Hey everyone, check out this sweet invitation Bekka created yesterday! And come to our Open House if you live in Saint Paul, it's going to be awesome! Stay tuned, I'll be posting pictures from our last studio shoot in the next few days.

Wifi is coming...

The CTEP Wifi Video Project is now available for your viewing pleasure! Click here to watch the clip.

We spent a lot of time and energy putting together about 2 minutes of video. Let us know what you think.

Chicago was a blast. The Wrens were spectacular, as was The Casket Lottery. Jeremy's family was an absolute pleasure.

We drove to St. Cloud last Friday to see Kevin Smith. He spoke for four and a half hours before they had to close the place down. It was awesome.

The Alliance for Community Media Conference took place this past Friday and Saturday. There were a number of fantastic presentations, including one on youth media in which two Set It Up members, Donald and Xavier, participated. They did a really fantastic job representing SPNN and discussing their work on the show.

The second episode of Set It Up for the season is now available for download! Click here to watch it. Alternatively, you can right click on the link and choose "Save Link As" to download the file to your hard drive. As with the last file, Quicktime is required to view the clip. Please post comments!

SPNN pics 253
Originally uploaded by kevinkalla.

We recently went out and shot the new ending to the wifi video. It was very, very cold out during our shoot. That's why Roxanne looks angry. I'm in post-production right now, and I've run into a few snags with some clips having gone missing. Fortunately, we still have all of the raw footage on tape, so I can always re-capture that if all else fails. Tomorrow morning I'm getting up extra-early to drive to the windy city with my roommate Jeremy. And then we'll see The Wrens. And it will be awesome.

I'm definitely overdue for a post, but it has been a bit hectic lately.
Here's a quick recap of what's been going on. We had the studio shoot for our second episode of the season yesterday. It went fairly well, although it took longer than we anticipated. Andrea's back was hurting, so it was up to me to set up the studio.
Fortunately, Donald came in early to help out and saved the day. As you'll notice in the picture I've posted, we projected the intro to Set It Up as the backdrop of the set. It was an experiment (and hopefully it doesn't come across as too distracting).

The media committee has been meeting about future projects - we're going to reshoot the end of the WiFi video tomorrow. Upon completion of that project, we have a couple of other ideas in the works. We're planning on creating another presentation involving a film screening and a more in depth discussion of the power of media to create change. We've also been talking with other CTEP members about possible video projects, including a short documentary piece on the WiFi initiative.

At SPNN, I've written an article for the latest issue of the SPNN newsletter about our four youth films that were accepted into the Walker Art Center's 2006 Girls in the Director's Chair program. For those who are interested in checking the event out, it takes place at the Walker on Saturday, March 4th starting at 10:00 am. There are screenings throughout the day, lasting until 5:00 pm. The films from SPNN will be showing at 2:00 pm and 3:30 pm. I'll be bringing youth to the festival, and I highly encourage everyone to attend.

In other news, I've started helping out on Mental Engineering once again, which has been a lot of fun. Al Franken is going to be on the show April 1st, so I'm definitely not going to miss that taping. That's all for now.

SPNN pics 227
Originally uploaded by kevinkalla.

As I'm still not feeling well, I left work early today to do some work at home. Tomorrow's my birthday, so I'm hoping to feel slightly less out of sorts come tomorrow morning. As for a progress report, things are going fairly smoothly at SPNN. We're still working on our fashion and clothing episode of Set It Up, and I've been very busy doing all sorts of small tasks (computer maintenance and the like). Also, I was involved in two presentations last week for CTEP. I use the word involved loosely. The first was a presentation that Roxanne did on teaching media literacy. Riley and I talked about the tools and techniques that companies employ in the creation of advertisements, but all of the credit for the presentation goes to Roxanne. Then on Friday, our committee did a presentation on media representations and the power of media to create change. This presentation was Dave's baby, but we helped position his discussion of representations of American Indians and the film In Whose Honor within a greater context of the power of the media. For having little time to prepare, I think our presentation went relatively smoothly. And while the film was exceptionally difficult to obtain, I think people responded favorably to it. All right, that's all for now. I've included a photo taken last month at the studio taping of our first episode. Enjoy!

Hey everyone! A real post is coming soon, but here's something to tide you over until then. I've been very excited that our current episode of Set It Up is going to include an animated piece. In the spirit of this, please check out the video for Okkervil River's "For Real." Click here to view the video!

The season premiere of Set It Up is now streaming on the web! This episode was a learning experience, and the technical difficulties are apparent. However, there are flashes of brilliance. In particular, look out for the show opening (even the music was done in-house) and for a spoken word piece entitled "Racism: Then and Now." Click here to watch the first episode! (If you have any problems playing the video, try installing the newest version of Quicktime).

Postcard for enewsletter
Originally uploaded by kevinkalla.

So I've been working on a postcard to send out to youth that have been involved with SPNN in the past. We're trying to get people signed up for our e-newsletter and to update their contact information (to keep our database current). It's the first postcard I've ever designed, and here's what I came up with. Thoughts?

Happy New Year! It's my first day back at work after my two wonderful weeks in Washington. The season premiere of Set It Up will air tonight at 7pm on channel 16 (if you live in Saint Paul). If you happen to live anywhere else, you'll have to wait until I compress a copy that will stream on SPNN's website. Also, I encourage everyone to check out this article. The beginning of the article gives a really good overview of what public access television is, who uses it, and how it is funded. It then goes on to examine some of the proposed bills in congress that may affect the future of public television.