Archives for May 2006

I’ve never seen anything like this before. This is part of the reason every photographer and editor in tv should be working overtime at learning the art of editing.

Heard tonight from a friend who talked to a photographer from WMC, that the Raycom station is about to start using the vj model to gather and report the news.

Now I don’t know how true this is and if I’m wrong, someone please let me know. If it is true, congratulations! I personally like vj stories (of course, I am a vj) but I would like it even if I were a regular viewer.

If this is true, there will be lots of rumblings and disgruntled folks, not just at AN5 but across the street too. (If they’re gonna do it, we’ll probably do it too). Read a few message boards and you’ll see plenty of criticism for using smaller cameras and one-man vj crews to gather the news.

But what many people in the business don’t understand about the vj concept, is it’s much easier than it sounds. I’ve talked to several reporters recently who work in traditional news who are getting burned out fast. They turn 1, sometimes 2 different packages each day. They also do live shots, sometimes at noon, 4, 4:30, 5, and 6. They produce vo/sots from their packages, find new ways to tell the same story for different newscasts and then have to stop and re-write the story for the web and upload the information before they’re done for the day.

VJs, turn 3-4 stories a week. Period. I maintain a blog but we have someone else to put the video on the internet. Since we have such a large number of crews in the field every day, rarely do we re-cut packages as a vo/sot. We also don’t do multiple liveshots for the same story. I’ve never been asked to turn two stories on two different subjects for the same day.

So criticize away, if that’s what you like to do. Personally, I prefer this new way to gather and report the news. And if WMC is making the move to the vj, I look forward to seeing it.

I love lists. Back in the 70s and 80s when those Book of Lists covering just about any topic or group you can think of came out, I had a stack of them. I’m kind of like the John Cusack character in “High Fidelity”, when he makes a top 3 or top 5 list of his old girlfriends, most painful breakups, best songs for summer, best dance songs, and top 5 first tracks on an album.

So I was especially interested in Bravo’s 100 Funniest Films that debuted over the weekend and is airing constantly now. I’m a bit surprised at where some of the funny films have hit their chart. “Annie Hall” was #28 or so, “Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail” was way up in the 30s or lower 40s. When The American Film Institute ranked the funniest films about 6 years ago “Annie Hall” was in the top-5. “Some Like it Hot” was number 1.

So far I haven’t seen any films on Bravo’s list older than the mid-70s. Guess they’re trying to appeal to a younger crowd.
Since I’m a big fan of comedies and especially romantic comedies, I’ve got my own top 10 list. Here’s mine, let me know yours.

10: Porkys
9: Animal House
8: Holy Grail
7: The Jerk
6: Vacation
5: Dumb and Dumber
4: Airplane
3: When Harry Met Sally (favorite movie of all time)
2: Annie Hall
1: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

So many others deserve to be here too: “Meet the Parents”, “The Nutty Professor” (Eddie Murphy’s version) “Some Like it Hot”, “Meatballs”, “This is Spinal Tap”, “Wayne’s World”, “Annie Hall”, “The Sure Thing”, “High Fidelity”, “Serendipity”, “Best in Show”, “Parenthood”, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to name just a few.

But “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is the one movie I laughed the hardest watching.

My little girl, Delaney turns 7 years old in a couple of weeks. Since we’ll be homeless then, living in a hotel, we decided to throw her a party before the move so she could celebrate with her friends.

She and her friends are big fans of Disney’s “High School Musical” so that was the theme. We shot a video last night and handed out DVDs as part of the girl’s party packs. This is mainly for Nana and Grammie, but I hope you like it too.

click on the photo to see the video

I’ve never gotten “Will and Grace”. It’s not the whole gay thing either, it’s just never been funny to me. But tonight, since nothing else was on, I watched the finale. And you know what? I still think it stinks.

But I started thinking of some of the finales of other shows that went out with either a bang or a whimper. Some had already jumped the shark, some went out just right while others went out uncharacteristically bad. So here’s my list, from the top of my head.

Best finale: MASH. Who can forget the final shot of Hawkeye rising in the chopper and seeing the stones spelling out “Goodbye” from BJ. And the shot that always makes me tear up, when Honeycut and Hawkeye gave Col. Potter a salute. This show left the air my senior year of high school and my graduating class had just performed the original stageplay of MASH. It was very fitting then for us to see “Farewell, Goodbye and Amen”. No show will beat this finale in terms of quality and emotion. I also remember watching PM Magazine’s coverage which showed all of the actors crying as they said goodbye to their fellow actors and a job they had for years.

Runnersup:
Cheers. When Sam turns out the lights on the bar. Also a good episode was when Diane left the show and as you see her feet and legs climb the stairs Sam says “Have a nice life”. Wow, some of the best tv writing in history.

The Wonder Years. The family is watching a 4th of July parade as Kevin’s adult voice explains what happens in the coming years to his family. Winnie gets married to someone else. His brother takes over the family business (and I’ll always remember this line “when dad died”. This one didn’t last as long as I would have liked, but the kids had grown up and the show’s creators didn’t have much choice.

Newhart: Bob wakes up in bed to find it was all just a dream. Classic tv moment as Suzanne Pleshette instead of Mary Frann. I don’t know that anyone saw this ending coming. The show could have gone out with one of those “what happens when these people get old” but kudos to the writers for making this the funniest finale.

