television

IU / photo / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on I’m here to tell ya
4
Nov 21

I’m here to tell ya

I’m here to tell ya … not every photo of the same place is the same. I showed you, on Tuesday, my favorite parking deck photograph*. The second level shot of my parking deck, facing east in the morning. This one is from this morning. Same deck, though the ground level, and it is facing north. It’s just not the same.

It looked better through sunglasses and in the phone screen than it does on a computer monitor, too.

I’m also here to tell ya … sometimes the accidental photograph is better than the one that is carefully composed. Consider this quick draw shot. Easily the worst shot of the day, probably of the week. My fingers were faster than my slowing phone and sensor:

And I took this one today, as well. Both are a part of the running Indiana Sky Study series over on Instagram. And the concept is the same.

The first sky shot is better, and not because of the sun streaks. I will allow that the top of that tree in that second shot has good character, but side-by-side, no contest. I think the compelling part is because it has a film nostalgia too it. Sometimes you just made a mistake back then. (And we still do! Have you seen your friends’ camera rolls? Not everyone takes the exceedingly average style of photographs you see here.) On film, of course, you didn’t always know that you’d messed up until the prints came back from the lab.

In the film days we all sounded like we were in an episode of CSI.

Today, if your thumb jumps the gun on pressing the shutter button you see it right away. You just make a face and delete the shot. It’s forgotten instantly, along with all of the things that the brain decides isn’t worth keeping.

If you’re of a certain age, and those precious few prints inspire, or make up completely, certain memories, even some of those blurry ones can be important. And they definitely try to tell a story. Sometimes the memories might feel blurry in your recall, and maybe that’s another way to consider it. So, sure, the accidental photograph is sometimes better.

I’m also here to tell ya … this is not a safe way to travel. Our hero here is riding some sort of overpowered moped. At red lights he’s acting like it’s a drag race. On the seat of the bike he’s got his skateboard. And he’s sitting on the inverted skateboard.

I said yesterday I’d have a sports show for you today, and I’m here to tell ya … the sports crew delivered. Here’s their weekly highlight show.

Later this week their two talk shows will appear online. And they recorded a promo last night for another brand new show, a collaborative program with the campus radio station. I think there’s still another show in the works, too. They are certainly prolific.

I’m also here to tell ya … I recorded a podcast today. It’s timely, topical and important. My guest, being a huge expert in her chosen field, was terrific. I edited it this afternoon, but I’ll probably listen to it two or three more times before I publish it on Monday. It’s just good. You’re going to learn something, and I think you’re going to like it a great deal.

*That series of words, “my favorite parking deck photograph,” has never been typed together as one phrase, according to Google. Sometimes it pays to check. I’m here to tell ya.

IU / photo / television / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Some day
3
Nov 21

Some day

It was a pretty day out there. A nice fall chill in the air. But lovely all the same, if you stayed in the sunshine.

I stayed indoors. It’s a studio day, and I spent four-and-a-half hours in various studios. And the rest of the day, seemingly, on phone meetings or in meetings about phone calls.

It passes the time, I suppose.

Funny how some of it seems to move slowly, and some more quickly, but it all goes fast. And faster in retrospect. Except for the slow parts.

Time is relative, is what we’re saying. We all agree to that. Time is relative to all of us. I just don’t know who it is related to.

Maybe time is the neighbor or colleague or partner that you see every day. Steady, slow, certain, and therein difficult to see the changes. Or maybe time is that cousin you see at reunions and every other annual holiday. The one that stands out in sudden changes compared to the memories, both fleeting and lasting. The half-shocked “He’s getting old,” is more autobiographical that way, whether we know it or not.

It was a sports night in the studio. I also helped out with one of the classes and then taught a student about the audio studios. And I have nothing to show for any of that. At least until the sports shows land on the web tomorrow.

Today, though, I can show you the news shows, which were shot last night. We had a freshman on the desk for News Source. He did a fine job for his first time out. I’m excited to watch him progress.

Here’s the pop culture show, which, as a production, is running quite smoothly these days.

And we’ll have some sports for you in this space tomorrow!

It was a leave-at-8:45-dinner-at-9-and-straight-to-bed sort of day. Tomorrow is coming quick.

Today’s look, which I put here in the hopes that I’ll look back and avoid repeating it again too soon …

Autumnal! And getting old, too. This pocket square is one of my oldest, only coming out in a certain season. Another example of a slow-moving measure of time. It’s more autobiographical that way.

friends / IU / photo / television / Tuesday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on 500 words on Tuesday
2
Nov 21

500 words on Tuesday

This is one of my favorite views of fall here. It’s a morning view, the parking deck is oriented to the east and the colors really pop. Aside from resizing it, this is an unedited photo.

I’m not sure what, but it is trying to remind me of something. The wonders of memory, no? Some place I had to go as a kid, a piece of art in a book, or some other thing, but it wants to be vaguely evocative. I never can put my finger on it, but there are a few really great days, this time of year, when I have the opportunity to try to figure it out.

It turned into a lovely day today. I stepped outside for a quick photo at 6 p.m.

It was one of those nice-in-the-sun, chilly-in-the-shade days, I guess. I spent almost all of it indoors under fluorescent lights or studio lights. So I’m inferring a lot about my two brief trips into the great wider world.

Speaking of studio lights, here’s a comedy show that some of the IUSV students produced in Studio 5 last week. That apartment set isn’t bad at all.

And this evening it was back in Studio 7, with the news team. Here’s a freshman making his collegiate anchoring debut. He did a nice job and he’ll get better and better. I’ll encourage him to do packages every week because that’s what he’ll need out in the great wide world.

