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IU / photo / television / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
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:

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
10
Oct 16

I can’t reference the same song in text and title

This weekend we visited with my folks down the road aways. The four of us went out one night for a lovely steak dinner and we all felt like celebrating:

Because if you get a steak that good — oh, so, so good — you should celebrate it.

Rode my bike to the office this morning. On my thus far preferred route I actually go through the woods and over the ~~river~~ creek.

And then I have a half mile of a walking path, with a picturesque barn set off to the side:

After that there’s a roundabout, and one long residential uphill to campus. It is about 4.5 miles. Takes about 15 minutes. Twenty if I’m carrying my bag and am trying not to sweat.

It isn’t a long enough trip, by any means, to make me think of steak again. But I’m thinking of steak again.

Friday / IU / photo / site — Comments Off
7
Oct 16

Have a look at my Friday

Right away you can tell this is a beautiful campus. I’ve seen my fair of attractive ones, but Indiana’s is one handsome place. It is hard to pick the best spot because there are many strong candidates. Today, however, this is my favorite spot on campus:

That’s a little stand of trees right next to our building, in Dunn Meadow. The picture itself is also presently the emergency backup version of the front page of my site.

Oh yes, my site. Have I told you about the page? This week I’ve redesigned it entirely. Give it a look, won’t you?

If you’re on a real browser you’ll see a video. If you’re viewing it on your phone or pad, you’ll see the above picture as the background. What I like most about it is that I can change it easily and regularly. So, more visual, more video.

This evening, the work continues in my home office. This project will never get done. I have a good helper, though:

She might also be why the work goes slowly.

history / memories / photo / television / Thursday — Comments Off
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
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.