Everybody Loves Raymond: Ray has an operation and there’s a complication coming out of the anesthesia. Not bad, but not terribly good either.

Cosby Show: Theo graduates. I’ll bet it was pretty good but I don’t remember it at all.

Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show: Oh boy, what a tearjerker. Bette Midler’s performance of “One More for the Road” brought a tear to Johnny’s eyes and mine too. Wish I still had this one on tape.

Bad: Tonight’s Will and Grace was lame. I hate it when characters in a movie or a show look at each other and suddenly break into a song. Not very intelligent or clever.
Seinfeld: Could have been a lot better. But the writers really had a tough job here. They tried to make it better by bringing back some of the characters from previous shows, but sadly this one will taint the Seinfeld run.

The big finale is a fairly recent development in sitcoms. Anybody want to take a stab at the final episode of The Brady Bunch? It was the one where Bobby died Greg’s hair green after a crazy mixup with a science experiment. Just a regular episode, nothing special.
Happy Days? Fonzie and Chachi join Howard’s Leopard Lodge. Nothing special about that one.

Back in those days, the networks figured the shows would live longer in syndication and reruns if there wasn’t an episode that drew it all to a close. These days, the networks see big ratings for a big finale.

Am I forgetting some good ones? Some bad ones?

Update: The commenters are right. My memory skipped the year with Fantasia. Meanwhile, in today’s newspapers there’s an AP story about the Birmingham connection to Idol. Turns out: Diana Degarmo was born in the Magic City.

There must be something about those FOX viewers in Birmingham. For the third year in a row, a Birmingham man made it to the finals of American Idol. Ruben Studdard won it two years ago, Bo Bice finished runnerup and now Taylor Hicks. I imagine this show is giving news directors of the other stations in the Magic City more fits than any other show in history.

I liked seeing and hearing Al Jarreau who sounded like he stepped out of time machine from 1986. It was also pretty cool to see Meat Loaf but that segment with Kat was kinda creepy. Meat didn’t sound all that great, like the years have taken a toll. I will admit, I rummaged around to find my Bat Out of Hell cd to listen to tomorrow.

I liked the duets. The only thing that would have made them better was if Jerry Reed appeared to sing Amos Moses with Kevin the chicken little dude. Wouldn’t that have been awesome!

We don’t need two hours of American Idol though. Two hours just to for a 10 second announcement of who wins.

UPDATE:
Is this the most anti-climactic show in history? It’s like watching a telethon. I did crack up with the nerd seeing Clay Aiken sneak up behind him. (I’d freak too, by the way). I don’t mind hearing Clay sing, it’s watching him sing that creeps me out.
UPDATE:
So another Birmingham man wins American Idol. I never thought Taylor would have made it after the first few rounds, even though I liked his sound. I don’t think either Taylor or Kat will be a gigantic star. Chris and Mandesa may sell more records. Lisa Tucker should do well too. Elliot should find an audience with the Harry Connick Jr. crowd.
I am very interested to see the overnight numbers from Birmingham if anyone wants to post them (anonymously I’m sure) or e-mail them to me. I’d love to see how tonight’s numbers there compare to the year Ruben won or when Bo was in the finals.

And now…we can get back to our lives on Tuesday nights.

Isiah Thomas is off the hook.

mms://wmvod.mgnetwork.com/vod/wdef/National_Anthem.wmv

you’ll have to copy and paste it in your browser since it’s some kind of weird file, but this was captured by a WDEF photog in Chattanooga.

Ladies and Gentleman, your national anthem.

Was the music just plain awful on tv Tuesday night or does my tv need it’s pitch tuned?

Katherine Mcfee on American Idol was flat on two of the three songs she sang. The last one was horrible. You know you did a bad job on Idol when Randy Jackson starts his critique with “yo, yo, yo…you know what? You look great tonight.”

Then I switch it over to CBS to watch the Academy of Country Music Awards and it was worse. Keith Urban started flat and never seemed to hit the right note. Sarah Evans (big fan here) sounded like her earpiece wasn’t working and she couldn’t hear herself.

Brooks and Dunn sounded great on “I Believe” but it seems everybody else is about a half-pitch down from where they ought to have been. One of my roomates, who runs sound for some of the big groups in Nashville says it sounds like the guys mixing the music for CBS don’t know what they’re doing. He says the vocals overpowered the rest of the band and that accentuates any pitch problems. If that’s the case, CBS ought to make sure that sound mixer doesn’t work on a live music event again.

Big disappointment here. Or was it just my tv or are my ears out of pitch?

UPDATE
Well, it must not be my tv. Martina McBride sounded terrific. No pitch problems for her. I remember interviewing Martina way back in 1991 when she had just left her job of selling tv shirts on Garth’s tour. Best voice in music. Also, worth sitting through all of the flat sounding singers was the tribute to Buck Owens. Billy Gibbons, Dwight Yoakum, Brad Paisley and Chris Heilman sang the songs I grew up hearing on Hee Haw. Hated it back then, but it must be cool now. The drummer for Blink 142 (or some number) played the beat with his spiked mohawk.

And one last thing. Whoever was in charge of keeping the show on time should be next to the sound mixer in the unemployment line. The biggest award of the night was practically thrown in the window of a moving car of Kenny Chesney. I don’t know if they even announced all of the nominees before quickly saying “KENNY CHESNEY”.
Chesney deserves the big award and should have been giving the male vocalist of the year award too.