Pre-Production

One of the worst mistakes I made on the first program of 'Blindside Fresno' was to not take the pre-production phase as seriously as I should have.

A lot goes into pre-production; creating titles; setting out end credits and notices and also checking on the timings of program breaks.

William Elliott (Producer) in Editing Suite.

It was not laziness that caused me to miss out these things. I hadn't got the skills to make these things happen and I underestimated the time I would be waiting for the neccessary portions to be created. So this time I decided to hit the editing suite with Darcie, my wife and the host of the show, she has recently taken the neccessary courses at CMAC herself so is able to use the equipment there.

Leif, My Guide Dog lies in harness under the computer desk.

 along with Leif, we actually spent two full working days down at the CMAC studios, creating new graphics packages for the titles, credits and we are adding a short film break in the middle of the program too. A new feature for this next program, but one we hope to include in future episodes to add information such as technology spots and comedy sketches. We'll see how they work out.

The hardest part for Darcie was to recall all of the information she learned in the very comprehensive classes. Learning to operate a professional editing program in two afternoons is pretty tough. We did find the regular staff members at CMAC very helpful in this case, as always. Taking time to explain what sequence of menus she needed to complete a particular task.

Thanks Bestina, Charlie and Johnny. for all the help.

It took about fourteen hours work to create all the new portions of the program. But these fourteen hours take up only about four or five minutes of show time but they will save time in the long run because under our system we now have only a template for the credits, this template will take just about ten minutes to change after every program rather than several hours recreating a end credit sequence.

To see regular updates of behind the scenes operations at 'Blindside Fresno'  Like "Blindside Fresno' on FaceBook.

Busy, Busy, Busy at the Television Studio

This week has been busy, busy busy at the television studio.

Blindside Fresno Logo

With 'Blindside Fresno' getting the go ahead for a series, I have had to plan for up coming shows. so for instance next Tuesday afternoon we will be recording the second show . So Sunday and Monday I was working with my wife on getting the script cleaned up, getting the approximate timings right for segments and then looking for advertisements or public information messages to add to create breaks for the program.




Monday night was also busy because I was working on another producers show. CMAC 'n' Live  From Fresno, a great music show. You can take a look at some of their recent shows here:

Also I havve begun the search for a crew for next weeks sho. This is always a rushed time, it seems as if I go from almost a snails pace to over 100 miles per hour overnight. All the planning needs to be drawn together and time is most definitely short.

Then hopefully with the second show in post production it all starts again with just nine days between the second and third show. After that I have a little more time to work on the third show which will be recorded in mid Septmber.

Having two shows in post production at this time means that from  September I will be able to have one months program in the process to be aired, with another program in post production and a third in the planning and production stage. Then things should get less hectic as a process will be in place for each production.

I am very happy with the way plans are working out at the studio. More than anything I am glad to be busy, busy, busy.

Any Comments? Any ideas for what you might like to see in a 'Blindside Fresno' program? Let me now by leaving a comment below.

Why Does My Doctor Want Me To Be a Professional Patient?

A few weeks ago I was forced to take on a new General Practitioner doctor.

I had gone for a year working with my several specialists, I was very happy with all of them, over the last few years I had at one time accumulated over 14 doctors of all kinds, from eye doctors to foot doctors and all parts seemed to be covered.

Medical Emblem

You might say that if going to see doctors was a card game, for me it would be a game of Happy Families",  and I was never going to get a winning hand because I could not get a gynacologist on my team, without some extreme alterations!

Well back in April I had a spell in hospital and the medics there were very shocked that I didn't have a general practiccioner on my back. So reluctantly I plodded off to find one and signed up.

Since then I have been amazed at all the action he has thrown my way. He is already adding three more specialists on my team. I have appointments all day for several weeks in advance and he is quite happy to almost require me to have a permanent seat at the blood test center.

I don't get this attitude. Why in the world would a doctor think it ok, just because I have ok insurance that I can spend all my days visiting doctor after doctor? After all if I do just that I will not have any insurance.

