television

IU / photo / television / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on We’re mass communicating here
11
Oct 16

We’re mass communicating here

I’ve shown you a bit of the television studio and control room that they’ve built in the new Media School building. I should also mention this fine little radio production booth:

It has windows on three sides, so it can be a fishbowl broadcast studio, and a podcast and production booth. There is an adjoining production booth on the other side of one of the windows. And still more of editing bays and production rooms being finished downstairs. This is one incredible facility IU has here. And they let me play with all the fancy toys in these rooms. It is a pretty charmed thing, really.

And tonight, we were back in the television studio. We do sports shows on Wednesday and Thursday. But on Tuesdays we do a news show and a pop culture, fashion, what’s happening kind of show. I’m sitting in a control room full of talented young people, and there’s plenty more talent in the studio next door:

Here’s that show now:

history / memories / photo / television / Thursday — Comments Off on Beam this up
5
Oct 16

Beam this up

There has been a Star Trek exhibit at one of the campus museums. As far as I can tell there might be 16 museums and galleries on this one campus. This was at Lilly, the acclaimed rare book library. The experts there house more than 400,000 books, more than seven million manuscripts, 100,000 pieces of sheet music and, right now, a small Star Trek exhibit.

Being the last few days, these were on display, I had to stop by.

Please note the date. This is a 1964 treatment of the original Trek, with Gene Rodenberry’s name across the top:

This means that staple has been in place for more than 52 years. Incredible.

Also, look at the example episode descriptions. Some seem familiar. Some read like obvious early drafts of old favorites. And one just might have been altogether forgotten, fortunately.

One of the classics, the Trouble With Tribbles, which was written by David Gerrold:

Side note, the tribble episode might be one of the last of the original series I ever managed to catch. Famous as it was, I never saw it on television.

This is from another classic episode, Amok Time, written by the great Theodore Sturgeon:

And, oh look, something like tri-ox is actually a medical reality now.

And just over from the the script for the famous third act sick bay scene was this handsome cover:

It was a small exhibit, and mostly script-based items of the above sort. But it was worth walking a few blocks on a warm autumn day to see. And, by the door, someone had filled a display case with action figures:

I’m pretty sure that they just wanted to show off their Gorn.

IU / photo / television / Wednesday — Comments Off on What happens if I push this button?
5
Oct 16

What happens if I push this button?

The technical director is the guy that sits at the big console in a television control room and makes it happen. When a new camera shot is taken, that’s the technical director. When there’s a graphic on the screen, the Chyron person made it, but the TD put it on the screen. When there’s a video package playing, that’s on the screen because of our friend the technical director. That person sits here:

This is a Grass Valley switcher and it is massive and impressive. It took about a full week of intensive training to get most of it down. And it will do everything we will conceivably ask of it and more. One of the TDs on one of our student shows was comparing this new control room to their old digs. Used to be, he said, he could sit in one seat and do three or four of the roles without moving. Now, in this new studio, a state-of-the-art facility, a full-on production requires a team of nine or 10 crew members. So the short version is: better programming, more training opportunities, win-win.

Such is the dedication to the broadcast students that Indiana University and the Media School have built such an impressive facility. It is a neat treat to be a small part of that. And if I am sitting at that switcher one day and I disappear into the past or transport myself to Mars, just know it was a human error on my part.

View from my run this evening:

An easy three-miler to get through the middle of the week.

IU / photo / television / Tuesday — Comments Off on Tonight we were live, on tape, from the new studio
4
Oct 16

Tonight we were live, on tape, from the new studio

A long day in the office today and in the studio tonight, but here’s the view over our building and into the eastern sky:

I’m standing on the top floor of a parking deck there. My walk is exactly one block, and that’s not so bad.

This evening I gave office keys to the leadership team of the campus television station. It is an average-sized office, but they are big keys:

They would have been excited about that, but many of them got to go into the new studio for the first time tonight:

In the back of the control I offered the old Dana Carvey as John McLaughlin quote: Show show show here we go.

Going to be a great year.

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