AV Geeks AMIA Breakfast

hello everybody welcome i'm skip alzheimer of the av geeks educational film archive and welcome to our streaming show um this is something that we started doing back in mid-march um every day around lunchtime uh we're doing it a little bit earlier to try to accommodate the time zone shifts of people attending the emea uh conference virtual virtual conference um because many of those people are all around the world amia in case you don't know is the association of moving image archivists and i've been attending the conferences for quite a while um since minneapolis and i don't know when that was um but it was more than 10 years ago easily and uh there's a conference going on right now uh if you want to know more about amia if you like old film and video you like to know about the preservation of old film and video um and see a lot of old film and video i would say go to um emeanet.org there's another emea which is also having a conference right around this time uh and that is for medical uh informatics um so if you if you see a bunch of things about medical information you're not at the right page so don't go there um or maybe go there if that's what you're into i think their conference is a lot more expensive than our conference um but anyways so uh i was bummed out by the pandemic because i was doing live screenings and showing films from our collection of over 30 000 16 millimeter films and so what i thought is like why don't i every day just pull films from our collection and then show them uh to folks uh and what has happened is phenomenal uh i've had uh roughly between 50 and 60 people a day that attend uh the shows are about an hour uh it's a mixed bag i don't really i do themed shows where i pull films that are comparable uh in what their subject matter is but um this time i've been really just pulling from our collection and even watching films that i haven't seen before kind of premiering them and uh have been broadcasting it to facebook youtube uh twitter twitch twitch is normally a video game um kind of platform but i thought hey what the heck let me just put it out there it's free uh let's see what happens and i've actually gotten some people following me and some people contacting me from there so uh this has been a wonderful way to get new eyeballs on these films um and so this what i'm showing today is going to be stuff that's themed kind of uh about moving images and uh this first film is from the 70s and it has an annoyingly catchy song so i'm just going to go ahead and apologize for the song that's going to be stuck in your head the rest of the day i'm actually transferring that live via a telecini this is an mwa nova flash transfer 16 this is an older machine that i bought new and uh basically i learned about the machine and saw it and got to play with it out of mia so there you go um ami is a great place uh to meet people and to learn about new things and to learn about old things um really have many many valuable friends and peers thanks to amia so i can't cheerlead enough for them um anyways let's go ahead and get started this first film is is a career in television and radio for you enjoy [Music] and you [Music] and you have to [Music] over three million young men and women will graduate from high schools all over the country this year a great number of young people will be looking for jobs right after graduation many others will be going on for specialized training or further education but sooner or later all will have to find a place in the world of work will it be their proper place will it be the kind of work that suits them best will they be prepared for it well in many cases if you are not yet thinking about what you will want to do are not finding out about the different career areas people work in it's time you get started you can't begin too soon this film will tell you about one career area highly competitive but needing talented and able young people before it's over you should be able to decide for yourself is a career in radio or television for you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay [Applause] if you like the smell of grease paint enjoy being in the spotlight or merely focusing one if you get a bang out of helping construct the stage set or helping line up props or designing costumes for the school play if you'd like to gather news for the school paper write stories for your friends to read if you're intrigued with the array of electronic equipment to put a radio or tv show together and to transmit it through the air mostly sunny and slightly milder today eyes ranging if you like to work around celebrities disc jockeys or radio or tv personalities if you can sing dance or like to tell jokes or entertainment parties if playing music is what you really want to do the rest of your life or making tapes really grabs you then this film may be of interest to you the same is true if you love dramatics making speeches being on the debating team or are involved in any one of the stage crafts a career in radio or television may be for you the same goes if you get a zing out of leading an orchestra singing in a choir arranging a trip controlling expenses for a team or social club you may be interested in some phase of radio and television broadcasting if you've built your own radio or enjoy staying up all night talking to fellow radio hams a career in radio or tv may be a natural for you to consider same is true if you're a shutterbug can't resist composing pictures with your eight millimeter camera i like to help operate the audio visual equipment at school you may be a prospect for any one of a number of careers in radio and television entertaining educating informing careers in announcing news writing [Music] creating the background music for tv and radio shows [Music] selecting the records djs will play on the air careers in programming arranging and developing the programs you see each season on your local stations career occupations ranging from station engineers to performers actors dancers singers [Music] careers behind the scenes as a producer a director in management careers in commercial radio and television