Mainstream TV Challenge Fund-raiser

Video Collective Challenges Mainstream TV Networks:
Show Real News or Pay Up
Members of Portland's Flying Focus Video Collective, increasingly disturbed by the irresponsible way mainstream TV--particularly local stations-- squander their use of the public airwaves to report their idea of "news," are challenging local stations to show real news or pay up. Flying Focus is demanding that any time they open a newscast with a full 10 minutes of information citizens can't do anything about (the weather), that doesn't impact people's lives in a significant way (sports) or is relatively trivial (live broadcasts from festivals), the stations must donate $10 to Flying Focus. For good measure, Flying Focus is also asking for $1 every time they put entertainment news (Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, etc) in the first 10 minutes.

"We figure that it's not a lot of money for stations spending thousands of dollars a minute to produce TV," said Dan Handelman, one of the group's founding members. "But unless our efforts to expose the waste of those resources cause a change in the way TV news works in Portland, we should be able to raise our entire $4500 a year operating budget easily through this challenge."

Flying Focus recognizes that not all channels will voluntarily submit to the challenge and has called upon other residents of Portland to monitor the news, reminding the management to support the non-profit each time they violate the "empty news" guidelines. Portlanders are also free to donate the money directly if the stations don't agree to the challenge.

Flying Focus is a 501(c)3 educational nonprofit which has been covering issues of peace and social justice since 1991. The group's volunteer producers have created over 600 programs played back on cable access television, on topics such as animal rights, labor, economic and environmental justice, feminist issues, sexual orientation, alternative health care, and war and peace. For more information, get in touch with Flying Focus at 503-239-7456 or ffvc@flyingfocus.org.

Lending Library Locations

Laughing Horse Books
New address!! June 2006
12 NE 10th (just off Burnside)
(503) 236-2893
Black Rose Collective Bookstore
4038 North Mississippi Ave.
Hours: 12-8 Tu-Sun.
No phone, email them at: blackrosecollective@riseup.net
Small A Projects art gallery
New library!! August 2006
1430 SE 3rd (between the on and off ramps of and underneath the Hawthorne Bridge)
503-234-7993
Wednesdays to Saturdays, 12-6 (closed August 19-Sept.4, 2006).
www.smallaprojects.com Underground Video
closed for rentals 12/21/05 Oregon Peace Institute
Closed in 2004

Liberation Collective
closed 11/30/01

Minimal handling fees may be applicable at each location. Not all tapes are available at all locations.
Please call to check availability.

Flying Focus Lending Libraries

Portland area supporters:

Want to show a video to your class?

Want to hold a House Party (inviting friends over and discussing some public policy issues)?

Don't know if you want to own a copy of one of our programs? Borrow it!

Check out the Flying Focus Lending Library program (pun intended).
Shows are available as of August, 2006.

Currently available in three locations in Portland, OR.

August, 2006: We have added yet another video lending location!
Small A Projects art gallery has a video library, with in-house VCR/DVD/TV.
They are located at 1430 SE 3rd, between the on and off ramps of and underneath the Hawthorne Bridge.
They are open Wednesdays to Saturdays, 12-6. Phone: 503-234-7993.
Laughing Horse Books, library location for 12 years, has moved to 12 NE 10th, just off Burnside.
Black Rose Collective Bookstore, a location since Febraury 2006, is still at 4038 N Mississippi.

Sponsor a tape or DVD! If you enjoy a program you order, but don't want to keep it,
then send it back to us and we'll put in in the lending library.
Your generosity will allow others access to materials
the might not otherwise be exposed to.

Available Tapes:

Media/Communications
•The "Anarchist" "Riot"
•The Total Radio Guy
•Noam Chomsky: The Media & Democracy
•Remembering Nixon Parts I & II
•Interview with Marlon Riggs
•Being Critical of Mass Media: Critical Mass II

Foreign Affairs
• People's Victory: U.S. Releases Confiscated Video of Iraq
•Islands in the Video Stream: Haiti, Cuba, & the US Media
•Dedicated to the Women of Former Yugoslavia
•Alan Nairn: Genocide in East Timor
•Cuba Si, Bloqueo No!
•Nosotros Somos Marcos! (We are all Marcos!)

Urban Concerns
•Peter Newman: Cities & Auto Dependence

Police Accountability
•When Police Kill: 3 Parents Speak Out

Civil Rights
•Portland Citizens Protest Terrorism

The Economy
• Protest in Seattle: Resisting the WTO

Indigenous Peoples
•Howard Zinn: 1492-1992, Reclaiming the People's History

Systems of Government
•Michael Parenti: Democracy, State Power & the Myth of Capitalism Triumphant
•Noam Chomsky: Class War: Global Exploitation and the Grassroots Response

Feminist Issues
•Witness This
•The Clothesline Project

War and Peace
•Risks of War Tax Resistance
•Barbara Ehrenreich: War & Society

Environmental Justice
•Solar Powered Boy
•Clayoquot Sound not Clearcut Sound!
•Forest Conference Rally

Animal Rights
• Vegan Cooking

Miscellaneous
•Rating the Protests

NOTES FROM THE FIELD: Sound, Camera, Action!

We consider ourselves lucky when we get two weeks' notice for a lecture, allowing time to contact volunteers and reserve equipment. The preparation is similar for an interview. The site check, done a week before the event, lets us look for electrical outlets, check the general acoustics of the room, and listen for air conditioner, projector, motor or street noise. Quiet on the set!

On the day of taping, we (the camera operator in training and a coach) arrive an hour before the event starts to stake out a good camera vantage point. We bring twice as many batteries and tapes as we think we'll need. This is where teamwork offers a distinct advantage. One experienced person can do this but it's far more efficient as a team. For tapings using two or more microphones, it's best to bring a third person and a mic mixer.

We plan to place the mic as close to the person speaking as possible. If the speaker habitually walks about the stage, we may need a wireless lapel (lavalier) mic. One of us will personally clip the tiny mic on the speaker inconspicuously above the top button of their shirt or blouse. We hide the wire attached to the transmitter on their belt or in their pocket with the power on. We will have previously loaded the mic transmitter with fresh batteries, then confirmed signal strength through the receiver using headphones.

Another option in a lecture scenario is a mic strapped to the house mic (we can use tape or a velcro strap). We can choose a mic with an omnidirectional, cardiod (slightly directional), or hypercardiod (narrow) pickup pattern, depending on how much we want to restrict the source of the sound. It's a factor of desired isolation or unrestricted inclusion of sound. When it is impractical to get close to the person speaking, we have attached the hypercardiod, a telescopic version of the microphone, to the camera. Other times we have used a PZM (Pressure Zone Microphone) type of mic, mounted on a hard surface (such as a wall, desk, ceiling, floor or 3 foot plexiglas panel on a mount). All but the plexi mounting pick up everything in the room like pens and feet tapping on desks and floors. The PZM on plexi is more directional and useful in aiming toward a dynamic panel of speakers.

The cable will be connected from the camera through the mixer to the mic.

In a sitdown scenario, the interviewer and interviewee can each wear a lapel mic.

In either scenario, XLR cabling to a mixer reduces outside interference (such as radio noise), more so than unshielded cable with 1/4" phone connectors used on musical instruments. We will discuss the use of mixers in another article in the future. MCTV has good how-to's on mixers in their November and December 2003 newsletters.

A shorter version of this article appeared in our February, 2004 newsletter.