Tag Archives: Santa Rosa

Photography

“Thirty Years of Giving” Contributing Photographer

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Thirty Years of Giving Community Foundation Sonoma County

Jean Schultz and Carol Benfell

(From back cover)

“The year was 1983, and the nation was reeling from what was then the worst recession since the Great Depression. As the economy worsened, the Reagan administration enacted sweeping tax cuts and massive reduction in social services.

In Santa Rosa, California, A group or community-minded individuals concerned about the city’s quality of life began looking for another way to maintain human services, support new programs and serve other community needs, such as the arts and the environment.

This is their story — a history of the Community Foundation Sonoma County and its struggles and successes in bringing a richer quality of life to residents of Sonoma County.”

Music, Promos, Video

The Beat: Sounds from the Underground Promo

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“The Beat: Sounds from the Underground” features local Sonoma County bands who were recorded live to tape in the studio.  On many shows I shot interviews which were mixed post production into the set.  I taped the interviews, edited the show and usually authored the DVD and designed the artwork. We had an average crew of 15 volunteers and ran 5-6 cameras.  The use of volunteers was deliberate. The purpose was to advance an important aspect of the mission of the show: to train media center members in studio production. We had skill levels from beginners to experienced and everyone pitched in.  The crew made improvements with video, sound, lighting and general organization with each new production. It was a really fun show to do – all the crew had a great time!  They must have because the show retained most of the original volunteers from show # 1 and continued to recruit new CMC members until its final show. (Maybe it was the Thai food in the canteen?)

Producer: Jill Newman

Live Events, Video

The Great West End Railroad Handcar Regatta

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The Great Handcar Regatta, was a blitzkrieg of colorful creative artistry! A local community event involving several live stages, tents, vendors, exhibitions, scheduled handcar races along a functional railroad track and tens of thousands of spectators and participants spread over approximately 3+ square city blocks.  The event was viewed live as far away as Japan! It is the largest production conducted by the local community media center still to date.

 

The production utilized a 25-person crew of sweaty volunteers, who ran 6 cameras.  2 cameras sent live feed to both the Internet and television, and 4 others were roaming around the maybem collecting footage of festival activities. The tapes were then brought back to the production truck via runners, captured, and aired “semi-live.” It was a 14-hour production day in 100 degree heat!

I designed the program to be a live and “semi-live” production.  Pre-production required locating many outside collaborators who would donate existing video, graphics, and still images, which were used to produce interview packages, video interstitials and many identifying slates for the program.  The production also required establishing invaluable working relationships with community business owners to establish web connection, power sources, etc.

There was no precedence at the community media center for this style of remote semi-live & live production. It was pretty groundbreaking for them and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to do it.