educational tv and radio pay tv public broadcasting information and educational programs video tape and recording studios meaningful careers in the electronic media no other area of the world of work so directly influences the lives of so many people [Music] most jobs in the field fall into one of these four categories let's start with engineering differing from engineers in other industries the engineer in radio and tv is usually a technician and not necessarily a person with a college degree the size of engineering staffs varies with the size of the stations and the number of shows they originate there are cameramen broadcast engineers video operators recording engineers technical directors lighting directors maintenance engineers transmitter operators videotape engineers projectionists and chief engineers most engineering and allied jobs require at least a high school education and technical training in electronics anyone who operates or adjusts a broadcast transmitter must have a federal license membership in a union is often required the work hours vary with the policy of the station the hours the station is on the air and the requirements of production most young people interested in engineering start at small commercial stations or educational stations promotion is by seniority and experience or by applying for a better job at a bigger radio or tv station as for sales careers in radio and tv all stations need people to sell time since that's the primary source of the station's revenue the product being sold is spot time time needed by a customer to broadcast or telecast a commercial on the programs he wishes to sponsor salesmen usually deal with media people and account executives of advertising agencies or the sponsor directly most work on a base salary arrangement plus commissions as for business careers in broadcasting and television bookkeepers accountants and clerks are needed to collect the fees keep track of royalties and music rights as well as keep records for the federal communications commission management personnel are needed to quarterback the operation of the station set policy hire people to compute and pay the salaries management personnel usually have extensive experience in broadcasting business and management most have at least a college degree clerical jobs require a high school education or the equivalent in experience good working skills are essential the programming area of the industry at first look seems glamorous and most intriguing but that's not always so for every guy you see taking a bow or speaking in golden tones over a microphone many more people are sweating behind the scenes to make the star the product and the program look good writers produce the scripts [Music] the jokes oh god the kaiser oh jolly joke read the songs the stage sets are created by designers scenic artists carpenters painters stagehands are needed and prop men makeup artists apply their magic hair stylist too four managers instruct the cast and crew by hand signals production coordinators and assistants look after the thousand and one details [Music] directors and producers mastermind the production announcing is one of the more popular and numerous jobs in the industry if your voice pronunciation and english usage are good there may be a spot for you in radio as an announcer if your aim is a tv announcer your personal appearance will be important a pleasing personality and capacity for showmanship will help most announcers have at least high school and some specialized training most break in on radio working on small stations for little pay until they develop a style most advanced by moving up to bigger stations the goal of most is to have their own show or network assignments the hours are long off in your regular and on holidays [Music] where do people in radio and tv work everywhere there are over 6 500 commercial radio stations in the united states alone some 850 commercial tv stations many in the field are employed by independent production firms packaging programs or supplying production services others work for public broadcasting stations foundations religious and public service organizations still others work in advertising agencies preparing programs and commercials employment in radio and television is expected to increase moderately in the years ahead [Music] women hold 25 percent of the jobs now mostly in programming and office occupations one of seven jobs in the industry is clerical one of twenty is in sales half are professional and technical jobs one-fourth are managerial [Music] you may like one or more career areas in radio or television however before you make a decision check out the many other career areas in the world of work [Music] you'll want to see the other titles in the library of career counseling films and talk to your teachers your school guidance counselor your parents [Music] dig into occupational information available in your library find out as much as you can about careers for yourself then from all the careers you like can find your suited for choose the career for you [Music] let your guidance counselor help you advise you on your prospects suggest further education or training you will need advisors in the local office of your state employment service will give you the local as well as the broad picture of the occupation you want to enter job opportunities job requirements wages and conditions and what lies ahead plan ahead know what your place your proper place is going to be in the world of work and prepare for it one's work is one's life start making a good life for yourself now [Music] what you gonna do with and you have to earn your way [Music] what you gonna do [Music] [Music] what will you really do [Music] thank you department of defense for distributing that film um yeah so this was part of a whole series of uh is a career in for you made by counselor films which i feel like was based in the kind of dc metro area um they shot other films uh the person who made this film gene starbecker uh also made some amazing bus safety films uh including and then it happened in death zones um anyways i wanted to show that because that's a wonderful all