By Steve Shlisky

Chapter Education Committee Chairperson

 

      The San Francisco/Northern California Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences encourages future digital media professionals by sponsoring college scholarships. This year seven scholarships are available: five separate undergraduate awards in reporting, videography, writing, production, and overall excellence; and two graduate awards in production and overall excellence.

       The 2015 $2,000 Scholarships are being awarded to: Michael Cotton, from Laney College, recipient of Sheldon "Shelly" Fay Videography Scholarship; Courtney Wagner, from Sacramento State University, recipient of the The Peter Marino Memorial Production Scholarship and Alexandra Swati Guild, from Stanford University, recipient of The "Miss Nancy" Besst Memorial Graduate Scholarship.

      This year's $3,000 Scholarships, underwritten by George Lang of The Big Picture, memorialize two former KGO-TV journalists. The Steve Davis Memorial Undergraduate Overall Excellence Scholarship goes to Ryan Remo Fioroni, from Laney College and The Jerry Jensen Memorial Graduate Overall Excellence Scholarship goes to Lauren Knapp from Stanford University.

      Every candidate submitted a variety of their completed works, a letter of support from a faculty member or dean, a personal essay, a copy of their Grade Point Average (GPA) and transcripts to the twelve-member Scholarship Panel (Robert Erdiakoff, Alison Gibson, Phil Kipper, George Lang, Joyce Mitchell, Manny Ramos, Greg Rando, Keith Sanders, Steve Shlisky, Matt Skryja, Kim Stephens, and Karen Sutton), a sub-committee of the NATAS Education Committee, screened DVDs or uploaded online videos of the entries. The Panel judged in six areas of excellence: Content, Execution, Creativity, Personal Essay, GPA, plus an overall score based on the quality of the entry materials. The panel then discussed, by conference call, the merits of each entry.

      Education Committee Chairperson Steve Shlisky says: "Each year we see the quality and aesthetic vision of these submissions edge closer to the work of the professional journalists in our market - a tribute to the excellent media education coming from our local colleges,". Shlisky is a producer/editor at KTVU Channel 2 in Oakland and a Professor and Co-Chairs the Media Communication Department at Laney College.

    The Scholarship Panel could have awarded seven scholarships this year, but in keeping with the high standards enjoyed by our local chapter, The Scholarship Committee decided to award only those individual entries that rose to the highest professional level. The $2,000 Rigo Chacon Reporting Scholarship and the $2,000 Kenneth Sloat Langley Memorial Writing Scholarship had no recipients.

     The scholarships will be presented during the NATAS Gold & Silver Circle Induction Luncheon on Saturday, October 24, 2015, at the Parc 55 San Francisco, A Hilton Hotel Union Square.  Festivities begin at 11 a.m. with a No-Host Reception.  Lunch begins at noon followed by the Induction program at 1 p.m.

     This chapter awards these scholarships to encourage individuals who demonstrate leadership and talent in advancing the artistic, cultural, educational and technical qualities of television. For information about these and future scholarships and go to http://emmysf.tv/graduate.html

      Sturges passed away July 30 after a brief illness. He was born Albert B. Sturges, Jr., in San Francisco on Aug. 18, 1933. He attended Lincoln High School.
      Inducted into the Silver Circle of the San Francisco/Northern California Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1997, Sturges received a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Francisco State University in 1955, and in 1994 he earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of LaVerne in LaVerne, in southern California.       
      Sturges' entire career was in broadcasting, both radio and television, and is lasted more than 50 years. Besides his work at KBHK-TV, where he served as program director, Sturges also worked in Portland, Oregon and in Chicago. He also worked at radio stations in Petaluma, Santa Maria and Santa Barbara.
      In Santa Barbara, he held the position of general sales manager at KRUZ, and sales manager positions at KTMS/KHTY. In 1989, Sturges served as president of the Santa Barbara Ad Club.
      After retirement, Sturges taught business and management classes for the University of LaVerne and Allan Hancock College, including a business class at the Federal Penitentiary in Lompoc.
      Sturges and his wife, Dorothy, relocated to Sun City in Palm Desert in 2003. He was an avid tennis player and was very proud that his Sun City team participated in the USTA 65-and-over Tennis Championship for 2014 and finished in second place for the Silver Medal.
     Sturges is survived by his loving wife of 42 years, Dorothy; daughter Pamela Sturges Hirsch and son-in-law Rick Hirsch of San Anselmo, CA; daughter Kimberley Sturges Kludas and son-in-law Ron Kludas of Fresno, CA; and four grandchildren: Elizabeth, Ryan, Will and Jack.
    A memorial service will be held in Palm Desert this fall. 

