HCAM Production Assistant

See?  It’s been less than two weeks since I last posted, and here I am again.  That’s because it’s October!

…

Perhaps you don’t quite grasp the importance of “October” around here, although it’s more likely that I’m just very easily amused and put together our programming schedule.  This year, October marks the official beginning of our new season of programming!  Yes, we had some new episodes in September (for example, Senior Upbeat, Physician Focus, All About Hopkinton), but those always begin production early (Mary MacLeod, who produces Senior Upbeat, usually has her shows planned at least two months in advance; to be fair, she has been doing this for about 13 years, so she’s got a bit of practice).

So we’ve rolled out new episodes of some of your favorite shows, but we’ve also rolled out four more new shows.  A statement so astonishing, it required a bold font.  What do we have for you?  Let’s take a quick look:

The Gathering.  A cooking show!  If you enjoy cooking (and eating) as much as I do, this is a great show to check out.  Hobby gourmet Terry Melisi will walk you through making several dishes to share with your family and friends (or any other gathering of people as fond of good food as you and I).  And if you can’t follow along, all the recipes will be on the show’s page on our web site.

Women’s Art Forum.  Hosted by Geri Holland, this interview series showcases the performers, writers, and all other forms of artists who have presented at the Cultural Arts Alliance’s Women’s Art Forum.  Both the CAA’s Forum and our program are produced by Geri and by Wake Up & Smell the Poetry producer Cheryl Perreault.

Manager’s Corner.  Okay, technically this isn’t a brand-spanking-new series.  We produced one odd episode last year to get out information about the town’s new (well, it was new then) waste services contract with E.L. Harvey & Sons.  It featured Matt Zettek and J.T. Gaucher.  You’ve probably seen it, because that odd episode only ran 19 minutes, so I tend to use it to fill scheduling space behind short sports games. 
Anyway, the show!  Every month, we’ll talk to a different department manager within the town so you can get to know just what it is they do (I’ll admit it: until I saw the episode I couldn’t have guessed what the water/sewer manager does, except that it had to do with water and the sewer system).  Become a better informed citizen!

Absolutely Yoga.  Yes, I included this last because it’s my favorite of the bunch.  The gang down at Absolute Yoga had been getting some feedback from their clients that they’d love classes at specific times of the day, but they could never get enough interest to run a class at, say, noon.  So they decided to produce a monthly show with us!  Every month, they’ll lead you through a different hour-long yoga session. 
Why is it my favorite?  Camera angles!  You can actually see what’s going on, and follow along!  And if you don’t know why I’m so very happy about this, then I need to find out what workout tapes you buy.

Fantastic, yes?  Oho, but this is just the beginning!  In November, we expect to roll out more new episodes of yet more returning shows (including the returns of ESL Open Mic with Barbara Kessler, SU2, Veterans Remember, [deep breath], Wake Up & Smell the Poetry, and hopefully even more than that like Attitude! and Sasha & the Dashing Disciples), a few more shiny-new series (Guns and Hoses.  Just throwing that one out there.), and maybe even a few shows that have just needed a really big ally-oop to get back in the production saddle (Inside HCAM, These Are a Few of My Favorite Things).  To say nothing about our specials, which will include the kickoff ceremony to a town-wide book club, the grand re-opening of the Center Trail, and maybe even a theatrical play (or two).

Remember to check out the online program schedule for air dates and times (you can also find that information on the show’s page). 
And if you’re interested in getting weekly reminders about upcoming programming (new episodes, specials, sports games, etc.), sign up for the HCAM Insider!  I write it, but I’m a lot more concise there, I swear.  Honest.
And if you’re interested in making some of these TV shows, shoot an e-mail to Jim, and he can let you know when the next round of producer training begins.

Stay tuned for next time, when I walk you through the hypothetical and the actual process of putting together the HCAM program schedule!  (Prepare for such phrases as “Corner Mike in his cubicle and threaten his Sharpie collection until I get episode titles.”)

