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Youth Advisory Council Blog Feed

The Youth Advisory Council Blog is syndicated here for your convenience. To see the entire blog, where you can leave comments and subscribe by email to the latest blog entries and comments, visit our Blogger page.

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PSA Friendship Circle Palo Alto Branch

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Public Service Announcement

Friendship Circle Palo Alto Branch

Published 2008-05-12T17:38:00.001-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

PSA Adolescent Counseling Services

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Public Service Announcement

Adolescent Counseling Services

Published 2008-05-12T17:36:00.001-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

PSA American Humane Society

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Public Service Announcement

American Humane Society

Published 2008-05-12T17:34:00.001-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

PSA Action Against Hunger

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Public Service Anouncement

Action Against Hunger

Published 2008-05-12T17:33:00.001-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

Violence in the Media

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The Youth Advisory Council discusses violence in the media and how it impacts teens today. Two guests speakers, Quentin Jones and Ricky Minno share their perspectives about the influences of video games, movies, music and other media. (25:40)

Published 2008-03-31T13:06:00.001-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

New Shows (And New Shows and New Shows)

Well, we're on to a new task now. Each of us are producing two shows, one studio show and one individual project of our choosing. Most of us are behind on both. Currently we've produced two studio shows-

"In-10-se questions," produced by Ari and Isaac, is essentially U.S. Government jeopardy. In it, two adolescent males (both named Mark) answer questions like "what is the Hawaiian state fish" and so forth. It is most notable for using unusual lighting and special effect configurations(including sound and lighting changes during the taping). In this way it was ambitious. It utilizes a creative (though somewhat Goth) set and creates a definite "theme." Isaac hosts the show.

"Violence in the Media" produced by Adam and I explores common questions about the media's influence over rising youth violence trends. It invites on two guests; Quentin Jones, a lecturer on Media Literacy and Ricky Minno, a young person with a taste for violent video games ("Call of Duty" and so on). Jones and Minno debate the media's roll, however, atypically Minno supports the belief that media does influence youth, while Jones argues that it is only one of many factors. Mary hosts the show.

Next week Jeremey and Mark will be producing a game show (based on the board game "Balderdash"). Their list of unusual words is rather impressive. It looks to be a bit more light-hearted than last week's, perhaps a positive change.

Our individual projects, as I said above, aren't going extraordinarily well. Only one student shot footage. But we will all be working hard over the next two weeks and no doubt they will air within the month.

Published 2008-03-30T13:08:00.001-07:00 by Emily Glider

Media Center YAC 3/30/08

3/30/08-

It's the first day back to the YAC from spring break, and needless to say, almost all of us did not get our personal project footage. Because this was supposed to be an editing day for our projects and none of us have any footage (except for Mark, hence the almost), all we are doing today is planning for our show, which involves pencils, paper, and Danielle, and transferring videos from tapes to digitized videos, such as mpeg-4's.

Today, I learned, well, how to digitize videos using FCP and how to upload the mp4's to blip.tv, and the video that i uploaded is on our blog! It also happens to be the video that my group (Adam Shore, Mary Minno, ME, Ari Kaye) made, so watch it now!

Can't think of much more to say, so I am going to share a.... success story! today, I had success brainstorming for my personal project and digitizing / uploading a video!
I think that my unbridled hard work and determination led to these motivational success stories, and that I am a role model to the young peoples of America, especially those in Kentucky.
After this monumental success, i feel much more confident about my life and now want to jump higher, run further (farther, if grammar is your thing), go to college!

~Adam Tong

Published 2008-03-30T12:57:00.000-07:00 by Adam Tong

High School Sports

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Sports are part of the majority of a high school teen's lives. From participating to cheering on their team at a home game, most teens' daily schedule is defined by sports. However, there are positives and negatives of high school sports. This documentary focuses on interviews with athletes, coaches, and reporters, all of whom have extensive experience with the high school sports atmosphere and its results.
Created by: Adam Tong, Adam Shore, Ari Kaye, and Mary Minno.
This program was produced, filmed and edited by the Youth Advisory Council of the Media Center in Palo Alto, CA. (15:36)

http://www.communitymediacenter.net

Published 2008-03-30T12:37:00.001-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

YAC at KZSU

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The Youth Advisory Council goes to visit KZSU Stanford radio station. (34:25)

Published 2008-03-11T17:59:00.001-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

This was our second day of studio training and it went really well. I helped teach some of the other members of the YAC and we all learned how to use the cameras in the studio. We learned all sorts of different techniques like tilts, dollys, trucking and panning. We practiced these by following someone around with the camera and keeping them framed up in the shot. We also learned all the different locks on the camera and the tripod which is very usefull because it can be pretty bad if you forget how to unlock something like the tilt lock on the camera. We also learned all the different things a floor director does. We learned that a floor director is the voice of the director out in the stodio, because the director can't talk to the talent, the floor director tells them what the director wants them to do. Another thing we learned how to do is "Graphics" which is making the titles, tags, and credits of the show. The last thing we did that day was learn about the "Switcher". The switcher switches the camera angles from camera 1 to camera 2 to camera 3. It's up to the director to tell the switcher when to switch to each camera. It's a fun job and we had a lot of fun learning how to do all these new things.

