RTV weekly progress 3/25/12

This week, my contribution to RTV involved filming the unfortunately lightly attended discussion with Hot Coffee Director Susan Saladoff. As a fan of her film, (I've seen it a couple times now), I was definitely excited to hear her speak. Its not often that we get to have a discussion with a major documentary director. What I found most interesting about Ms. Saladoff's talk was the fact that she went into the process of creating the film with really no prior knowledge of how filmmaking works. Hearing her talk about the difficulties of raising money, licensing content, editing, etc. was sort of inspirational in that it gave me a sense that anyone can pull it off if they have the right will, intellect and a story to tell. Hopefully, sometime soon I can splice up some of the content and make interesting sound bites for airing on RTV.

As far as the filming itself, it was somewhat of a challenge. I obviously don't have much experience in being a cameraman, so I just tried to frame the shot how I saw fit. I also noticed that I would become engaged in what Susan was saying and therefore not pay attention to how it looked on camera. If nothing else this definitely served as some good camerawork practice in a lecture setting. However, ideally, it would have been better to have a much bigger audience (obviously) to be able to film, as well as multiple cameras working together. Overall I thought it was a fun experience, at least enough so to skip Dr. Cavenaugh's 11 o'clock class... whoops.

RTV progress and future ideas 3/18/12

Chris -- RTV progress

I honestly don’t have much to say in terms of tangible contributions to RTV just yet, but I do have an idea that seems feasible to pull off this week. I would like to do some filming of the Susan Saladoff discussion panel. As a fan of her film, Hot Coffee, I am definitely interested in hearing what she has to say about filmmaking, the judicial system, “frivolous lawsuits,” and anything in between. I figure we could have two camera persons and have someone film the entire panel and another taking shots of the audience and other more creative shots. Maybe we could even get Susan to do a plug for the TV station at the end of the event. I think this could be a great way to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. We could contribute some content for RTV while also showing a decent attendance at this special guest event, making the school look more engaged in current issues. I will definitely talking to Tómas and Jaime about this possibility, and I am interested what you (Ted) think of this idea. In addition, I was thinking of suggesting a potential additional meeting time for RTV. For me, at least, the Monday night meetings are not always the most convenient, and maybe we could arrange a second time for other members. Just a thought.

Outreach proposal stuff

RTV---Chris

After further discussion with KC and Rachel, I think we have really narrowed down our approach in terms of our cross-organizational group vision. As the content editor’s of our respective campus media groups, it is our job to find potential content and uncover opportunities for media to shine. We must constantly review what is going on around campus and find interesting stories for ourselves and others to tackle. Importantly, this responsibility for content extends beyond just finding stories, we want to be there to help out in as many ways as we can. For example, I will be offering help with editing for fellow R-TV members, as well as shooting original content of my own at the alumni weekend and with Tomás’ crew. While contributing consistent quality content is of course separate from recruiting members, it is a necessary prerequisite. We firmly believe that the best way to recruit people into campus media is to have fun with it, know your audience, and get them excited through showing them what you can do. This is especially true for RTV, the organization with the least established credibility of the three. After yesterday’s discussion, we now have a better grasp on our organization’s character: “The Rollins Family.” Keeping this in mind, we will be producing content for the website and hopefully the channel that may vary in subject matter, but contains a common theme and a sense of cohesion.