Friday, June 24, 2011

Projects in the Works

Just a few quick updates:

*Greenfield's Local Cultural Council met in our studio on Tuesday night to discuss the allocation of grants to local artists and non-profit organizations. We recorded the meeting and will be airing it soon.

*"Local Bias" filmed a new episode yesterday morning; keep an eye out for it to begin running on Cable Channel 15 on Wednesday at 5:30PM.

*DIAL/SELF, which provides youth & community services, has been editing several programs over the last couple of weeks and plans to have them completed very soon.

*Finally, there will be no GCTV board meeting this month.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Your Government at Work

Covering last week's town election involved a great behind the scenes effort by GCTV staff and volunteers. In order to keep you informed about the process and---of course---the results, many people contributed their time and enthusiasm. Staff members collected b-roll and interviews with the candidates outside the polling location in the morning, Joe Gochinski and Drew Hutchison provided live commentary about the races and their outcomes on cable channel 15 that night, Joe's dad called the station with vote totals, and our website announced even the winner of the write-in contest in Precinct 1 before 10pm. Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who participated in the process and our coverage of it.

The newly elected town councilors won't be sworn in until next month but there was still business to be done at the last meeting of the current council, held on Wednesday, June 15th. If you didn't watch this meeting live, you missed an interesting debate about how government works. In addition, some charter/ordinance changes were approved along with some fiscal appropriations. You can see all this for yourself by watching it as part of our Video on Demand Player, in the "Local Government" category.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Thunderstorms

Another week of wild weather created some interesting situations for us.

On Thursday afternoon our new media producer headed down to 18 Miner Street for the grand opening of the combined Massachusetts RMV office and Franklin County Visitors Center. (You can find out more about this by checking out the story on our homepage.) As that outdoor shoot came to an end, participants heard loud claps of thunder and began to see lightning cross the sky. Seconds after the equipment was safely stowed inside our staff member's vehicle, the deluge commenced. Whew! Good timing.

The timing of the storm was, unfortunately, not so good for filming the school committee meeting. As the thunderstorm moved across town it took out power to Greenfield High School while our station manager was attempting to set up. The school committee did end up convening a short meeting, which we filmed with one camera on battery power, in a trailer that had emergency lighting and we'll be posting that to our Video on Demand Player next week.

Finally, the storm also took out the transmitter for WMCB 107.9-lp FM. Our station manager is working frantically to restore the signal and we'll keep you posted.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Budgets, Politics, The Environment, & Shakespeare

Seven shoots took place in our studio this week beginning on Tuesday with Berkshire Middle District Register of Deeds, and former State Senator, Andrea F. Nuciforo Jr. sitting down with Joe Gochinski on the set of "The Western Mass Democrat" for a lively conversation. Immediately following their taping, the studio was prepped for that evening's live Ways & Means Committee meeting. The meeting went quite late as the councilors learned all they could about the budgets for the Franklin County Technical School and the Greenfield Public School System.

The following evening the committee wrapped up their sessions, spending three hours deliberating and making recommendations to the full council. Earlier that day, the crew of "We are the Ones" took some time to record a special anti-nuclear power roundtable discussion that will air on Cable Channel 15 sometime this summer.

On Thursday and Friday, actor and director Tom Roulston played to our cameras once again in order to begin recording "Macbeth" for his new series "Reading Shakespeare". We expect Tom's performance this morning to be followed by a "The Western Mass Democrat" interview this afternoon to finish out our busy week of shoots.

Two final notes:

The Greenfield Town Council will be voting on the town's 2012 Operating Budget when they meet at 6PM on Wednesday, June 8th. You can catch up on the budget process by watching the Ways & Means Committee Budget Hearings on our Video on Demand Player, in the "Local Government" Category.

Greenfield's Town Election will be June 14th and Massachusetts' legislative re-districting process is ongoing. Find out more about both of these by checking out the stories and links on our homepage.