And now back to Arts Coverage...

2012 was neither a great year nor a terrible year for the work I'm trying to do. Just sort of unexpected. When I last wrote a blog entry, "Culture Wire" was rolling steady: Shoot, Edit, Complete, Repeat. This Godwaffle Noise Pancakes video was shot in April, with every intention of turning it around that same month. But I was taught something in Basic Training that I had to voluntarily recall and enforce within myself.

Everybody is a unique Special Snowflake until things go all wrong. Then you are an Infantry Soldier, son. Time to fight.

In our very small shop, we lost two people to illness, three people to transfer, one to a multi-month project, and then two people were asked not to come back. Fifty per cent of the workforce was disrupted for the better part of 2012. The people left standing, such as myself, had to drop all the Special Snowflake projects, find some grit, and deal with all the everyday ugly stuff for months. And months.

At the end of this unexpected year, I was able to turn back to "Culture Wire," right where I left it. And I think the battles might have helped. This isn't the same "PBS magazine package" that I would usually crank out. It's the kind of video that plays in a museum for a self-selected audience. The editing is strangely both more affected and less manipulated. When it was finished, I had to take it home and loop it for six hours to figure out if I was truly settled with it.

But if you're not settled with it, you are welcome to remix your own version. I've made some alternate clips and released them as Creative Commons. Have fun.

Interview only - http://youtu.be/ldj0Lg0bSXs 
Black and White - http://youtu.be/pjd2Xs4kuzA
Unaltered Color - http://youtu.be/CyEpCeV0qdQ 
Extra B-roll shots - http://youtu.be/lHNEto_1ZyM
Original Aired Version - http://youtu.be/GOwp79mhw-4

We were playing in the pocket by the end of the set.

A wonderful way to spend August and September- recording and editing 11 jazz concerts around San Francisco. "People In Plazas" was a discretionary budget project that I had been wanting to do for a while. This past July, the FY projections finally looked solid enough that I was given a green light.



Each concert was awarded 21 man-hours for production: three crew members for a half day, then eight hours of editing, and one hour of closed captioning. These productions had to have conservative zone-play camera operators who could keep their heads in the game for a full 60 minutes. That's a bit more of a sports analogy than I'm usually comfortable with, but that was the situation during these weeks.

The wide shot was a lock-down camera that recorded four channels of audio. The audio operator did a live mix-down on a three channel Shure feeding channels 1 and 2 on the camera. Channels 3 and 4 on the camera were direct feeds of audio from the bass and snare drums, which didn't need much babysitting during the show.

As the coach, I had to cut a few people from the roster. I gave camera ops a detailed explanation of what I wanted. If they didn't do it, I showed them their video and repeated what I was after. When they failed again, they were cut from the team. I'm sorry, but we're only doing 11 of these and I have been waiting years to see this project approved.

Back up, pivot, go forward.

This is a news-style package about Meridian Gallery in Union Square. That wasn't the intention when I first left the office.



Profiling Meridian was originally recommended by a co-worker. When I saw there was a "world premiere" reading by 92 year old Lawrence Ferlinghetti, I thought I could make a great evergreen package about him.

Except… he's 92. The poem was only three minutes long and he didn't want to do any interviews. Since I had already invested four hours of labor into the story, I decided to reduce Ferlinghetti and make Meridian the focus. The PR contact was very accommodating and lined up an artist and a curator on the same evening as a performance. I could get sights, sounds, and words in another four hour trip. Adapt and overcome.

Culture Wire returns to SFGovTV!

Arts coverage for the City of San Francisco returned to SFGovTV in November 2011 with the re-launch of Culture Wire.



A successful partnership with the SF Arts Commission produced 50 videos between 2009 and 2011. Due to budget constraints, the SFAC was forced to discontinue their support of the program for Fiscal Year 2011-12. After two months of budget evaluation, SFGovTV has committed to continuing Culture Wire by providing 100% underwriting for the next six months.

In the first month of Culture Wire's return to Channels 26 and 78, producer Rich Bartlebaugh has profiled three local artists:

Aron Meynell http://youtu.be/qvZS5Pm5eyM
Sanjay Patel http://youtu.be/nQMm57B7l-U
Jim Campbell http://youtu.be/bxQRLFyVifk

Upcoming programs include a visit to the Meridian Gallery near Union Square, and a look at some of San Francisco's most adventurous dance companies.