      Coney's public broadcasting experience dates to 1956, when he began work at KQED in San Francisco as producer and director. Among the shows he produced was David Littlejohn: Critic at Large, a weekly survey of arts in the Bay Area.

    Coney is survived by his wife, Jodi, and stepsons John, Roald and Bruce Simonson.

    A memorial service took place Aug. 15 at Queen Anne Lutheran Church in Seattle.

      Kevin Wing is a San Francisco-based producer for ABC News' "Good Morning America", is editor of "Off Camera" and serves as San Francisco vice president on the Board of Governors of the San Francisco/Northern California Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Inducted into the Chapter's Silver Circle in 2013, he has been penning "Gold & Silver Circle Profiles" since 2007.

      How do you even begin to distill 60 years of history down to an hour?

      This would be a difficult job even if everything was all on a server ready for review. Yet technology has expanded in the broadcast realm so much in my own career that I can make the honest claim that I have worked on as many as eight different video formats in my career.

      So imagine that there are more than that in your archive when you have to pare down 60 years to an hour. Where do you start?

      There certainly had been other "specials" produced by KCRA for momentous occasions. However, even the 50th anniversary of the station, which had multiple half-hour productions, was cut from previous already-cut compilations. They used music, though, and mixed it in mono. Natural sound, that one, precious gem of a material for former photographers like me, was virtually nonexistent.

      There is another problem, particularly from the earliest eras of KCRA's history, all of which was shot on film. If you followed up on a big story, say Mike Boyd interviewing mass murderer Charles Manson, you didn't make a copy. You cut the piece of film you needed out of the original story and put it in your new one. This is what happened to many of the early pieces of KCRA film. As a result we had to track down those pieces and fit them back together.

      One bright spot was the fact that KCRA had handed a lot of old film - the majority of it, in fact - to the Center for Sacramento History. Nowhere near what we needed, though, was digitized.

      KCRA's archive, the one here at the station, is a mixed bag of news formats. Beyond the 16mm film, and there's still a ton of that left in our own archive. Some sound is on phonograph records. Some optical or magnetic film. There's also 2-inch videotape. Machines to play that material have quickly gone the way of the Dodo. Most of that was either programming or transferred to 1 inch or ¾ inch tape. The rest, we may never see again.

      The majority of the non-film material is on a mix of videotape formats. 3/4-inch cartridges abound. As do the troublesome Panasonic MII format. We also have DVC Pro, Sony Pro Disc, Sony Beta and SD Cards. If you're counting, that's nine formats.

To produce this special we brought in people going back to the earliest days of KCRA-3's News division. Each of them had stories and each of them had stories we'd never thought of and no one had ever put on an anniversary special before. The stories were personal, poignant . . . and we loved hearing them told, sometimes for the very first time on-camera.

      Then, we had to find the infamous B-roll to cover those stories.

A 16mm film we found from 1975 - the 20th anniversary of the station - was filled with shots of old staff and crews in the field. Yet the glue or splicing material hadn't held. We borrowed a projector from a local director but it could only play one audio format, so the film was silent

      We ran into a similar issue when people told stories of how amazing Boyd's reports were. His description of a California execution is still taught in law enforcement circles. Yet finding the full report is nigh impossible. As a result, many of the older stories were stitched together from several of the best pieces. Some from film, others from film-transfers to videotape, others from either raw videotape of stories or from finished packages.

     Today, we capture airchecks as the newscast runs. That, however, was not the case years ago. The first KCRA broadcast in 1955 does not exist in any form. Even as near as the 1990s, there would be no copy of what aired unless someone decided to record it. Only the stories themselves.

      Many of the former special reports or amazing stories still had their raw tape, saved, stored on shelves in a room adjacent to what had been the KCRA newsroom. Nearly all the raw tape from early anchor Stan Atkinson and reporter Roy Stearns' overseas trips are still here. So are raw tapes covering serial killer Dorothea Puente, including an interview on a KCRA airplane commandeered by Sacramento Police. KCRA's Boyd was the only reporter to get an interview with her because of that.

      Along with that are the examples of today's coverage, much of it on DVC Pro, Disc and server that show just how the legacy of that reporting is influenced by the reporting of old.

      The other thing that stands out is which formats withstand the test of time . . . and which have an obvious problem with aging gracefully. We found 16mm films of station IDs for the Apollo Space missions that were beautiful.     
       The floods of 1955, which we found in the archive, were scratched and dirty, but working. Most of that film still looks great. It looks... like film.

