Category: Media

Movie Concept – Burlesque Strippers and Jazz Musicians

About twelve and a half years ago I spent my thirtieth birthday in New Orleans with a wonderful old friend. She took me to a burlesque show and I had a great time. It was a really hot NOLA night.

Bellow are some notes I made then. I found the piece of paper with these notes stuffed inside a copy of the Sun Ra biography Space is the Place.

Is this a movie you’d like to see? Might you donate on Kickstarter to see it made?

9.24.00 New Orleans Shim Sham Club & Juke Joint “Shim Shamettes”

Two main groups of characters. The Strippers & The Musicians

Question One
Is this movie: a) Documentary b) Docu-Drama c) Dramatic Fiction

Question Two
Is this a) a script b) a road map c) an instruction manual

Original thoughts: Strippers and musicians lives before, during, & after their performances. The “show” is in a review style lasting an hour or more. NOT the nonstop grid on a poll and watching football stuff. This is set in the 40s – 50s seudo-past.

III Most Shots of the scenes will describe intermittent lives of the strippers and musicians separate from each other. These two groups will not appear together in a scene interacting until the end of the movie.

Goal of separation is to express the segregation of these joints. The clientele are white men who come to see white women strip and hear hot jazz made by black men.

Another important point that the movie needs to make is that the “conductor or director of the characters action is the musicians and the music they play.

Structure of movie Ideas
Cuts from scenes of strippers working, living, partying, getting in trouble to musicians doing the same. Hot Jazz soundtrack sets all temp of cuts. Sometimes literally on the beat or a musical temp changes occasionally when the strippers shake their hips and breasts to the beat.

Local governments withhold public access TV funds

Local governments withhold public access TV funds. Get the story from this Independent Weekly blog post by Fiona Morgan called Legislature to consider future of public TV channels.

Both Chapel Hill and Orange County received money for Chapel Hill channel 8, on which The People’s Channel broadcasts.

Yet neither government has passed that money on to The People’s Channel. The law says local governments must spend the supplemental money on PEG channels, but it doesn’t specify which channels.

Chapel Hill spokesperson Catherine Lazorko says the town manager and town council have yet to decide how to distribute PEG funding. Chapel Hill operates its own government channel, 18, which broadcasts public meetings.

Orange County, which certified a total of three PEG channels, decided to spend all $29,400 of its supplemental PEG funding on its own government channel, 265, which broadcasts county commissioners meetings. The annual budget for Channel 265 is approximately $40,000.

There is also some discussion going on about it on Orange Politics. You’ll find my passionate comments there. Here is one.

I am very disappointed in the position Town of Chapel Hill Staff and Orange County Staff have taken in this situation. As Fiona’s article pointed out the law governing the funds distributed by the state is up to interpretation. But for the County Assistant Manager and Manager to hide behind a legal opinion that they support to retain funds purposely earmarked by the State for a local non-profit is disgusting!

I wish this were a case of unemotional bean counting in a disconnected bureaucracy. But it just doesn’t seem so. I look forward to more information coming to light on the attitude our public servants have had when dealing with our fellow citizens. If they treated other nonprofits with more loud public voices this way I think Council, Commissioners, and citizens would be publicly outraged.

Please consider donating to The Peoples’ Channel, taking a course to learn how to shoot and edit your own video at TPC, and asking your local representatives WHY our Staff members act this way.

To get a bit more background on the situation here is a PDF that describes PEG (Public Access Television) Funding.

Media Ignores Pentagon's Lies

Since the New York Times published the story Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand media like CNN, Fox News, and others have completely ignored this serious scandal. Watch this great video from Matt Thompson of FreePress.net about how our main stream American media really isn’t on our side. (Video via The Uptake.)

Update Turns out the Pentagon’s actions aren’t just unethical… they’re illegal!

myncCamp – TV Station does a BarCamp

Before BarCamp RDU gets here there is another event with a serious Bay Area guest. Its called myncCamp and its sponsored by NBC17. (Get more info on the myncCamp wiki.) They have a new portal website called mync.com. The station is soliciting input and is going about it in a very cool way. By holding a barcamp style meeting. Plus the very smart and inspirational Tara Hunt is coming to NC!

The point of myncCamp is to get the members of the local RDU area (and beyond…everyone is welcome) to discuss what they are working on and what NBC-17 could do better for the community at large. We will discuss anything you think is pertinent to helping the experience of living in NC even more awesome.

Some helpful areas may be to look at how other hubs of community around the US are gelling. Could NBC-17 help out with that? Perhaps you are working on something cool like Coworking or a startup that may be able to partner up? Whatever it is, we’d love to have you come out and share. If nothing else, it will be an awesome day to just get to know one another better.

I’m impressed for a few reasons. One is inviting Tara Hunt to help. She’s been very inspirational to me. It was the work of her and others that got me interested in coworking. Their office Citizen Space has really influenced me. They are a big reason I started Carrboro Coworking. I am so very grateful to her. Plus she has a interesting new book called The Whuffie Factor that’s about to come out. I’m really looking forward to reading it.

Another reason is because Wayne Stutton is involved. He works for NBC17 and has done great things with local new media journalism at the Local Conversations blog. The station really took a step in the right direction when they hired Wayne and other community content managers. Its built major community trust I think.

update: I honestly don’t know how this event will be conducted. Barcamp style? unconference style? traditional event style?

Local Conversations WNCN – NBC 17 Interview

Community Building with Brian Russell from waynesutton12 on Vimeo

Wayne Sutton the Community Content Manager over at WNCN NBC 17‘s Local Conversations blog met me at the Open Eye Café in Carrboro for a quick video interview. He asked me about blogging and other social media. I shared my thoughts on how to start blogging and how this new social media would effect the 2008 presidential campaign.

We met at 12:30pm. Its now 4pm and the video is already up. (Thanks to the Town of Carrboro WiFi) Fun to watch Wayne work with the small HD video camera and a laptop. I’m really impressed with what Wayne is doing. Its a cool blend of Main Stream and Citizen Media.

GOP Candidate Cho Gets Another My View Column

The December 9, 2007 Chapel Hill News ‘My View’ column titled GOP chair Cho to challenge Price contained the following:

A former Presbyterian minister and tae kwon do instructor, Cho is a writer raising two children in Chapel Hill. He has been writing a monthly My View column for the Chapel Hill News. His column will go on hiatus during his run.

Now on December 26, 2007 Mr Cho has another column in the Chapel Hill News titled ‘Soul patrol.’ (It’s not online yet. I just pulled it out of my driveway at 12AM.) At the end of Mr. Cho’s column today is this excuse,

This is his last My View for now. Cho’s column is on hiatus as he campaigns for the Republican nomination for U.S. House District 4.

To me this column contradicts the first one. His column was supposed to “go on hiatus.” Second, its a clear violation of the News’ journalistic principles. Will Congressman Price get a My View column so he can promote his personal values too?

Cross posted from BlueNC.

Just Pay the Writers Fairly Dammit!

Have to say I was pretty confused about the details of the TV writers strike. But then I saw this video.

I was impressed that some actors and producers spoke out in solidarity. But now that the smart writers of The Daily Show have laid it out… I grok it. Viacom is being fat cat greedy!

This video helped me understand why we need them so much. These folks are our teachers. Well some of them. Maybe not the folks who write for reality TV. 🙂 hugs and kisses! This vid is funny and educational BTW. It explains a lot!

Thanks for sharing this Albert! More info at the United Hollywood blog.