Community Video Report (Spring 1974)

access/hardware: 13 Memphis women’s groups begin cable programming about TVA (MEMPHIS, from p. 8] the same goal. Ms. Carolyn Yellin, chairwoman of the group’s board, follows up on all the national implications and correspondence. She is reportedly receiving about five letters a day from universities, clubs, national organizations, and cable systems expressing some kind of interest in what they are.doing in Memphis. Ms. Rickey emphasizes that the most important elements for organizing a women’s channel are the building of a firm coalition of women’s groups in the community, and getting the cooperation of the cable operator for a minimal lease price, access to equipment, and a training program. An effort towards establishing an entire women’s channel fit particularly well to the Memphis situation, so Ms. Rickey explained, partly because Southern women still strongly identify themselves by their club associations and community work, a tradition lending itself well to an infant volunteer organization’s growth. The Memphis group chose to lease a separate women’s channel rather than plug into the public access route, for several 1easons. In the Memphis case, the issue of the busing was central. Public access, which Ms. Rickey equates in kind to ‘“‘talk radio,” is bound to become dominated by those upset about the busing issue in the south and will become an arena of much conflict. The other wider and overriding factor in favor of a leased channel is the possibility for autonomous operation and growth, a vital consideration for any feminist group. In terms of operational specifics, the Women’s Channel of Memphis Inc. is a corporate organization now run on mostly volunteer labor. They have some access to the cable system’s studio equipment and they hope to be able to get a remote truck for outside community shooting. Their immediate goals include the training of a women’s crew on available '2”’ equipment and the securing of funding, via grants, for their future operations. They hope to evolve to self-sufficiency through commercial programming. Women in Memphis have already begun a project in conjunction with the Tennessee Valley Authority. The programs are about Day Care Centers and specifically concern their regional experiences. The women’s channel will produce the tapes on 4” and the TVA will handle their distribution on %” cassettes. They are intended to go to other cable systems. The women’s CATV channel will also produce a half hour of programming per month for a local network station. The first of these programs is about abortion. This and other programs will appear on the women’s channel as well as the broadcast station when CATV operations commence in November. An interesting aspect in the Memphis situation is that the cable operator will have practically all of his local origination taken care of by his two leased channels, one leased by women and the other by a Black organization. There are also to be two education channels. The women’s channel of Memphis offers a booklet entitled, ““How We Did It, A Log of the Early. Development of the Memphis Women’s Cable T.V. Channel.” To obtain it or other information contact them at: Women in Cable, Inc. 4241 Park Avenue Memphis, Tenn. 38117 © There is also a group of Women in Cable, Inc., in Wash. D.C. whose efforts are going towards research and preparation for our particular cable situation here in D.C. The group needs volunteers and can be contacted through: Sally Banks Craig, 3406 Macomb St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016. — L.A. Public Access Project: organizing, production, education [LOS ANGELES, from p. 9] Nick: According to our theories, and the reason why we today are setting up these new centers is to change the media structure—that giving people the right to speak for themselves in itself challenges the monopoly of information by the mass media, and will consequently change its structure. Do you see that these little funky video centers that are popping up all over the country are really going to have any impact, or is it just going to be something that ultimately just takes the steam out of our movement? Jake: If we don’t let ourselves get co-opted. We know that we are going to be in a position where we can be co-opted, sooner or later. If we get to a point where we become very strong voices, one of two things will happen: either we are going to find very strong political pressure to stop the access movement, or else we’re going to get bought out with large grants to do specific kinds of things which are going to be easier. So, we do have to keep ourselves as pure as we can to our initial motivations for doing this: that is to make some substantial changes about the way people think about the government... .and hopefully, work toward socialistic changes in this country. Nick: Well, the fact of the matter is that most people working in public access aren’t socialists. Jake: Well, that’s it. That’s the reality. That’s why I was saying that public access is becoming apolitical. But I still think it’s an important organizing tool to use at this particular point in time. Nick: You’ve generalized about your situation and problems, but let’s get into specifics a bit more. Can we talk about Los Angeles Public Access Project? Jake: The project started about two years ago out of a perceived need that there wasn’t any sort of direction in the L.A. video community. So we just had a bunch of meetings with people working in media in L.A. and -connection between themselves. formed the L.A. Public Access Project. The Board of Directors is essentially the eight people who started it. We were very lucky; within three months of starting it we got $11,000 grant from the Episcopal Church— which was just a fluke. That went almost totally toward equipment. The initial group of the project has gone through a number of changes over the last two years, mainly because the group had come together around specific needs—access to hardware. Once that need dissipated, several smaller groups formed until a point that, for about 1% years the Project really served only as an umbrella for about four or five different projects that . used the name but didn’t really have any It. then became obvious that this structure wasn’t going to work to get broad-based funding and support, so the group, six months ago, reorganized with a new board of directors and a lot tighter administrative control, to the point where there are now three of us working on the project full time. Update hardware report: editing, TBCs [HARDWARE, from p. 5] val edits. Both these machines cost $1000 less than the 8650. (More about the vertical interval later.) So essentially you are paying an extra thousand for flying erase heads. At the same time Sony has come out with a ¥% inch cassette-to-cassette system which is pretty incredible. This leads me to believe that they are telling us as usual that they want to the standard to be %. This system comes with a console that hooks up between two machines. You drive each machine to the edit point and cue them up. The editing console then rewinds them both an equal number of seconds and then rolls them each to five seconds before the edit point. A