      Much of our ¾ library, now more than 30 years old, created issues with clogged video heads. MII had issues with tape glitches when it was new. It wasn't that much better today. It's not that our material isn't playable. It is what every videotape format is and has always been: videotape. It's magnetized mylar and each pass scrapes a little more of that oxide onto the heads of the machine.

     This is a part of the history you never get to see. This is the firsthand look at the technological history of television. We suffered through all the same format changes that most other television affiliates and networks did, too. Yet the technology fades away when you see stoic reporters stand toe-to-toe with mass murderers or cover disasters. When another wades through flood waters. When a bomb explodes at Harvey's of Lake Tahoe or when our own cameras were live in Boston, showing the world as shots rang out in the very back yard where the Marathon bomber was hiding.

     I spent the last several weeks going home smelling like my grandmother's basement, for sure. Yet there's a strange satisfaction to finding that perfect piece of news history and adding it to the story.

     After all, good pictures and compelling sound are what we all use for telling our stories, right? Our biggest problem? Fitting 60 years into 60 minutes.

     Time for a short television history lesson. 

     In the late 1940s, mainstream t elevision hit the airwaves after 20 years of experimentation. 

     In the early 1970s, Sylvester "Pat" Weaver wired up San Francisco, and the City by the Bay got cable TV.

     Fast Forward to 2013 , and IPTV, also known as streaming video, hits the scene with affordable bandwidth.

     The new technology is here and the big question is how is it going to affect our industry.

     Are IP based television channels going to pop up all around us and how does this content delivery method differ from normal TV and cable?

 

     Two former NATAS chapter members, Sam Gold and Rod Laughridge, are about to take the bull by the horns and see where it takes them. Simply put, they're re-inventing the wheel? Why? Because it needs to be re-invented! Community IP Media & Television Inc. is their production company that is about to roll out something a little bit different.

      They have created a medium known as "Community Media," which in its simplicity is Public Access and/or Community Access television WITHOUT the politics and political baggage that almost always accompanies taking any type of funding from a city or county entity via the state PUC/DIVCA/ cable company pass-through and turns a Silk Purse back into the veritable Sow's Ear!

     Since they don't take funding from DIVCA, they are in a totally unregulated arena, and don't have to deal with the restrictions that Public & Community Access stations are forced to comply with on a daily basis.

     As veterans of the public access arena for many years, they have experienced how NOT to operate a channel, so they have no place to go but up. Just because they are in the Community Media arena, it's no excuse for not operating their channel in a highly professional manner. Proper management is so very important to success!

Where do they get their operational funding? As a 501c3 non-profit, they are able to apply for foundation grant funding. Other income sources include program underwriting, memberships and donations from the community-at-large. 

     But they take the game seriously and take it a step further. They are NOT a cable channel, but an internet  based video channel that can be accessed via most any mobile device such as a tablet, laptop, internet ready television set and smartphone from anywhere in the world. Visit them at sanfranciscochannel.tv

Press the play button and the broadcast will go full screen. No app to deal with. It's all very straightforward.

     Internet television has disrupted many of the conventions of traditional television program delivery. Viewers and consumers are increasingly watching premium TV content online, and are now expecting to be able to access this content on just about any device. Up until recently,  online viewing was mostly limited to Video-On-Demand (VOD) and catch-up TV.

     Mainstream television, the corporate structured, spoon fed, ad heavy/content light concept that is delivered direct to your home or business through a wired cable box is in its death throes. It is slowly, inexorably being replaced by consumer driven, a la carte, interest-focused, content heavy internet video that is delivered direct to you wherever, whenever and however you want it. Community Media should be no different.

     The San Francisco Channel is community-based -- by San Franciscans, for San Franciscans, and to engage and involve San Franciscans with high quality video content from some of the top producers from around the country and around the world! They will also be producing a considerable amount of local content spotlighting our city and its valuable treasures and resources.

     Even their bandwidth provider is a San Francisco based company. They are hoping to team up with a local newspaper to offer a unique perspective of San Francisco news.

Unlike a cable channel on your TV set or cable box, they promote a viable brand, and the brand is the San Francisco Channel.tv and it's new content that will only be available on their IPTV channels

     State-of-the-art production equipment is now almost totally portable and can be utilized and set up almost anywhere. A totally dedicated studio setting isn't really necessary anymore.

     If you would like to become part of this unique vision, give them a call at Community IP Media & Television, Inc?, at 855-295-4660.

