Cable Access TV for Greenfield Massachusetts & Franklin County

Wednesday, December 31 1969

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Aug 10 2018 - 1:20pm

...and now you can see why! Yesterday, our executive director, Oscar Lanza-Galindo, returned from his lunch break with all these essential supplies for our National Tell a Joke day tapings, which we'll remind you are taking place today and Monday. If your favorite cookie is in the picture above, or even if it's not, come on down to our office and #TellAJokeTakeACookie. We're really excited to hear what everyone has to share and we're hopeful for a large turnout (again, the picture is worth a thousand words).

Actually, we're pretty confident our publicity campaign has done its job because we had one person so anxious to participate that he showed up a day early! Our staff was pleasantly surprised when a gentleman entered our office yesterday and announced that he was here to tell his joke. We hated having to give him the bad news but he told us his joke anyway and the entire staff cracked up. Then, since the cookies were already here, we offered him a couple, even though we couldn't get his humor on video, and encouraged him to return tonight. Of course, then an email had to be sent around advising our staff that, not to worry, the open tray of cookies would be put in the fridge overnight. No one would have to make the sacrifice of eating them so they wouldn't go stale.

For detailed information on our Joke Day plans, click here. Also, we have a special blog post in the works for next Friday, so be sure to check back for even more humor.

C is for Cookie

Aug 3 2018 - 3:05pm

This week's blog post comes from GCTV Executive Director Oscar Lanza-Galindo:

Cookies...galletas...biscuits...жигнэмэг...คุกกี้...whichever language you use, we are talking cookies this week. That's because our communication coordinator, Alicia, asked the staff to share about our favorite cookies. Share we did...and often: Thin Mints, Tag-a-longs, shortbread, black & white, the original NYC Chipwich, chocolate chip, and raw cookie dough - we say it counts. And we have to give a special shout out to one of our WMCB DJs, Damee of Nerd Radio, for (without any prompting from us) bringing cookies into our office, on Wednesday, to share with everyone. Talk about a serendipitous turn of events!

Why cookies...? Because Alicia and and our intern, Ben, were hard at work filming a promo video for our celebration of National Tell A Joke Day and the script called for cookies. Sidenote: I like to make sure that our props are as authentic as possible...so if we have calls for volunteers where there is food involved...yeah, just going to leave that thought out there.

So remember...if you like cookies AND you like telling jokes, we can work out a deal. Stop by the GCTV office, 393 Main Street, on the first floor, during one of our two recording sessions. Share a joke, get a cookie (or two). We will be filming your amazing jokes on Friday, August 10th, from 5-6PM, and Monday, August 13th, from 6-7PM. You don't need to stay for the entire hour, either time, so come on by whenever you are ready.

Have a wonderful week.

Spring Cleaning, Finally!

Jul 27 2018 - 1:04pm

If you're a fan of GCTV, and if you're reading this blog post you probably are, you know that spring is a really busy time for us because it's the town's budget season and we have a lot of meetings to cover. Having to film all of those events doesn't leave us a lot of time to clean, organize, and do maintenance in our office and studio spaces. That's why we will be CLOSED Monday, August 20th, through Friday, August 24th. All of your favorite programming will still air on Cable Channel 15 and WMCB 107.9-lp FM but our staff will be hard at work getting rid of broken equipment, repurposing our 3rd floor space, and figuring out what to do with our extensive video tape archive. There are no regular government meetings scheduled for that week, and we are working with all of our producers and DJs to ensure that they are able to produce their shows ahead of time, but, if you need something from us, please plan ahead. When we re-open on Monday, August 27th, you're welcome to stop by and check out our improvements. Until then, stay tuned to our blog for more inside GCTV info.

Have You Heard the One About...?