Plus with all of the advice these new doctors give me, my head is in a spin as I cannot follow one doctors advice without contradicting the advice of at least one other.

So Why does my Doctor seem to think it ok to make me a professional patient?

I cannot live for ever, I cannot do as  every doctor tells me. Adding doctor after doctor only adds to my stress as does the thought of the battle I will have with any one of them, when I try to explain why I took the advice of another and disregarded their advice.

How Do You Describe Blindness?

One of my constant puzzles is "How do you describe blindness?" The problem is not finding words, you know the typical, "It is black" or i"It's nothing. I don't even know what black is."

Blindness is also an experience. In order to understand blindness I think that you must yourself be blind, or visually impaired. But even then the experience is personal, so your experience of blindness will not be the same as mine.

Blind People See Things Differently

T-Shirt

Can we describe blindness in terms of a human experience?

Can a soldier describe accurately the actual experience of battle? Can a woman describe accurately the experience of giving birth to a man?

I don't really believe we can ever come really close to passing on these experiences. Battle is just too great a concept to distill into just a few words. Giving birth likewise is something unimaginable for me.

The degrees of blindness are likewise too varied for any one concept. Some days I would tell you thart blindness is as confusing as hell. I might feel like a stranger in a foreign land, where no one speaks my language, I cannot read the words on signs because to me they arre in an unitelligable script. Another day I might see blindness as normal, a fact of my life. Yet another day blindness can actually feel great. On days such as those I might have found a solution to a problem that has frustrated me, such as finding a new route to a favorite store which avoids a bad street crossing, yes something as simple as road safety makes me very happy these days.

I am not saying that we should not try to explain blindness. After all, that would mean that this blog shouldn't even have been written. It is just that I am wondering if I or we have even the capability of understanding blindness in the language that we use.

Experience is very difficult to translate into language and even harder to translate back from language to understanding, without some common experience. So a soldier can talk to another soldier about the experience of battle, a mother can talk to another mother about the experience of childbirth. Though they may have very different experiences they have some common ground.

As such describing a blind world to a sighted world leaves us with impenetrable barrier. The barrier of blindness.

Blindside Fresno

To see Program 1 "Blindside Fresno: An Interview with Dr. Vivian Kim, RetinologistBlindside Fresno Program 1

Blindside Fresno Program 1

'Blindside Fresno' Program 1: An interview with Dr. Vivian Kim, retinologist working at Advanced Retina Care in Fresno California.

This program is an interview program in which Dr. Kim tells us about eye care and common eye diseases such as Macular Degeneration, Diabetic Retinopathy and Dry Eye.

The program was first broadcast by Community Media Access Collaborative (CMAC) on July 5, 2016.

'Blindside Fresno' Airing Tonight!

The news that 'Blindside Fresno' will be airing at 9pm  PDT tonight, July5, 2016 came as a great shock to me. Catching me by surprise. 

I know that I promised to let you all know well in advance, so I feel that in some ways I have let you down . But the good news is that the first showing will not be the only showing. I have up loaded a copy of the first program to my YouTube channel to publish after the first showing by CMAC, also CMAC will be publishing the show on a dedicated page on the studio website as well as their YouTube channel over the coming few days.

Continued after advertisement.

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Blindside Fresno Supporters Shirt

The 'Blindside Fresno' Supporters T-shirt.   is now available from  our Zazzle.com store. Made of high quality material the shirt will last for many seasons. The printing is clear and will withstand washing and all income from the profits of this shirt will be put to use in creating more programs in the 'Blindside Fresno' series thereby helping the Blind and visually impaired community as a whole with programming created for them by a visually impaired producer.

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In the meantime, if you live in the Fresno/Clovis metropolitan area and have access to Comcast channel  93 or AT&T channel 99 then you can watch live at 9pm PDT or over the web you can go to http:www.cmac.tv and look for the on now/ showing now tab for channel 1 and watch the show over the web as it is streamed. You will need to make allowance for the time zone difference so 9pm PDT is Midnight EDT or 5am BST etc.

I will share details of the CMAC online on demand page and my YouTube page when those become available, probably later tomorrow.