those people made content that us as moving image archivists are now coping with or figure figuring out how to deal with and trying to put context behind and trying to rescue and and all that so um and then that really catchy song is quite something uh so one of the reasons i'm doing this for amia is because i love amia and i love the people behind me and i gotta say thank you tanya and uh kim tarr for minus coffee um 80 geeks and other moving image archivists all run on coffee or tea um i found a couple that don't do caffeine at all and they're very odd but uh the lines at starbucks at the conference hotels um tell a story [Laughter] [Music] and there's a lot of coffee in to be consumed uh and also at the conference buffets that are set up before uh the panels i certainly am drinking some coffee uh but yes thank you for donating um that is one way that people contribute back to av geeks but anyways i wanted to make the case that uh you all of you out there are media people who are have an archive or an institution that has these materials i i really gotta say that doing some sort of monthly weekly daily thing and putting it out in the world uh talking about what you have in your collection and maybe even showing what you have in your collection is really great it's great for two reasons one it's promotes what you do and who you are and what your collection has two it's a great way for your brain to wrap around access in a different way um and so i do these live things but uh uh i went i attended and presented uh yesterday with other people who do pre-recorded things so tammy texas archive the moving image uh the seattle-based archive which it's uh anagram this i can't or acronym i can't remember um and then also the southeast uh chicago home movie project all of them are taking their materials and putting them online uh tammy's actually putting stuff on tick tock which is for me i don't know if i want to do tick tock but um there's a lot to be gained by showing stuff uh both to giving the public access and seeing what you do what you have and also for you to kind of dust off things and kind of show stuff now you don't need a telecini to do this um i have thousands of films that i've digitized over the last several years uh and so the next one i'm going to show you is uh the bane of film archivists uh existence and that is splicing motion picture film and this is a film that i already digitized and so i'm just showing a file so here we go enjoy [Music] film damage can result from poorly repaired film from faulty equipment and from careless handling this is the result often the best method for repairing the film is to cut out the damaged section and splice the film back together there are many kinds of splices all of them will hold the film together temporarily at least but few of them are designed to allow the film to be projected again in this film we will show you how to make a splice such as this one which will allow the film to be projected first of all it will help you to know the principle behind the splicing technique motion picture film is composed of three general parts the emulsion which contains the photographic image the acetate base which supports the emulsion and a binder which holds these two parts together in the splicing process the emulsion and the binder are removed first and cement is applied to this scraped area the two pieces of film to be spliced are then overlapped at this point forming a strong permanent splice the equipment needed for splicing includes a splicer a scraper a piece of felt a small amount of water a brush a clean cloth and some fresh film cement the film must be spliced with the emulsion side of the film facing upwards the emotion side can be determined either by inspection or by feeling the film close inspection will show that the emulsion side has a dull luster while the base is much more glossy feeling the film you will find that the base side feels smoother or more slick than does the emulsion side to splice position one piece of film emulsion side up on the pins of the right side of the splicer if the perforations are on one side only notice on which side of the film they appear close the top part of the splicer to hold the film down at least one fourth inch of film should protrude next cut the film off by bringing the bottom part of the left side of the splicer down into position raise the entire right assembly on the left side of the splicer position the other piece of film emulsion side up and bring the top section down into place here too some film should extend from the splicer the perforations should be on the same side as those on the other piece of film bring the right side of the splicer down until it cuts the end of the film squarely then return it to its former position to soften the emulsion moisten the film on the left side with a wet piece of felt some splicers do not require this moistening next using either a metal scraper or an emery board carefully scrape the emotion off of the moistened film brush the loose pieces of emulsion from the scraped area apply the cement to the film being careful not to use too much and immediately bring the right side down into a locked position overlapping the two pieces of film after 10 to 15 seconds the cement should dry release the top sections of the splicer and wipe off the excess cement the result is a strong accurately made film splice let's make one more splice to make sure you have the process well in mind film in the right side emulsion up cut the film film in the left side emulsion up and again cut the film moisten scrape brush apply the cement and overlap the film the useful life of a motion picture can often be greatly extended by correct splicing repair [Music] thank you state university of iowa for uh for that film um it's really kind of glorious especially that beginning shot of the the got the projectionist and the film falling off the reel and this kind of like ah this insanity um of us who have been projectionists have experienced that at least once something happened something horrible happens and there is film hitting the floor um usually a bent reel or a splice that does some