Thursday, September 29, 2011

PA Int'l Film Festival Coverage!


Academy Award Winning Editor and Sound Designer
Walter Murch

It's Thursday September 29 and we're setting up over here at Talent House at 542 High Street in downtown Palo Alto.  "We" is comprised of Stan, Scott and Becky.  We have the portable studio, the "tricaster' with us and we will be streaming live many of the guest speakers presenting at the inaugural Palo Alto International Film Festival. Once the panels kick off, you can find us on the PAIFF Ustream website.  (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/palo-alto-international-film-festival).    Check out the entire festival at www.PAIFF.net.  And here is the link to the full description of the panelists.  Please note not all speakers will be streaming.   If you come down to Talenthouse and peek through the windows, you'll see our amazing volunteers hard at work having fun in support of the great staff and volunteers at PAIFF.  In addition to Scott and Stan, you may see Cathy Keys, Ilena Ferrar, Bobby Chastain (of KMVT) and Doug Kreitz.  It's great fun teaming with this talented and enthusiastic group of producers -- many of whom are "refugees" from Sundance including Michael Bodie who is doing our directing this weekend.

Friday September 30
2 pm Tim Draper - The Future of Media
3 pm Sunil Rajaraman
4 pm Saad Khan, Sunil Rajarama on "How Much Is Your Deal Worth?"
5:30 pm Jasmina Bojic (yes from UNAFF!), Santhosh Daniel, Alesia Weston on "Global Cinema Tomorrow"
7 pm Encyclopedia Pictura

Saturday October 1
3:15 Paul Debevec , Pioneer in Virtual Cinematography
4:15 Steven Gaydos - "Writing the Road to Nowhere"
5:15 Uwe Bergmann - Photographing Molecular Particles, Steven Gaydos
5:30 Stuart Bowling - Advances in Cinema Image and Surround Sound
6:00 Jim Helman - Hollywood in a Digital World
6:30 Jens Peter Wittenburg - Beyond 3D

Sunday 
10:30 am Britt Bensen, Dale Djerassi, John McCream Danae Ringelmann, Michael Murphy on "Digital Filmmaking & Distribution"
12 pm Nickhil Jakatdar  - The Future of Mobile and Movies
12:30 pm Brett Crockett - Delivering Cinema Sound to Mobile Devices
3 pm John Gaeta - Interfacing with Media
4 pm Santhosh Daniel, Hannah Eaves, Katie Gillum, Matthew Meschery, Michella Rivera-Gravage, Tanya Marie Vlach on "Ditching the Digital Divide"
5 pm 

See you online or see you here!

And a special shout out to Aaron Selverston of Palo Alto Patch for introducing me to Alex Ippolite and Alf Seccombe and putting the whole thing in motion!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Who is YOUR Local Hero? Tell the World!


This is your chance to honor someone you respect and admire

We are soliciting nominations for our annual Local Heroes Award. If you know a hero, please submit your nomination. Six winners will be featured in interviews that will air on the Media Center channels and put on the Web. You can see last year's honorees on our Local Heroes page.

Who's a Hero?
  1. A person who has contributed "over and above" to the community, overcome a significant hardship or attained an important goal
  2. A person somewhat "unsung" or not usually in the limelight
  3. A person with a compelling story to tell.
Because the winners' interviews will be televised, it's especially important that there's a compelling story to tell. We are hoping to find heroes who are also articulate and engaging!

To nominate a Local Hero,
please send email to...

heroes@midpenmedia.org

...and include:
  • Your name and contact information
  • The name and contact information of the person you are nominating
  • A brief description of why your nominee should be selected
We look forward to hearing from you and to honoring our community heroes!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Future Talk show is "Far Out" with SETI




by Future Talk host, Marty Wasserman

People have long been fascinated by the question of whether intelligent life exists on other planets. The SETI Institute has been trying to answer this question for the past 25 years, by using arrays of radio telescopes to scan the heavens looking for signals that seem to come from an intelligent source. This work is expensive, and most of the costs are paid for by private donors, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and actress Jodie Foster, a long time fan of the SETI Institute who starred in the 1997 film "Contact" based on the SETI Institute's work. Of course in the movie, unlike real life so far, they actually find their extraterrestrial intelligence.

This month's Future Talk features an interview with Seth Shostak, Chief Astronomer of the SETI Institute with a Ph.D. in Astronomy from CalTech, who answers a broad range of questions from host Martin Wasserman about the SETI Institute's work. Questions include: why are we so interested in knowing whether there's intelligent life elsewhere? What scientific advances are speeding up the search? What would we do if we actually found evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence? And does the project have scientific value even if we don't find what we're looking for?

Seth is passionate about his work and gives a very lively and energetic interview. Also included are pictures of the telescope array, and images of the Kepler Mission, a NASA project that has already identified numerous planets that might be capable of sustaining life.

The playback times for this episode can be found here.

Previous episodes can be seen here.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

MEDIA CENTER TO CELEBRATE AWARD & VOLUNTEERS


The Midpeninsula Community Media Center is hosting a party on Sunday, September 25, 2011 from 1-5 pm to celebrate the national award the Center recently received from the Alliance for Community Media (ACM). The Media Center is number one among 3,000 community media and public access facilities nationwide.  The Media Center was awarded the prestigious "Overall Excellence in Combined Public, Education and Government Access" at the national ACM conference held in Tucson this past July.  The Media Center invites members of the community to celebrate this achievement and to honor the efforts of the volunteers who make it all possible.  

The Media Center will be taping the Andre Thierry Zydeco Band who will be performing between 2- 4:30.  There will be dance lessons and dancing in the cordoned off parking lot.  Additionally, there will be tours and hands-on demonstrations of camera operation, lighting, editing, and animation, some of the production skills one can learn through the Media Center.  Plus the reel that the Media Center produced that propelled the Center to "best station in the nation" will be running continuously in the Studio.   There will be catered refreshments and drawings for free classes and services.

To top it off Mayor Sid Espinosa will join Media Center Executive Director, Annie Folger, her staff and Board in honoring the cadre of volunteers who are the heart and soul of the Media Center operations with a short but meaningful ceremony.   It is the Media Center's volunteer producers and crew members who create the majority of the programming that populates the Media Center's five cable channels that are simultaneously streamed from the Media Center's website.  

This event is free and open to the public.  The favor of a reply is requested:  RSVP to 650-494-8686

Event Details:
Community Open House to Celebrate National Award and the Contributions of Volunteers' Time and Talent and Treasure
Sunday, September 25, 2011
1 pm-5 pm
Midpeninsula Community Media Center
900 San Antonio Road
Palo Alto, CA  94306
www.midpenmedia.org
650-494-8686
Cost=Free


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