Well.  It has been a while, hasn’t it?  I really wish I could say that it’s been busy, but it was really only busy with productions from about March through mid-June.  After the High School graduation, business tapered off some, and it was time for the annual Catching Up on April Through June festivities, which begin in mid-June and keep going until you’ve caught up on all the things that were supposed to be done two months ago.  Thankfully, these are always small things, the jobs we can put off until the summer when business slows down.  Shortly after that, we all took a couple minute breather, and then immediately began digging in our heels for 2009-10.  But we’ll get to that later.

And I didn’t blog because…?

Well, it was honestly on my to-do list every week, but got shuffled down to the bottom.  And then today as I finished up putting together the monthly Physician Focus order for the folks over at the Massachusetts Medical Society, I received my fourth spam-comment notification this week.  (I secretly love my spam.  It’s either in cyrillic, or it’s a mishmash of words that make sense individually but not in the order they’re in.  Almost as if through prolific quoting the internet is now haunted by bad Monty Python dialogue.)  About that time I realized it’s been nearly seven months, I really ought to update.

So, what have we been up to at the HCAM studio?  Well, over the summer we hosted the ESL Script To Screen Workshop.  We had one official high school intern (Andy, AKA Andy the Intern) and two more high school students frequenting the studio that we just referred to them as interns (Mike and Tommy, AKA Andy’s Interns, but only to Andy).  With Andy’s help, we fought off what was basically H1N1 for our computers, a nasty virus that had infected just about every computer, external hard drive, and flash drive we had.  A dedicated crew of volunteers shot the Concerts on the Common series every Sunday.  We carried on with production on our year-round show, Physician Focus, produced some episodes of your favorite shows, and the annual summertime Fix What Broke During the Year (along with the Make the Inside of Box Two More Understandable).  And cleaning & reorganizing the studio (also known as Andy, Are You Doing Anything Right Now?).

And we seriously ramped up production!  Jim, Mike, and I all sat down in August to discuss the new schedule for the season.  We knew we had a lot of new shows in the pipeline, but it wasn’t until Jim sat down and counted them all that we realized we would start the new season with 25 programs!  We crammed them all in (barely - we’re talking a sitting-on-top-of-the-suitcase situation), I made an obscenely colorful template:

THE COLORS. THEY'RE HAUNTING.

And we were on our way!  The new season officially starts in October, so keep your eyes on our televised (and online!) community bulletin board for more information.  And if you want reminders about upcoming episodes for our new shows and our tried-and-true lineup, sign up for the HCAM Insider, an e-mail newsletter (written by none other than moi) which will give you updates about what’s coming up in the schedule.  You can sign up on the front page, right under the photograph slide show and to the right of the featured video.

Ta for now, and I promise it won’t be another 7 months before I write again.  Honest.

Good afternoon, general denizens of the internet, and welcome.  Jim has been foolish kind enough to give me blogging capabilities to report on the goings-on here at HCAM.

Okay, to be fair, I’ve had this blog for well over a month now, and this is the first post.  Trust me, the guys have been giving me merry flak about that since about mid-January.

First and easily most exciting (but I am a bit biased), I am now a full-time employee of HCAM!  Well…I have been since mid-January, but I kinda fell down on the blog updating.  But still: exciting!

Second, with great employment comes great responsibility (that’s how that saying goes, right?), so I’ve spent the last month and a half building up more and more duties and skills.  For example, I can now edit.  Somewhat.  Okay, there’s definitely a learning curve (which sounds like “Jiiiiiiiim?  Is this right?”), but it’s my fourth editing system in five years (I used Media 100–now out of business–and Final Cut Pro in college, and I pretend that I remember how to log tape on Avid). 

Next in a long list of news, we’ve added Planning Board meetings to our government coverage.  I’ll at least record every meeting, and now that we can broadcast from the Fire Station (also a new development), a good portion of the meetings ought to be live.

We’ve got some new programming our (You’re Hired!), a few new shows in the works, and all sorts of new stuff that’s going to explode clear out of our web site and blow your mind (or at least make the web site even better than it is now).

So, pay attention.  We’ll keep you in the loop.