crazy thing uh that's that's the wonders of uh a filament video is the is the unintended chaos that happens um when you're handling these materials and you're like why is it doing that and that's that's what's great about emea is that sometimes especially if you're digitizing film or video and you're using these tools you're like where is that coming from how did that happen um you have peers that you can ask you can say like what is going on and there's this amazing resource it's the av artifact atlas which if you google it it's pretty amazing it's a lot of people that have contributed a video glitches and they've come up with a vocabulary and if you want to geek out and i am a navy geek and i will certainly geek out um that's a wonderful place to look and to see and just and there's all this talk about what caused it like what was happening to the tape was it recorded is it something that's happening now because something has broken down it's really a wonderful place to kind of spend some time and look at there's lots of samples and examples and they're actively taking new submissions if you find somebody something that's not right so it's almost like this weird zoo of av artifacts um right now it's just video but i'm hoping at some point film will show up too because there's all sorts of weird scratches and things like that i gotta say thank you guys um the uh emea people have been um very gracious in their coffee contributions there's no way i'm going to be able to drink all the coffee that you have contributed as i would probably have a cardiac arrest but we will ration it out over a period of time and i will share it with my assistant uh keshon finch who is also an avid amia person person who cannot be with us because of covid because we're kind of distancing so he's at my archive former house archive and he's scanning and digitizing film and video and i'm here in my basement because that's what we do during cobit is do what we do from our basements and from our extra spare bedrooms or our kitchens or our couches um so um the fact that we're not in the archives makes us sad but we are still archivists nonetheless so there you go um so anyways i wanted to say thank you to iv sean jim and dennis for uh all the caffeine that will be coursing through my veins over the next couple of weeks um all right so i can go either way with this i have a couple of different options um i want to definitely not um oh yeah we'll go with this all right so um one of the things that a lot of uh archives are are dealing with now are television collections or amateur video or uh educational video things that were shot not necessarily in a tv studio but we're shot in a uh classroom setting or out in the field or whatever and so there's all this um this material that's coming up and it's appearing in archives that we're trying to reconcile so this film was made for people that were going to be taking a television production class or a video production class and it features a good friend of ours so here's basic television terms panning panning [Music] panning panning tilting down zoom in to the title card basic television terms a video dictionary got it okay hello i'm leonard nimoy if you know me it's probably from the acting i do in front of television cameras but this time i'm going to be behind the camera and you're coming with me to see how television is produced number eleven three get me lynn please keep two over one preset i'm doing it differently who's next [Music] walker with sports let's say there are two kinds of television production big budget television and little budget television [Music] big budget television is the kind used for most broadcast television with big studios big cameras and big crews little budget television is little cameras limited facilities and small groups of people working together little budget television is the kind of production used for education industry law enforcement sales work just about any field you can name [Music] a lot of people are already working with television so let's start by seeing who does what [Music] in big budget television there are large crews starting with the producer that's the person who supervises production bringing people together and making it all happen and you have writers and production assistants then there's the director who directs the camera people and chooses what to show on the screen sitting next to the director you usually find a technical director who actually pushes the buttons and supervises the technical work out on the studio floor is the floor director who stands beside the camera and relays the director's instructions to the people in front of the camera we may come out here we go to one and then they're the engineers let me knock the coma down in here they set the lights they run the cameras they supervise the video or picture [Music] and the audio or sound [Music] they run the videotape recorders and later they work with the producer's staff to edit the video tape [Music] little budget television has little crews the equipment is designed so that almost anybody can operate it and so the production can be done by as few people as possible maybe even one [Music] but no matter which way you're producing your television little or big the steps you follow are the same beginning with pre-production [Music] you may start with a treatment a short outline of your idea describing it as you might see it on your television screen [Music] or you can start write with a script which usually has picture directions on one side of the page and sound directions on the other this is a storyboard another kind of script it has picture and sound directions and above them drawings which indicate the shots to be used [Applause] a tilt shot when the camera tilts up or down this is a dolly shot when the camera dollies in towards the subject or dollies back away from the subject [Music] and this is a tracking shot when the camera tracks or moves with the subject [Music] shots can also be identified by function an establishing shot for example is a shot which establishes the location or mood of a scene an insert shot is a shot made for inserting into