button is then pushed and both machines cut on simultaneously and the edit is made automatically at zero seconds. The total cost of the system— 2 decks and editor—is about $13,000. The other new automated editing system that we saw was the TRI system made by Television Research International. It was demonstrated with two IVC 800 series one-inch editors. Their brochure on the EA-5 editing system states: ‘‘It must be frustrating for mistake makers when they come up against something as simple as the EA-S.” This is true. The EA-5 would seem to be a slightly more accurate system because it counts control track pulses rather than segments of time or tape footage. It too backs the machines up rolls them forward and makes the edit, but its control panel is designed so that you can’t make a mistake and push the wrong button, since they are locked in sequence. The other nice thing is that the modifications performed on the decks when the system is installed allow the tapes to be moved forward by hand allowing you to set them virtually to the frame you want. Unfortunately this system requires solinoid operation which is not available in any half-inch machines. Time Base Corrector Correction Got a little bit of egg-substitute on our face because we told you last issue that the new time-base correctors (TBC) will correct everything. Sorry ’bout that. They will not correct everything, and some reports tell us that a lot of the bugs have yet to be worked out. We have decided to get our hands on some ourselves and make some tests before we say too much more. We talked to a fellow from Microtime who confirmed what we had heard—which is that none of the current time-base correctors will consistently correct non-vertical interval switched material. Non-what? Since video comes across in frames, there is a space between each frame. The space between them is called the vertical interval. A vertical interval switcher or editor will wait the micro second from the time you push a switch or edit button until the verticalinterval is reached before making the cut. In a non-vertical interval system, the cut is made anywhere in the frame. While this might sometimes not be noticeable to the eye it sometimes appears as a slight tear in the picture. When such a tear hits a TBC it does a somersault. The man from Microtime also informed us that if you want to insure best results you should first of all use the TBC between decks or between the SEG and the deck in original production. Even better, if your purpose in using a TBC is to get broadcast-quality material, it is better to immediately dub unedited material up to 2-inch and edit on a two-inch system. TBC’s are not miracle workers, you have to feed them fairly good material and the material should be fed to them through a processing amplifier. Some of the TBC systems now come with a proc amp built in. If you want to broadcast you have to think of broadcast from the get-go. Your machines have to be perfectly aligned and your shooting must be done with care. The folks at TV-TV (Top Value Television) produced a tape for PBS on Soul Rush ’73 in which they started with half-inch and edited on 2” quad. They used a proc amp and a CVS S00 corrector and dubbed all the segments they wanted to 2” and then did the edit. Still, such things as drastic change inlight levels during a shot caused problems. (When you have for instance a bright white poster as they had, or a camera pan going from light to dark, the gain control in the camera tries to compensate and does not stabilize fast enough causing a disruption in the synchronization pulse of the picture. This error will appear even after time base correction.) There are about ten TBCs on the market now, and the technology will probably become much more sophisticated. There is one marketed by Kansas State Network which is about a quarter of the price of the rest and is designed for cable origination rather than broadcast. Our suspicion is that the best one will be the one by 3M because many of their broadcast products are the standard of the business. We have heard that they like to be sure of their broadcast products before they come out with them. The 3M corrector is also one of the most expensive. FURTHER READING Petersens' Guide to Video Tape Recording by Charles Bensinger: Petersen Publishing Co. 8490 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, Ca. 90069. This is one book in a series by this publisher on film, video and photography. We came across it at the corner news stand, which was quite a surprise. It happened at a point when we were groaning at the fact that we would have to develop our own manual for our classes. The book is only two bucks and it covers almost every aspect of half-inch video. It is written extremely simply, with tons of illustration. It starts off with a discussion of the concepts of the video movement and then goes on to the electronics of image formation. Then there are chapters on portapacs, editing systems, sound, light, plugs, wires. interchangability of tape, monitors, etc. All the common Sony and Panasonic systems are gone through with diagrams of their controls and step by step procedures as to operation. There are lots of simple little tips that we never knew about before. We are currently using this as a text for our workshops in half-inch production. The book is mainly geared to equipment procedure and does not go into aspects of scripting, nor studio type systems, but as far as it goes it is quite excellent. Designing and Maintaining the CATV and Small T.V. Studio, Kenneth Knecht, Tab Books, Blue Ridge Summitt, Pa. 17214 This book is geared towards the slightly more formal studio situation and contains a lot of information on more sophisticated components such as wave-form monitors, and special effect generators. There is a good deal of theory but not too much to boggle the mind of the beginner. For someone who is going to either build or consider building a studio type operation even if it is a low budget half-inch system | would recommend the book as it gives a sober picture of what you are getting into. As with most books in the field, developments and new equipment are rapidly exceeding the publishers ability to keep up with them. Thus, the book does not cover low budget color systems and such things as Time Base Correctors. But if you plan to talk to people who sell such items, the book will give you a reference point and some basic knowledge upon which to base questions. Video Tape Production and Communication Techniques Lawrence Efrein, Tab Books. This book is geared towards the studio production format. It deals with all the production and directing questions such as lighting, talent placement, pacing the program, scripting and camera movement. While a lot of the techniques seem conservative or old fashioned, it is good to know the rules of thumb before departing from them. Often times public access folks do not understand why people find it hard to sit through tapes. The fact is that people have become accustomed to a certain format and although departures can be made and people can adjust to new styles it is good to get into some of the thinking involved in the textbook approach as it is based on a lot of experience.