Jul 20 2018 - 1:24pm

Our current intern, Ben, just asked the office at large why no one plays poker in the jungle. The answer, because there are too many cheetahs! Get it? Well, if you think that joke was bad, just know that we are working on a way for you to share your own sense of humor with the community. August 16th will be National Tell a Joke Day and, to celebrate, we've got Ben hard at work organizing equipment, creating a poster, and figuring out technical aspects of inviting the public into our offices to tell their best jokes on camera. More will be revealed in the coming weeks but, for now, we'll leave you with a picture of Ben working on his proof of concept:

We Want Your Shorts

Jul 13 2018 - 3:02pm

Your short videos, that is! We're making some changes to our programming lineup and one of them is so that we can feature more programs that are less than 10 minutes in length. As of next Friday, July 20th, Greenfield Community Television Community Coverage (GCTV CC) will be replaced by Short Attention Span Television (SASTV).

Over the last few months, we've received several short films from one of our producers and some local musicians have made music videos here. We've been playing these the same way we do Public Service Announcements (PSAs), fitting them in randomly among our regularly scheduled programs, but now we want to give them a higher profile and we'd like your videos to join them. So, if you have a short film, music video, virtual tour, comedy sketch, or some idea for a show that won't fit into a half hour or hour long timeslot, give us a call at (413) 774-4288 and let us know.

Creating a short video is a good way to learn the filming and editing process, in a finite amount of time, and we can help you with all aspects of production. On the other hand, if you have already completed projects, why not share them with your neighbors by airing them on our channel? Finally, if you want to see the great quick hits that people have provide us with, up to this point, be sure to tune in to Cable Channel 15 on Friday, July 20th, at 8PM. After that, the show will air on Mondays at Noon, Tuesdays at 4PM, and Fridays at 8PM, with the selection of shorts changing on a monthly basis. Enjoy and keep checking back for more updates!

This Might be Your Opportunity

Jun 29 2018 - 3:17pm

We'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, to tell you about a change in volunteering around here. With apologies to Will Smith, we thought it was time to announce that we are once again able to train new volunteers during regular Greenfield Town Council and School Committee Meetings.

As you may remember, the switch in location to Greenfield High School involved bringing together more technical elements than when local government bodies were meeting regularly in our studio. Also, there is no control room in the cafeteria where these events are usually held. This meant a learning curve for our staff and difficulty communicating without disrupting officials. So, over the past few weeks, our production manager, Philippe, has been testing out a combination of pre-meeting discussions and hand signals with a friend of his and one of the teens from our recent Behind-the-Screens day. In addition, we've discovered that background noise in the cafeteria makes it unlikely that any soft verbal communication we engage in will be heard by councilors or committee memebers.

The upshot of all this is that we no longer need only experienced volunteers to assist us with these shoots. If you've been wanting to learn how to run a camera or operate a switcher, now's the time! Email alicia@gctv.org to get added to our volunteer list, so that you'll be notified whenever these opportunities come up.

Wow! Did we Have a Monday!

Jun 22 2018 - 1:35pm

Our week didn't start out with a bang, it started out with a crash. When our staff walked in on Monday, their eyes beheld a terrible sight; our channel was frozen on a frame of video from Democracy Now!, which should have ended at 9AM. Adding to the staff's distress were multiple phone messages letting us know that the situation had been going on for 2 days. Our communication coordinator immediately went upstairs to check our satellite feed, while our production coordinator assessed our server. What they discovered was that our broadcast server had crashed and couldn't reboot itself.

Tech support was contacted but they weren't able to respond right away. In addition, we couldn't provide them with all of the information they needed, in order to help us, because it was on the computer that required support. The only thing our staff could do to alleviate the problem was to switch our channel to display Community Bulletin Board slides until we could get back to regular programming. This task was made more difficult by the fact that each time the server tried to reboot itself, it flipped our channel back to the frozen frame of video.

Finally, around 2:30PM, our executive director was able to connect with the tech folks and successfully reboot the server. The problem was significant but, hopefully, a 1-time event. Our server is only about 3 years old, so we'll be keeping an eye on it, but we expect that it has 2-7 more years of life left in it. #SoGladIt'sFriday!