previously taped material usually it's a close-up or a cutaway to graphics and finally shots may be described by what they show here's one of the most often used shots in television it's called a talking headshot and it's a shot of a head talking okay so if you've got your shots ready your program or tape planned it's time to move to production [Music] [Music] control room pretty nice week that's the weather have a nice evening andrew i think i can live with that thank you very much i do wish i knew the outcome of those three games if the cameras are outside a studio on location there may be a portable control room called a remote truck or a video van the director and technical director will have a video switcher to cut from camera to camera [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] single camera system production involves taping much as a movie is filmed setting up one shot at a time with planning for later editing together of shots [Music] single camera systems often use portable video taping rigs roll tape do it the big budget rigs are called mini cams and the small budget rigs are called porter packs both are designed so that the camera can be hand held some systems are so light that a single person can carry both the camera and the videotape recorder [Music] and a microphone can be built into the camera so the production can become a one person operation another special system is the character generator the character generator electronically generates numbers and letters [Music] of course no matter where it comes from all picture and sound ends up on videotape videotape records it and can play it back immediately after recording hi i'm peter marshall one of the hot ones here on channel 5 this season with a big new variety show videotape comes in different sizes the bigger the budget the wider the tape with two inch being the widest and videotape comes in different containers including open reel and video cassette [Music] videotape is recorded and played back on videotape recorders or vtrs which come in big budget sizes and your convenience small budget sizes [Music] now once you've planned directed shot and recorded your tape you're ready for post production which is a time when programs and tapes are edited [Music] there are three kinds of video editing real time usually called a fade to black or a fade out if a shot begins as a blank screen and slowly appears it's called a fade in [Music] if the first shot is faded out and the second shot is faded in at the same time it's called a dissolve if two shots are kept on the screen at the same time it's called a super imposition [Music] if an image or bit of graphics is superimposed it is said to be super or keyed [Music] and this is a special kind of superimposition called chroma keying chroma keying two shots are combined without overlapping in the frame [Music] the special effects generator also produces trick transitions such as a cross wipe a curtain wipe an iris in [Music] and an iris out and here's a special effect you can do without a special effects generator just point your camera into the monitor that shows what the camera sees and you get video feedback after editing you may want to copy a television image on movie film so you use a special movie camera like this one to make a kinescope or kinney filming it right off a television screen of course it's easier to copy television with television when you copy a video tape on another videotape it's called duping or dubbing [Music] an original videotape is called a master video tape a copy or dub of a master is called a second generation videotape a dub of a second generation videotape is called a third generation videotape and so on the videotape on which a program is finally assembled is called an edited master [Music] now if you have your program almost finished and you still have some money left in the budget you usually add credits descriptions of who did what on the production with a little budget you can tape them off a card or with a big budget you tape them off a crawl like this [Music] oh [Music] and that as we say in television both big budget and small is a wrap i'm leonard nimoy see on the tube [Music] oh leonard um so i want to quickly show this film but before i do thank you lindsay uh katie and ash for coffee lindsay uh our time in albania together you realize how important coffee is for me to to survive anyways uh i just wanted to show this film real quick before the keynote with erika tykenmeier starts so here's uh a metaphor for what many of us encounter when we encounter a giant collection of audio-visual materials and how it will ultimately devour us dear mr ames your resume indicates that you may be just the person to assume the managerial duties at klrn tv and free me to continue my work in sensitized videotapes don't be put off by our present limited facilities the success of my experiments will soon permit klrn to capture a much larger share of the viewing public sincerely w.h o'brien [Music] [Music] [Music] hello [Music] hello [Music] do [Music] [Music] hello hello wow [Music] [Music] ah oh uh [Music] hello uh get me get me there's this big wow uh hmm oh hmm ah [Applause] [Laughter] ah ugh ah hmm [Music] [Music] oh oh [Music] so real quick uh before erica tykenmeyer starts her keynote um with amia thank you retto um for the coffee he also knows how much coffee is important for me that film is held at uh university of southern california which means that uh emea um amazing archivist punk rock guy uh dino everett has has control over it he has it in his collection uh and he i'm sure will eagerly show it and share it he is an amazing example of a a mia person who is unafraid to show a hundred year old film uh to a audience of people he is he is truly amazing in his uh gonzo approach to sharing and film needs to be shown is what he feels um anyways uh thanks everybody for tuning in uh my regular lunchtime crowd thank you i'll be back at one o'clock uh mia people i'll be in the atom atomia so find me if you like what you saw or you want to talk more about how we do the screening uh if you are interested everybody take care we will see you soon bye you