     It's back! Yup, Creature Features had 14 fabulous, unforgettable years on Bay Area television, but it returns once again in the 21st century to San Francisco Bay Area television but it's only going to be available on IPTV, via San Francisco's own "The San Francisco Channel", "Television Without The TV", the new IP based internet television channel located at www.sanfranciscochannel.tv

      For many years since its debut in 1971 on KTVU with its host, the late Bob Wilkins, with cigar in hand, Creature Features dispensed the worst in horror movies ever made. As Wilkins used to say "Don't stay up and watch these, they're not worth it!"

      After Wilkins' retirement in 1979, the reins were taken over by now SF Chronicle Pink Section DVD reviewer John Stanley (author of "The Gang That Shot Up Hollywood",  "I Was A TV Horror Host" and the "Creature Features Movie Guide") who kept things going until 1984, when Creature Features left the Bay Area airwaves. Thirty plus years later, those memories still thrive and the Baby Boomers want them back. Their devotion still continues to amaze!

      Throughout those years, John interviewed many celebrities, many of whom have since passed on and we will be tacking them on to the Creature Features shows as "The John Stanley Interviews" and maybe digging into the archives and bringing back some of the old shows and memories for re-broadcast with a hefty technology update!.

      You never knew who (or what) you'd see next on Creature Features. There was an endless parade of the totally weird people who claimed to be witches and martians, inventors who built robots, a woman who knitted a sweater for King Kong, local filmmakers who showed bizzare TV commercial take-offs.

      Working with other horror show aficionados from around the country we will be bringing those same awful movies back as Creature Features Presents The Dungeon of Dr. Dreck on Friday Nights at 11 p.m., Creature Features Presents The Saturday Fright Special on Saturday Nights at 11 p.m. and  Creature Features Presents Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Theatre on Sunday Nights at 11 p.m.  It should be noted that Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Theatre is locally produced in the Bay Area.

      Now semi-retired, and presently in production with Homecoming: A Fable II, shot at the infamous Devil's Slide in San Mateo County, with the assistance of Bay Area videographer Dina Boyer, Stanley will be working on some new and interesting future Creature Features projects to once again promote this almost forgotten genre of cinematic trash (their words).

      For more information go to www.creaturefeatures.tv or www.stanleybooks.net.

      In September, KRON launched a new daytime programming lineup that replaces paid programming with a first-of-its kind crime show, a reality television drama and the liveliest entertainment news and talk variety hour straight from Hollywood.

New to KRON 4 lineup are:

      Bridezillas, the syndicated version of the hit AMC show that chronicles the lives of women engaged to be married, casting their busy schedules in an emphatic and humorous fashion.

      Hollywood Today LIVE, a brand new one-hour, daily entertainment news and talk variety show that delivers the latest and most outrageous movie, TV and pop culture news, exclusive celebrit y interviews and the hottest red carpet premieres from the heart of Tinsel Town.

      Crime Watch Daily, the first crime show to air in daytime syndication and the "first-of-its-kind dynamic program that covers the world of crime, mystery and drama". KRON will work in tandem with Crime Watch Daily on local undercover investigations and exclusive stories. Recently, the two worked on an investigation into Uber and how the company screens its drivers.

     "We are very excited about our Fall Launch that eliminates paid programming and infomercials from our Monday-Friday daytime schedule for the first time since 2002," said Vice-President and General Manager Ashley Gold Messina. "This move adds continuity to our schedule, gives the Bay area viewers a reason to stay with KRON 4 all day long, and gives us an additional promotional platform for our news products. With this new line-up, we have a great foundation to advance our growth plans."

     "It was really important that we provide viewers and advertisers with top-notch, unique programming that they can't get anywhere else," says Bob Scutari, General Sales Manager. "We look forward to maximizing all the opportunities that our new schedule will bring."

Below is KRON's daytime lineup:

10:00am - Dr. Phil

11:00am - Law & Order Criminal Intent (new time!)

12:00pm - Bridezillas (new to the line-up!)

1:00pm - Hollywood Today Live (new to the line-up!)

2:00pm - The Doctors (new time!)

3:00pm - Crime Watch Daily (new to the line-up!)

4:00pm - Dr. Phil

5:00pm - KRON 4 News at 5

Lessons We Can Learn from Dogs

 

In the TV news world, you often see life and people at their best, but also at their worst. As humans and as time wears on, it's easy to forget the little things that make life worth living. However, dogs know how to live and love. Here are some lessons we can learn from them...

* Always run to greet loved ones when they come home.

* Never pass the opportunity to go for a joy ride.

* Relish in the simple joy of fresh air and wind in your face.

* Take naps.

* Stretch before rising.

* Run, romp and play daily.

* Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.

* Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

* Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

* On warm days, lie on your back in the grass. On hot days, drink lots of water and find shade.   

