Fashion and Form

I work in an environment that is pristine. Our Master Control is the showpiece for the building. When someone in management takes people on a tour they never stop and talk in front of a conference room and admire the conference call speakerphone triangle on the table, they don’t admire the sea of cubicles it’s all a blur to them. But Master Control is, as you would expect, a fishbowl. The front wall is covered in monitors the back wall with our logo projected onto acoustical mesh and the sidewalls are floor to ceiling glass panels. Everyone in broadcasting lives under a microscope because in our society TV is as important as a hospital, running nonstop 24/7/365, but Master Control has the edge operators and so we are the last line of defense and as such we get the most scrutiny. The main concern is we have to look good while we do it. If a co-worker from another department has a messy cubicle with post-it notes on the monitor no one cares. Pictures of their family, friends, pets? No problem. Candy dish with some M&Ms? How cute. But my workstation (which shifts daily) must not be personalized, no handy cheat sheets accumulated from past research can be left out in a standard location for easy reference, and obviously no food allowed. If I snag an M&M from my coworkers cube and bring it to the fishbowl I risk my job. I don’t really mean to whine, I do love my job and obviously I look pretty doing it, but it would be nice to do my job without the added stress of appearances.

Jason Troyer
Denver, Co

Dear Santa

As you know I have been very good this year. I learned new things at work and helped my coworkers solve problems every day. I volunteered for overtime, even Thanksgiving day, and have provided an excellent product for my freelance clients. So for Christmas I’m hoping you could have your elves help you bring me some shiny new things. Anything with “Red” in the title would be great either hardware or software.


What is Christmas without music so anything from the Smartsound library would make my heart sing. You can never have too many choices when it comes to soundtracks and since I’m not a musician myself I have to rely on the talents of others when I need the perfect music bed. I've used Smartsound for years and they've never disappointed. From goofy family reunion music to dark and ominous "criminal" music they have a range of choices I've used and loved and with the customized length took it conforms to my wishes so I don't have to change the video to wrap around the audio.

I’d like to look into DSLRs for video so if you could find a Canon EOS 5D Mark II Digital Camera laying around you know with two little kiddos running around I would get plenty of use out of it.


I know you get a lot of requests and I don’t mean to sound greedy so whatever you can come up with would be just fine. One last note if other people in the Denver area are requesting videos to be made next year just drop my business card under the tree and I’ll take it from there.

Jason Troyer
Denver, Co

NASA

Truth maybe stranger than fiction but sometimes it can be more awe inspiring. If the video below was made in a computer it would still be cool, but when you know it’s real NASA photos put together by Michael Konig you can really appreciate the majesty of the photos and our planet. Take a minute and watch the lightning storms, Aurora Borealis, and the clusters of humanity that spot the planet.

Just a reminder that since our tax dollars support NASA all their photos and maps are royalty free. So explore nasa.gov and see what you might be able to use in your next production or at least get some cool stuff to add perspective for your demo reel.

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Jason Troyer
Denver, CO

Is DRM a four letter word?

As consumers and producers we are smack dab in the middle of the Digital Rights Management conflict. It’s not like being between a rock and a hard place it’s more of a multi person Christmas hug with one of the people being Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation. We hardily embrace the fact that DRM allows us to make a living in broadcasting but as consumers if DRM gets in the way of a legitimate backup or time shifting of content it grates on us as it would anyone else. DRM will thankfully and regrettably be with us forever and yes DRM is an unspoken four letter word spoken only by lawyers and politicians (and who wants to listen to them?). Redbox has been used to create a permanent movie library for a dollar a movie with little regard for the crew and talent that produced it. We see the actor’s salary and some notion of Robin Hood slips into the mind of the more noble of us that Hollywood doesn’t need anymore money and so we take. For others no noble rationalization is necessary the odds are you won’t get caught so you take. Free cable from the neighbor to Pirate's Bay, as long as we’ve had thieves we’ve had the need to protect what is valuable. And today people take whatever pittance they can. Youtube users download then re-upload popular videos to siphon off hits from their rightful owner. Viral videos are almost always a one hit wonder so let the right person have their 15 minutes and a little money for entertaining us. In the electronic world in which we live theft is easy, integrity is hard.

Jason Troyer
Denver, Co