West Harford, Ct is strange in that unless you are a native of there it is almost impossible for the average visitor to find places due to hidden signs.  The Video Frstival is another matter--it was a hoot.  Ryan and P-e-t-e-r-spent a plethoria of hours preparing for the festival in that we (with others) had to judge the two best in show productions and also prepare all the video snippets and viewing room clips for the event.  The West Hartford gang did a superb job of preparing for the event and making our job easy for the Awards Night.

Peter Pijoan of Wolfeboro Community Television is busy managing the video presentation for the 2009 ACM-NE Video Festival.

Prior to the Awards Night Celebration - the afternoon was workshop time during which we opted for the "Hosting Tips and Interviewing Techniques" and "Story Structure" workshops.  The following is a list of tips from the first one:  (1) Choose a topic that interests you or be a good actor.  (2) Don't choose a guest  that will talk over the viewers heads.  (3) For controversial topics learn as much about the topic as you can so you don't have to ask a question you do not already know the answer to.  (4) Ask questions with as few words as possible, but don't ask any that can be answered with one wor i.e. "no".  (5) If an answer is a non-answer then ask it again another way.(6) The only "dumb" question is the one you don't ask.  (7) Be a good listener, don't argue, don't interrupt unless you see that the guest is having difficulty answering.

One of the workshops we attended was Script Writing & Story Structure with a panel of three guest speakers:  Susan Christensen Stoner, Journalist and former Anchor; John Sablon, retired General Assignment Reporter; and Ron Semiao, Senior Vice President of ESPN Films/Creator of ESPN X Games.  Each of these speakers had the same basic message, a story has to have a begining, middle and end and needs to have a character that goes through crisies in order to change.  A boring story results from no character change (via a crisis) from beginning to end of the story.  The lecture part of the workshop was fairly short, Q&A took up most of the time.

Finally, to the main event, the awards ceremony - well attended - went like clockwork.  However, it was the clock that was kind of a downer as the event went tooooo long as indicated by the sparse audience at the final bell.  This was not due to local and national politicians that spoke or the acceptance speeches but due to other factors which will be corrected for next time around.

Lastly, an explanation of the opening statement - the sign for our hotel was small and hidden by a wall (1/2 hour trip became 1 1/2 hours) Also the Mexican restaurant we had an interest in eating at had their name in small print on a awning (discovered after we had eaten elsewwhere).  Oh yes, and then there's the case of the missing desk clerk at the hotel registration desk, who upon finally arriving, told us you can't have the type of room you had a "reservation" for.  Oh well, se la vie.

(0) Discuss This Article