Published 2008-02-13T17:42:00.000-08:00 by Mark Dreschke

Studio practice

Last Sunday, we concluded our practice in the studio with mock shows. I, Jeremy Geist, was the switcher, director, and floor director. Personally, I prefer to be switcher, but director is okay occasionally. It's a grueling job, though. Directors deserve to be paid a lot...

Next week we have off for President's Day. Hooray! This'll give me time to get the guest for Mark and my show...

Published 2008-02-11T08:56:00.000-08:00 by Jeremy

PAYC Field Production Training

This post is a week (or three) late but I will go ahead and enlighten you anyways. For those of you that did not come, we held a Palo Alto Youth Council training session for the members of the Council who are trying to produce their own video. Mark, Emily and Adam S. led the basic training session with additional help from Adam T. Following the training, we discussed the plans for the video and created a basic shooting and editing schedule. The amount of time they have to complete this project is very limited but we are hoping it will be done in time.

A very nice Sunday YAC session indeed.

Published 2008-02-10T15:53:00.000-08:00 by Adam S

Field Projects are complete and on the air!

The YAC has been working long and hard on their field projects and they're finally done and on the air! They also are on our website via live stream, for those of you who have relatives and friends outside the Media Center's service area. You can watch them at: http://www.communitymediacenter.net/watch/schedules/index.html

See the following dates and times:

STUDENT STRESS, Channel 28 (Available only on Comcast):

Fri, Feb 8th 8:00pm
Sat, Feb 9th 4:00am
Fri, Feb 15th 8:00pm
Sat, Feb 16th 4:00am
Fri, Feb 22nd 8:00pm
Sat, Feb 23rd 4:00am

EARTHQUAKES, Channel 28 (Available only on Comcast)

Mon, Feb 11th 8:00pm
Tue, Feb 12th 4:00am
Thu, Feb 14th 2:30pm
Mon, Feb 18th 8:00pm
Tue, Feb 19th 4:00am
Thu, Feb 21st 8:30am
Thu, Feb 21st 2:30pm

EARTHQUAKES and STUDENT STRESS, Channel 28 (Available only on Comcast)

Sun, Feb 10th 6:30am
Sun, Feb 17th 6:30am

Published 2008-02-08T12:57:00.000-08:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

The Sound @ The Media Center promo

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Check out The Sound @ the Media Center (1:00)

Published 2007-12-05T17:38:00.001-08:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

Pictures from our tour of KZSU Stanford Radio

Published 2007-12-04T16:26:00.000-08:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

This week

Hi. We are currently working in small groups on three different videos. My group (Mark, Sunia and I) are doing a feature on earthquakes. The other topics are student sleep, and sports. We just had someone come in and talk about screen writing, and that was interesting. It asks to include a recent experience in some aspect of media.. I guess recently we wrote our own little screen play, which was part of the screen play workshop last week. It was positive because we got to apply the skills we learned about in the class and get a feel for whether or not we enjoy screen writing. Some negatives were maybe that we were there a really long time. It was overall a pretty good experience so I wouldn't really change anything. As for project suggestions... after we finish our videos maybe we can start brainstorming good show ideas. Something we could do more of is maybe film critiquing just because that sounds fun.
See you all next week
-Isaac

Published 2007-12-03T15:28:00.000-08:00 by Isaac

Field Trip Last Week

Last week, six of us from the YAC took a trip to KZSU, the Stanford radio station. KZSU is actually located in a basement of a building, and from the outside doesn't look very impressive. Inside KZSU looked much more like a radio station and we had quite an unique experience there. We first got a tour from two staff members, whose DJ names were Sadie O and Fool. We got to view their impressive library of records, and view all of the equipment needed to run the station.

After the tour, Sadie O went on air with her radio show, and all six of us got to be her honorary guests. On live radio, we read Public Service Announcements, and also promoted the YAC, and explained why we joined it. Danielle also got to go on and discuss the different programs at the Media Center. After that, we all got to have a "round table" discussion with Fool about various off the beat topics, ranging from the topic of lightning to the founding of Stanford. I think the field trip was a success, as the experience of being on the radio was pretty cool. Everyone who went on air did a good job, and perhaps more than 10 people were listening to us.

Our projects seem to be coming along well, and I assume most groups are still gathering interviews. Hopefully we'll have the final product done by winter break.