* When you're happy, dance around, and wag your entire body.

* Take long walks and stop to smell the roses (and anything else that interests you) along the way.

* Be loyal.

* Never pretend to be something you're not.

* If what you want is buried, keep digging until you find it.

* No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout. Run right back in there and try it again.

* When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

* Look at the people you love like they're the best thing since peanut butter.

~ Author unknown

 

     Karen Owoc is the Clinical Exercise Physiologist at a San Francisco Bay Area hospital's Cardiac Rehabilitation program and former NATAS Governor. She produces and hosts "The Health Reporter", a half-hour medical program, and a series of short-format health and lifestyle TV segments. Visit her blog for more healthy living how-to's at http://TheHealthReporter.tv.

 

Joseph McNamara New KITV Chief

  KITV in Honolulu has a new president and general manager.

       In the September edition of  Off Camera , in a story we featured to mark the 20th anniversary of KMAX CW 31's morning program,  Good Day , we mistakenly identified the show as  Good Day Sacramento . The show was known as the latter from the 1990s until earlier this year, when the title was simply shortened to  Good Day .

      This was an editorial error, not a reporter error. We at  Off Camera regret the mistake with our sincerest apologies to everyone at KMAX CW 31.

It's former KDTV Anchor, Silver Circle Class of 1994 and 

Gold Circle Class of 2008, Luis Echegoyen!

OFFICERS

President:  Keith Sanders,  San Jose  State University

Vice President- San Francisco:  Kevin Wing,  ABC-TV Good  Morning America

Vice President-Sacramento:  Cynthia Zeiden,  Zeiden  Media   

Vice President- Fresno:  Kim Stephens,  KMPH Fox 26 

Vice President- Reno:  Terri Russell,  KOLO 8  

Vice President- Smaller Markets:  (Vacant)

Secretary:  Randy Forsman,  KCRA 3

Treasurer:  Jim Spalding,  Spalding & Company

Past President:  Javier Valencia,  Consultant

 

NATIONAL TRUSTEES

Linda Giannecchini,  KQED 9  (National Awards Chair)

Alison Gibson,  Media Cool  (National 2nd Vice Chairperson)

John Odell,  CCSF Emeritus

Steve Shlisky,  KTVU Fox 2  

Alternate: Kevin Wing,  ABC-TV Good Morning America

 

GOVERNORS

Kent Beichley,  KRON 4

Alyssa Deitsch,  KHSL/KNVN

Randy Forsman,  KCRA 3

Wayne Freedman,  KGO-TV ABC7 

Luis Godinez,  KDTV Univision 14

Richard Harmelink,  KFSN ABC30   (Nominating Chair) 

Pablo Icub,  KUVS Univision 19

Brian Johnson,  KFSN ABC30

Sean Karlin,  Beyond Pix Studios

George Lang,  The Big Picture

Da Lin,  KPIX 5

Terry Lowry,  LaCosse Productions   (Gold & Silver Circle Chair) 

Melissa Mapes,  KITV 4

Joyce Mitchell,  4 U Productions

David Paredes,  KNTV NBC Bay Area

Pat Patton,  Consultant

Ross Perich,  ProMotion Studios

Manny Ramos,  Manny Ramos Communications

Erik Rosales,  KMPH FOX 26

Brenda Salgado,  KGMB/KHNL Hawaii News Now 

Don Sanchez,  KGO-TV ABC7 (Retired) 

Matt Skryja,  CSAA  

Stephanie Stone,  KFSN ABC30

Karen Sutton,  Independent  (Emmy Gala Chair)

Melanie Woodrow,  KGO-TV ABC7

 

COMMITTEE CHAIRS

Activities/Programs:  Cynthia Zeiden,  Zeiden Media 

Archives/Museum:  John Catchings,  Catchings & Associates

                            Linda Giannecchini,  KQED 9  

Awards:  Julie Watts,  KPIX 5

Education:  Steve Shlisky,  KTVU Fox 2 

Finance:  Alison Gibson,  Media Cool  

Legal/Bylaws:  Mark Pearson,  ARC Law Group 

Membership:  (Vacant)

Marketing:  Patty Zubov,  Platonic TV

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Darryl R. Compton,  NATAS  

Contact Information:

National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
San Francisco/Northern California Chapter
Darryl Compton, Executive Director
4317 Camden Avenue
San Mateo, CA 94403-5007
Phone: 650 341-7786 or 415 777-0212
Fax: 650 372-0279
[email protected]

 

The name "Emmy®" and the graphic image of the statuette, are registered trademarks of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.