Rosenblumtv

Natalie, the Liquid Muse blogs on her experience at the DC course last week.

Good reading for those contemplating signing up!

Professional photographer Judy Rolfe was a participant in last week’s Travel Channel Academy in Washington, DC.

Here a few photos she was kind enough to send us:

And here is a link to her blog, where she recounts her experience at the course.

Thanks, Judy.

The Revolution Will Be Televised….

The Wall Street Journal reports on Wednesday, March 5th that:

“in December, Internet users watched more than 10 billion videos online, according to comScore Inc. - one of the single heaviest months for online video consumption since comScore began tracking it in 2006.

As that is such an astonishing number, let me run that past you one more time, in bold:

“In December, Interent users watched more than 10 billion videos online.“

Clearly, the appetite for this stuff is limitless, and we are just at the very start of video online.

We are a video-driven society. While the average American watched more than 4.5 hours of TV a day (a day) in 2006, the average American household bought only 1 book per year. We are a video driven culture, and as video migrates faster and faster to the web, we are going to spend even more time watching video.

This raises two question:

First, who is going to make all of this stuff?

That is, who is going to provide this massive, almost incomprehensible volume of content to the web?

and second: who is going to make all of this stuff?

The second question raises far more interesting implications in terms of information, journalism and politics.

The first question is easy enough to answer. There will clearly be a growing market for video content, and it will be made by those who can manage to deliver both quality and meet a market cost point that is commensurate with the realities of a 10 billion+ videos a month universe. This is a demand that is  not going to be filled by conventional production companies, nor by production crews repleat with expensive gear, vans, teams of soundmen and grips and folks who take a full day (at several thousand dollars per day) to elicit 2-3 soundbites. It will be filled by folks who are talented, nible and equipped with a small camera and a laptop edit system - who can crank out a video, finished in an hour or three, and who consider getting a few hundred bucks for their time well worth it.

This the market will drive, and it is inevitable.

The more interesting question is one of content.

Until now, this most powerful engine for political discussion, public discourse and debate has been in the hands of about a dozen people - from Matt Lauer to Viacom to GE.

For a democracy, this is an act of insanity, if not suicide. We would certainly never accede to placing our free press in the hands of GE and Matt Lauer - but we do it without a second thought in the far more pervasive (and persuasive) world of video.

As video democratizes, both through the web and through increasingly inexpensive gear, it is critical that people rise up, so to speak, and Carpe Medium - that is, seize the medium, take control of the content, and vastly expand who gets to say what, both online and on air.

Chuck Close

When I walk through the Museum of Modern Art in NY, some of the art does not effect me in the least. I can walk past and feel nothing. Then, there are the pieces with which I resonate. Who can say why?

Those paintings communicate with me in a very direct and visceral way.  I see what the artist has created, but I also ‘feel’ something much deeper that the artist is trying to say.  Gursky works on me this way. So does Close. So does Rauschenberg.

I often think of art as a kind of time machine. Even though an artist is dead, the painting still continues to project that which they were trying to communicate.

Painting has been with us since 3500 BCE Jericho.

Television has been with us since 1939 New York World’s Fair. Television is just getting started.

In the world of paintings, we have Picasso and Michelangelo and DaVinci - examplars of genius in the medium.

In the world of television, we have nothing that we can point to as the paragon of what the medium is capable of.  That is because television is an immature medium; it has only just started. And until now, television was so expensive that almost no one got a play with the medium, except a very very few, and only then through the filter of a technician.

If you wanted to be a painter, it was fairly simple to get your hands on a brush and a canvas.  You tried. Maybe you were Picasso, maybe you were nothing. But the cost of trying and failing and trying again was little more than your time.  The same held true for writing or music.

Now, this universality of access is available for video, for the first time.

As more and more people get their hands on video cameras and edit software, we will begin to see video enter the realm that other art forms have always inhabited - the world of cheap access.

There will be many many many disasters - the video equivalent of your aunt Minnie taking up painting flowers.  But there will also be a few moments of genius - something so far sorely lacking in the world of TV.

Perhaps, one day, we will see the work of the Picasso of video.

Perhaps.

But even more interesting, perhaps, with enough work, video may start to enter the realm of painting - a place where one may watch a piece of video and not just learn how many earthquakes there were in Los Angeles, but also ‘feel’ what the maker wants to both capture and communicate.

Now  there would be an example of ‘must see TV’.

Right on the heels of the NY Academy, we are down in DC kicking off the next Travel Channel Academy.

Channel President Pat Younge was here to talk to the group and explain their place as the Channel moves into the realm of VJs and UGC content. His goal is to train and certify no less than 1,000 Travel Journalists around the world this year. And we’re right on schedule. Next week, Chicago.

feel the power

The New York Times has now moved to their new building on 8th Avenue and 41st Street.

But deep in the bowels of their old building stand massive printing presses.

They were simply too large to move out, too deep in the ground, and probably bolted directly to the Manhattan bedrock.

