Quaker Heritage Day Hits the Big Time!
This year’s Quaker Heritage Day at Berkeley Friends Church will be the first ever to be:
- televised (on Berkeley public access television and beyond)
- blogged in advance,
- podcast (if beppe doesn’t I will, and even if he does I will.)
And all because… well, just because the world is ready to blog and podcast, and we at Berkeley Friends Church are ready to make television.
Our video team had an adventure this evening. We took a Studio Directing Workshop, where we were asked to direct a scripted narrative episode, and I think we all found it quite challenging.
I can easily understand why many people get themselves trained and certified at an access TV station, and then don’t do anything. I can also understand why some people get hooked on TV directing. In either case it’s the very challenge of the thing. Some people don’t like adrenaline, some love it. And adrenaline is your only possible response as you try to catch the very best of something that’s flying past you. It’s flying past you in infinite channels, and you have to narrow it all into three channels (three cameras), and of the three, finally into one.
When I say it’s flying past, I’m speaking figuratively, but I’m hardly exaggerating. Things happen really quickly, really suddenly. This is true even when, like tonight, you have a script in front of you that you’ve spent an hour marking up, and which the talent is to a reasonable degree following. Having experienced this relatively simple scenario, and having been humbled by it, my broadbrimmed hat is off to the people who televise breaking news, sports, and other unscripted live events.