bad it was on the part of Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. They were even heckled toward the end. This blog post sums the whole thing up pretty well. Can we just get a fresh start with all TV news? Hire some anchors and reporters who are a little more in touch with the people and issues? Raise the standards a little bit?
...
Romney's Top 10 reasons for dropping out of the race...
5. I needed an excuse to get fat, grow a beard and win the Nobel prize.
4. I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.
3. I wanted to finally take off that dark suit and tie, and kick back in a light-colored suit and tie.
...
...and anyone else think that Texas botched this whole polygamist thing? After watching all these different news network's version of "Cribs" touring their "compound," it looks more and more like they based the removing of 400 kids on one suspiciously suspicious phone call. "Take 'em all away! They're diff'ernt than us!"
It looks like the only thing they're guilty of is not being materialistic or being addicted to TV and fast food.
Feel free to prove me wrong, Texas. In the meantime I'm not going to mess with you.
April 15, 2008
Ups and downs
Ever been trapped in an elevator? How about for 41 hours?
The New Yorker: The longest smoke break of Nicholas White’s life began at around eleven o’clock on a Friday night in October, 1999. ... It was an express elevator, with no stops below the thirty-ninth floor, and the building was deserted. But after a moment White felt a jolt. The lights went out and immediately flashed on again. And then the elevator stopped.
Time-lapse video of the ordeal
Never say "I'll be right back."
via kottke
April 08, 2008
Yay!
After years of trying to get a ban passed, Iowa is finally going smoke-free! (except casinos and veteran's halls)
April 07, 2008
It's Monday
April 04, 2008
Pennies from... Heaven?
New Yorker article (via Metafilter)
It costs the treasury 1.7 cents to make a penny. They sell them to the reserve for one cent.
That's $50 million lost each year making them. (Nickels cost 10 cents to make!)
Pennies made before 1982, 95% copper, are worth 2.5 cents.
April 02, 2008
Special late Easter edition
P.S. keep helping the cities here here and here.
April 01, 2008
How many elements can you name?
I could only get 30. Need to go back to chemistry with Mrs. Splan...
