The new media teacher replacing Bob Dunne will be Jo-Anna Lloyd, currently an English teacher at Briscoe. She’ll be attending BevCam’s studio production training in July to help get her up to date on the studio and resources she’ll have available come fall.

BevCam hosted a visit by students from the Proctor School on June 18. Our thanks to Robert, who tutored the group in the basics of TV production. He was amply rewarded with a plethora of gushing thank you letters from the grateful students.

It’s been a busy summer so far for our studio production training crew – Dennis, Rebekah and Robert. The July class will be the third one in as many months. It’s been very gratifying that recent graduates have begun to volunteer at BevCam and that several have expressed interest in producing programs (see “Productions” below).

Robert will be sending out a proposal and invitation to our volunteers and producers regarding a new idea for a regular series of producer meetings. These sessions will provide a forum for producers to exchange ideas and best practices, solve problems, facilitate cross-crewing opportunities, and discuss production and technical issues.

2. PRODUCTIONS

In early June, Muriel Zaginailoff hosted Mary Grant in a taping of “From Beacon Hill to Beverly,” a quarterly production of the League of Women Voters, featuring topics of a political nature affecting Beverly.

The BevCam staff produced coverage of the Beverly High School graduation on Sunday, June 14. The event had to be moved into the field house due to rainy weather conditions.

Film North produced another in its series, “Out and About,” featuring host Chava Hudson. June’s show featured jazz by Roger Brockelbank and Mark Ratallack, as well as the poetry reading of Betsy Ratallack, backed by the duo. Upcoming shows will feature movie producers, screenwriters and a local mystic.

During June, we have been airing Don Berman’s production of the 2009 Beverly Farms Memorial Day Parade, which was taped on May 24.

The “Livin’ the Good Life” senior crew continues its outstanding work. They had a heavy production schedule in June, taping 3 programs last month before taking a small hiatus over the summer.

BevCam taped the annual Beverly Arts Fest on Saturday, June 20 with a combined crew of staff and volunteers, including Jim Mscisz, Susan D’Arrigo and Bob Hobbs. We had a pleasant surprise when Dr. Mavis Jaworski, who is now back in Beverly, came by to help interview exhibitors.

We taped Dave Mauriello’s one-act play, One Great Big Light,” in a marathon session on Saturday, June 13 in the studio. This is the first-of-its-kind production at BevCam. Rebekah is currently editing the footage, which she shot film style under the tutelage of Don Berman.

Debra Crosby’s Talent Quest produced another show in its series, featuring amateur performers. The Talent Quest crew has developed into a very efficient production team. Debra continues to attract talent from distant places, including Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Fred Hammond continues to produce the Beverly Historical Society’s show, “Reflections.” June’s program featured an interview with Phil Karwowski of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, discussing the historic Hospital Point Light House in Beverly.

Walt and Muriel Zaginailoff began pre-production planning on the joint BevCam/League of Women Voters program, “Conversations with the Candidates.” This will be a highlight of our election coverage programming in the fall.

Patrycia Tobis, who just completed the June studio production course, has outlined a new series of programs she intends to produce, called “Debuts,” featuring local bands and music groups. Patrycia has also been part of the Talent Quest crew.

Two other recent trainees – Abby Bertelson and her daughter Gwyn – will be assisting Janet Aldrich in editing footage from her Comflm projects into suitable shows for BevCam.

Susan D’Arrigo, Jim Mscisz and Meagan Hurley, who took the May class, have begun to volunteer around the studio during recent program shoots and other events.

Carol Pallazolla (from the May class) honed her skills (with Beka and Robert’s help) taping a live event and then editing the footage for a program produced by Northeast Senior Health.

3. OUTREACH

Walt conducted several outreach activities with local organizations in June, including a visit to the annual meeting of the Beverly Community Council. He also gave a presentation to the North Shore Business Forum on Cable Access TV. After the meeting, Bonnie Rynkowski of North of Boston Arts Center approached me and wrote out a check for membership!

Kathy Abbott, a Beverly parent, is interested in starting up a Middle School Video club. Since BevCam wants to attract school-age producers, this is a welcome project. Also see the next item.

Jeff Chruniak, a teacher at the North Beverly School, is conducting a photo/video class for middle school students through the Beverly Public Schools this summer. He’ll be using the BevCam studio the morning of Friday, July 17th as part of this session. This is a great opportunity to reach out in our attempts to foster interest in middle and high school students to get involved with TV production.

4. TECHNICAL ISSUES

We continued to be plagued with technical problems getting programs to air. The issue mentioned last month, where we had numerous drops during a broadcast from City Hall, became more serious when no signal at all was getting to the head end. All we had was static when we tripped the modulator. Before that issue was resolved, we encountered another serious problem where we were unable to broadcast Channel 10 at all after an apparent power outage over the June 27 weekend. That problem was resolved when Don correctly diagnosed a problem with the detect switch in the modulator. We are up and broadcasting as of this writing.

We have also replaced our Pioneer DVD carousel player, which we use now primarily in a backup mode, with a Sony unit. The old player had reached the end of its useful life.

Steve Madore, from the MTTI Technical Training Institute, has been spending a week-long internship with us. Don has taken Steve under his wing and assigned him some technical projects, including mapping our LAN and rewiring some lighting fixtures on our overhead grid in the studio.