They have a segment where they cover the wide world in just a few minutes. Karlie and Larmie, who I name-dropped here, started that a few years back. Karlie is anchoring in Fort Wayne and Larmie is reporting in Morgantown.

File it under We Must Be Doing Something Right, since I mentioned two IUSTV alumni above: I worked on alumni list last week. There are at least 56 former students who’ve come through our little station in the last six years that are working in broadcast in some capacity. That’s surely not a complete list, but it is an impressive one.

One is about to start a new sports director-type job, too. Pretty cool, huh? We get them here for a while, help shape them, and then someone hires out in the world, and the long climb up the chain begins. We must be doing something right.

Today’s look was a navy suit, blue tie and a blue pocket square. Trust me, they are blue.

It’s an old purple shirt and bespoke cufflinks which sport a tiny little splash of green and pink as accents.

Hardly anyone sees the cufflinks, so I may as well show them to you.

errands / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on ‘I hope this is the weirdest thing you have to deal with today’
28
Oct 21

‘I hope this is the weirdest thing you have to deal with today’

Technology thwarted me today, as it often does. Someone wanted to present from Google Slides. How does one go full screen in Google Slides? I didn’t know. I didn’t even know Google Slides was a thing until this came up in conversation. The presenter says “I need a youth! I need a youth to help me!”

She was, herself, about 24 or 26.

So I guess it’s encouraging to see that sort of thing kicking in at ever-younger ages. (Bodes well for, say, 2045 or so.)

About this same time, and in no way related, Facebook announced they’d gone Meta. I care less and less, beyond the extent of how people aren’t paying attention to how Facebook/Meta are deliberately behaving as bad actors in the online space.

This is where your standard issue fictional dialogic character leans back, waiting for my Facebook and 2045 joke, but I would say, no, this isn’t important, because Facebook isn’t liable to be here in 2045.

And that fictional character I’m carving out of soapstone to advance the point would say, You’re kidding, right? They’re huge!

“Sure,” I would say, “and so was Sears and Roebuck. And now the Sears Tower is the Willis Tower.”

Then the make believe person, really helping me move this point along, replies, But no one knows it by that name. Everyone calls it the Sears Tower. No one even knows who Willis is.

“And don’t you think that’s Facebook’s goal here? Also, Willis is a London-based insurance brokerage concern. This might also be Facebook’s goal.”

And my completely invented person sits back and thinks about all of the bad plates of unhealthy food and all the photos of poorly regulated bungee jumping and unsupervised spelunking and out-of-code electrical wiring jokes they’ve made on Facebook over the years, because this character is an electrician who is an adrenaline junkie, and they sit back in a deep and sad silence.

After work today, having set up another studio shoot (and, somehow overseeing the setup of a reception) I took the recently new and even-more-recently broken toilet seat back to Menard’s. I said last night, as I was looking for a bag to carry it in, that I hoped some surly old man was working at the customer service desk, rather than some cute young person in their first or second job. It just seemed like the sort of thing you could talk your way into with a tired old guy who’s seen it all, done it all, and just wants to get off his feet at his next break.

But it was a young woman who looked like she was fresh out of school.

“I hope,” I said as I was trying to remove the seat from the bag I was carrying it in, “this is the weirdest thing you have to deal with today.” I explained the problem. She took the receipt and punched a few keys and printed out a receipt that showed the return as a credit on my debit card. She could not care less.

I think that means it wasn’t the weirdest thing she’d dealt with today.

I drove home in the rain, but with a few bucks back in the bank account, to have chili and to prepare for tomorrow. I have an interview in the afternoon, and a few small things after that which will wrap up three long weeks. It’s going to be a good feeling.

And that’s not even saying anything about the chili!

Here’s the third episode of the B-Town Breakdown. I think they’re starting to have fun. And, I don’t know how you feel about tortured spellings as clever wordplay, but the IU Even A Fan segment is becoming must watch for me.

The desk show, all the highlights of the last week, and a look ahead to the weekend’s sporting activities around IU:

And here’s the other talk show. This week’s topic: uniforms. You won’t see any, so bring your imagination:

IU / photo / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Mrs. Cooley would be proud
27
Oct 21

Mrs. Cooley would be proud

I took this photo yesterday of a westerly-facing tree outside of our television studios and didn’t share it with you. Shame on me. The light was catching it so nicely, and everything. So here’s the westerly-facing tree.

Trees, of course, face all directions. That’s the sort of useful information that you keep coming back here for, I know.

And also this insight, a phrase I coined today, but a feeling that has long been on the mind of any expert who has ever talked about their craft to a non-expert.

Shortcuts used shouldn’t always be the shortcuts taught.

It had to do with a conversation about writing, and the root of it is the cliche, you have to know the rules so you can break the rules.

Or “learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist,” which is often attributed to Pablo Picasso, or “know the rules well, so you can break them effectively,” as the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso supposedly said. (And hasn’t the web ruined us on standalone quotes? I no longer believe anyone said anything, but that everything was said by Abraham Lincoln quoting Calvin Coolidge.)

I’m pretty sure I learned the theme from my algebra teacher, of all people. Learn the rules to break the rules. And that’s what algebra was like for me.

How I got through calculus and trig is something of an open mystery.

More time in the television studio tonight. It was the sports crew shooting tonight, and those shows will start to come online tomorrow.

Here are the news shows from yesterday, though. All the local that is news, and all the news that is local …

And the Halloween-themed show that I teased here yesterday …

Why do trees face all directions? It’s a question of survival to be prosperous. Tree branches grow to give the most leaves the most light, because light means they can run photosynthetic process. The rest is us being misanthropomorphic.

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