A Lot of Little Updates

Jun 15 2018 - 2:07pm

There's so much going on behind-the-scenes, here at GCTV, that we thought we'd share a few bullet points with you:

Our new office administrator, Ian, is settling in well and is completing his first full week here today. He's learned how to update our community bulletin board, rip DVDs, and download shows for WMCB-lp FM.
Executive Director Oscar & Communication Coordinator Alicia spent much of this week cross-training on programming. Alicia walked Oscar through most aspects of creating our schedule, which dermines what actually airs on Cable Channel 15. Next week, Oscar will be the primary person on this task, and Alicia will step back into an assisting role, in preparation for the permanent transfer of it to his job description.
We had a reasonably short staff meeting on Monday and ended it by learning about the invasive species gnomis englantis.
Community members worked on seven productions this week, in addition to all of their live radio shows. Our staff focused on assisting them, broadcasting the Greenfield School Committee Meeting, and training one new DJ.
Oscar, Ian, & Production Coordinator Philippe also spent a good chunk of this week collating DJ logs and working on reports for the FCC and music licensing companies.

That's it for this week. Check back next week for more!

Ready, Set, Action-Cam!

Jun 8 2018 - 11:29am

This week's blog post comes from GCTV Executive Director Oscar Lanza-Galindo:

It's almost summertime, which means there are plenty of outdoor activities ahead of us. Many of them will involve people taking out cameras and cell phones to record enjoyable, funny, or thrilling moments. But what if you want to be immersed in the action itself?

If you don't already own one, you've at the very least heard of, or seen, an action camera. These little technical marvels let you participate in the activity you want to film. You can attach them to helmets (safety first!), surfboards, bike handlebars, ATVs, and more.

Lots of people refer to them as GoPros but GoPro is the name of a brand and there are plenty of other alternatives, for different price points, including action cams designed for kids...yeah, I wouldn't give a little one a $400 GoPro cam if I owned one.

To give you an idea of just how much they differ, here are two links with prices and reviews:

Digital Trends: https://www.digitaltrends.com/dtdeals/gopro-alternative/
PC Mag: https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2471905,00.asp

Feeling inspired to go out and do some filming while being the center of the action? Here are a few videos to get those creative juices flowing, via the Washington Post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAxqf5ZAssw and the GoPro Channel https://gopro.com/channel/. Also, don't forget to give us a call or shoot us an email if you're interested in having your video aired on GCTV. We might even be able to help you with the editing process.

Finally, our lawyers have asked us to remind you that any links or mentioning of a product by us is not an endorsement and we do not receive any revenue for purchases associated with them.

Happy filming and editing!!!!

Introducing Ian

Jun 1 2018 - 3:11pm

This week's blog post comes from GCTV Executive Director Oscar Lanza-Galindo:

Please join me in welcoming Ian Hamilton as our newest team member! Starting next week, he will begin his part-time position as GCTV/WMCB Office Administrator. Over the past few months, I've had an opportunity to work with Ian in his dual roles of both GCTV volunteer and Greenfield community member and found him to be capable and enthusiastic.

Ian holds a Master of Arts in Public History Film & Media Specialization, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Communication, from the University of West Florida. While at the university, Ian was Opinions Editor at the school's newspaper, The Voyager. In addition, Ian was a student teacher during his graduate studies, and also worked on several archiving projects, which made good use of the fact that he is very detail-oriented.

Ian regularly volunteers at GCTV to film city council, school committee, and other special meetings. Furthermore, Ian's documentary film, Pensacola Punks, previously aired on GCTV and he is currently finishing up post-production on a Frida Kahlo documentary.

With such a diverse amount of experiences ranging from customer service, to time-sensitive research, to teaching and instruction, to film-making, to news editing, I know that Ian will be a great compliment to our team, and we are very excited to have this opportunity to work together.

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