Before the Times moved their printing operations to New Jersey, the paper came from West 43rd Street. And when they rolled the presses, the entire building rumbled with them.  It was like firing up a 747 in the basement.

That was the ‘power of the press’.

Approximately 75% of the cost of a newspaper is the sheer physicality of the thing. The manufacturing process.  25% is the editorial.

Think about it.  Paper, ink, presses, plates, distribution.

If you want to expand circulation, you have to first make a massive capital investment to get the ‘thing’ into people’s hands physically every morning. That is a Herculean task in itself.

Then along comes the web.

Suddenly, you can publish your paper, put it in, quite literally, a few billion homes, from Schenectedy to Shanghai, for free.

For free.

And you can update it as often as you like. (Try recalling a newspaper).

That is why the web is so irresistable to the newspaper business. \

That is why they will inevitably go there.

And as newspapers move inexorably to the web from the content side, video also moves inexorably to the web from the technology side.

It is a marriage made in heaven. In fact, it is a necessity, because in the world of the Internet, there is a kind of Gresham’s Law: More dynamic media will drive out less dynamic media.  Ads for real estate with only text are trumped by ads for real estate with photos, and soon ads for real estate with video will trump the earlier two iterations. The same holds true for the delivery of information.  (Note the failure of Text TV in the 1980s).

And as newspapers go to video, they are not going to go out and start hiring expensive traditional ‘crews’. That would be an act of insanity.

They are, however, embracing the VJ model as quickly as they can. It is the only logical way to go.

It is happening quite fast, and the product, although plagued by the publisher who simply gives out the camcorders and says ‘go’, is getting better and better all the time.

The American Journalism Review does quite a good piece on this, entitled The Video Explosion.

Take a look.

Executive Producer (and Academy grad) Lori Rothschild

Travel Channel President and GM Pat Younge recently declared that all employees of The Travel Channel will have to take the Academy VJ training course.

It’s a good move. We start with the executives.

The first (of what, I think will be nearly 200) to go through the course was Lori Rothschild, an Executive Producer at Travel Channel with many years of television experience.

Here’s her bio:

Lori Rothschild Ansaldi

My job is to travel the world creating travel content. My travel motto is “Work Hard to Travel Right” - and my focus on travel content is centered on the fact that your vacation time is the most important time of the year to refresh your mind and reconnect with family and friends. While I love to be pampered, the bulk of my travel research is for the “real traveler”. Lori Rothschild Ansaldi is an Emmy Nominated Executive Producer for the Travel Channel where she is responsible for the production of over 100 hours per year of Travel programming and content. Some of her recent TV credits include Passport to Latin America with Samantha Brown, Great Hotels, Best Places to Find Cash and Treasures, Green Getaways and The Coolest Camps for Kids and Adults. Lori’s expertise ranges from the budget conscious to the super luxurious. Her work has taken her around the globe in search of the coolest things in travel; from the best hotels and restaurants to the newest trends in eco-friendly tourism.

And here’s her blog:

Monday, March 10, 2008

Sleeping off the Travel Channel Academy

Sometimes I forget why I am in this business. I never get the butterflies anymore when I am on a shoot and I never feel like a rockstar when I am wearing a headset and watching a monitor while on set. I just do it and think about the next shot… the next line… what I am going to eat for dinner. Then, something happens that makes the hair on my neck (I have a few short strands there FYI…) stand on end and shows me how lucky I am to do what I do for a living. This past week I was fortunate enough to be invited to take a class called the Travel Channel Academy up in NY. Yes, I have some travel tales to tell… my Delta shuttle flight was cancelled on the way up and I chose to rent an apartment instead of stay at a hotel. I’ll get to all of that. The big story here was the Academy and if you are reading this blog… I URGE you to go sign up and take the class. It was that good. Of course you all know that I work for Travel Channel and you probably think I am just saying this because I work for them and I get some kind of kickback. Well, for the record… I don’t. I suck at sales and I am just telling you so that you have the opportunity to check it out. If you decide that it is not for you… well, that’s better for me because then I can submit my films and I will get paid and you will just go back to whatever it is that you do. OK… that’s the end of the rant. The class is run by Rosenblum Associates; a NY based production company who produced a ton of programs for Discovery and other nets. The guy who teaches the seminar is Rosenblum himself… Michael Rosenblum and he might just be the most fascinating character I have ever met. He’s a short Jewish man…maybe from Queens who dresses in all black - head to toe. Even his Prada glasses are black rimmed. He talks with a thick NY accent that reminds of a guy that I dated from Brooklyn. (Note to self… husband is a subscriber… move on) Michael starts the class with a basic shooting lesson that shows any idiot how to shoot. Close up on the hands… close up on the face… wide shot… over the shoulder and then from the side. Sounded like a simple assignment… so, I was psyched to get out into the city and shoot my first film with my little HD handycam. I went to Zabars on the upper west side and went to work. I scouted the place for like 20 minutes. I then chatted with the managers, talked to some butchers, a few fish mongers… the girl who packed the cheese. This was going to be a great piece. So, I took a break for lunch and created my shot list. Two hours later… close up on the hands, close up on the face… I was done and I was excited to bring my footage back to show Michael and the rest of the class what an Executive Producer can shoot all by herself. I went back to the class and we all started screening the student’s footage. Most of the footage was great…some a little shaky… but all in all… not bad for first timers. Then, it came time to screen my footage and I was so proud to show Michael my stunning footage. Twenty seconds into the screening Michael stopped the tape and channeled his inner Simon Cowell and said. (I will never forget the words)… “You do this for a living, right?” I nodded. He continued, “Well, its not bad… but its not good. Its a little raggedy. Its too shaky and it just looks amateur.” I started to feel a lump in my throat and knew that I was the face of the very network that was running this class… my inner voice began to chant DO NOT CRY… DO NOT CRY. After the screening some of us decided to go back out for a reshoot. So, I grabbed my camera and took the 1 train back up to the upper west side. I went right back to Zabars and just started shooting. Close up on the hands… close up on the face. No, No… its not good enough. I know, I will just shoot something else. So, I went across the street to a diner. I told them that I was from the Travel Channel and they all looked at me like I was NUTS. So, I went to a dance studio who had an 8pm salsa class. That would be great. I spoke to the owner and she asked that I come back at another time when she could have her hair colored. No go. No close up on the hands… No close up on the face. So, I put my Executive Producer business card away and took my sorry ass to Fairway and picked up some salad for dinner. (And ice cream… again, the hubby is reading this and knows me too well.) The next morning, I went back to class determined to make Michael see my shining talent. I started editing my piece and all in all it was not too bad. It was not my best work… but, I managed to make a weak chicken salad out of chicken shit. That night I met my friend Kelly out at Lupa downtown for dinner. Lupa is a Batali restaurant and it was jam packed! The food was nice… a bit too earnest of a menu. They had beets as an appetizer and there was far too many bizarre choices for an Italian restaurant. I ended up asking our waitress for a recommendation and she told us to order the octopus, the sweet breads and she absolutely loved the tripe. Eww.. no bitch… I’ll stick with the fresh pasta with the pulled pork ragu and skip the nastys. All in all.. it was all very good and worth a try if you want something less pretentious then Babbo. The next day I was back at the class and Michael had another lecture for us. Now we were going to shoot characters. We had to have real people as the focus of our short films that will be submitted to the network as our “graduation videos.” Not too hard… more close up on the hands, close up on the face… but, now we had to put action into the shots. When you take the class you will get the lecture. I cannot get into detail in the blog. At around noon, we all took to the rainy streets of Manhattan to start shooting our second piece. My first idea was to shoot with a NY cabbie. I would sit with one cabbie for a couple of hours and just get the story. Then, I had this image of the couple at the very beginning of that movie the bone collector. They grabbed a cab on their way home from the airport one night back to NY and I think they were both chopped into little tiny pieces. So, I abandoned the cab idea and called my cousin who lives in Hoboken. She was going to get her hair done today… perfect… I’ll do my piece of her getting her hair done. She is a 26 year old casting director for MTV… she would be a great character. I took bus 126 out of Port Authority and in 10 minutes was out in Hoboken, New Jersey. Eww. But, it was fine. I met her at the salon and we started shooting. Close up on the hands… close up on the face. Ok… now I am cooking. No shaky cam… read through all of my class notes. I was going to get this right. After about 3 hours of documenting her color and cut; I jumped back on the bus to start digitizing the footage. I worked for about 2 hours and then decided that I needed some rest. I needed to walk away and come back in the morning to finish it. The next morning, I went back to class and started editing. We only had until 3pm and then we were going to screen the final videos. I worked right up to the deadline and just took to my seat to wait to be creamed by Michael. He went through the videos one by one and I was beginning to squirm. I was not thrilled with my finished product… I should have stuck with the cabbie. Why did I not trust my first instinct? Oh, well… Finally it was my film to be screened and it was fine. Most of the class laughed on cue and overall it was fine. Was it art? Not by a long shot… I was upset that I was not the teachers pet. Oh well… not this time, Lori. After the class ended, I jumped into the black sudan that was ordered by my company to take me to the airport. I looked like an EP.. but I felt like a film student. I could not wait to purchase my own mini-DV cam and MAC to practice my new craft. The butterflies came back and I felt an inspiration that I had not felt in a long time. That all said, I am now dedicating myself to working on these videos. I will post them when they are ready so that you can see for yourself… close up on the hands, close up on the face. More tomorrow. Lori

Posted by Lori at 10:26 PM

photos courtesy Leif Heidman / Sweden

Back from Brussels Wednesday night, and Thursday at 9AM we kick off yet another NY based Travel Channel Academy.

Matt Gould, VP for Development addressed the group this morning, and Pat Younge, President and GM for the network will be here this afternoon.