Published 2007-11-14T20:03:00.000-08:00 by Ari

Not this week, but last week

sorry for the late blog, im a little overloaded with homework and barely have enough time to go to a computer. looks like i picked a good topic for the projects that were working on! (hint, hint) speaking of the projects, my group has inched a bit further, but still have a long way to go. other things that we have been up to is reviewing our interviews that we did the week before last and pointing out mistakes that both the interviewer and the interviewee have done. for example, when i was being interviewed i fidgeted a lot and that is a major no-no. oh well, maybe next time!

Published 2007-11-13T16:22:00.000-08:00 by jose

The Art of the Interview (Performing It--- and Getting It)

This week, as we embark on our first field project of the new semsester, a quick course in interviewing was included in our lesson plan

Most of us have a background in journalism, so for many of us it was a review, but new skills were taught and the rest of us refreshed our knowledge.

We are still very much in the planning phase, but so far our group (student stress) has made little progress.

I personally have contacted around twenty teachers (two replied) and am setting up an interview with the only one of those two who agreed to be interviewed. I will be sending out a different batch of e-mails tomorrow if the situation doesn't improve.

However, despite these setbacks, we have a team of qualified editors and skilled interviewers and once past the ever-irritating phase of coordination, the process should be smooth.

The other groups reported similar results although I do not have the details.

Published 2007-10-31T20:51:00.000-07:00 by Emily Glider

MC Youth Programs Featured in Paly Campanile

The Palo Alto High School student newspaper, The Campanile, recently ran a feature on the growing youth programs at the Media Center, with an emphasis on the YAC.

Media Center helps student movies shine
Palo Alto teen center offers students tools for success for future careers in the media

By Yelly Bitton of the Campanile

The studio is silent. The lighting is perfectly set. The sound check is done. Three, two, one, action.

Palo Alto High School senior Adam Shore is ready to shoot a television show at Palo Alto's Media Center's television studio. Shore has been involved with activities at the Media Center for over two years.

The Media Center is a non-profit public access television station. The local cable provider, currently Comcast Corporation, is required by California state law to give back to the community and does so in the form of public access media centers, such as the one on San Antonio Blvd. in Palo Alto...

To read the whole article, click here.

Published 2007-10-24T13:32:00.000-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

Hey hey hey!

This is Jeremy Geist, your source for all things YAC!

...For this week, anyways.

Today, we played some game that I've never heard of that involved yet more finger-guns, but it was yet quite fun. Somebody (I believe Danielle) brought a loaf of pumpkin bread, and I partook of it and enjoyed it.

On to the nitty-gritty. Today, we talked about what makes media so appealing, viewing a beer commercial (All of us are minors! Bitter irony!) on Youtube, and discussing about the appeal in both visual and sound. Then, we decided on topics for our field productions, coming up with:

A. Narrow escapes and attempted suicides
B. Teen stress. (I'm on this team)
C. High school sports and college sports.

Sorry my post isn't quite as long as the last guy's, but I'm not that great at blogging at length. Pleasure meeting you.

Published 2007-10-21T18:28:00.001-07:00 by Jeremy

The YAC

I'm Mark, and I am a junior leader for the Youth Advisory Council. The last time we met as a group, we made short in-camera editing films which means we filmed it all in order and didn't edit it together. This was an exercise to help us practice all the different camera techniques like panning and zooming. I've learned how to use a "boom mic" which was really useful because I wanted to learn how to mic someone without having that microphone show up in the video.

When we were first trying out the boom mic, we couln't get it to work for some reason. We found out how to control the sound of the microphone and our problem was fixed. Another problem we had was that we couldn't figure out how to turn up the sound on the built-in mic on one of the cameras, so it ended up being very quiet. We should be able to figure out what the problem was by asking someone at the Media Center and if we keep experimenting with the equipment I'm sure we'll find out what the problem was sooner or later.

There was one activity that we did where we had to go without Media for one whole day. That meant I couldn't watch any T.V. or listen to my ipod! I also had to avoid ads, billboards and posters because those are also considered as Media. It was hard to get rid of Media, but I had a lot of homework to get done anyway. I should have done the project on a day where I didn't have homework though, because then I would have seen how much I wanted to watch T.V. or listen to my ipod. After that I had one day where I was exposed to Media as I normally am. From doing this project I noticed how much Media I'm exposed to every day.

Published 2007-10-20T00:17:00.000-07:00 by Mark Dreschke

YAC2008 In-Camera Editing

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These videos were created using storyboarding and In-Camera editing techniques. They are a project for the field production segment of the YAC program.

Published 2007-10-17T14:45:00.001-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center

Welcome!

Welcome to the Media Center's YAC blog! Visit here often to see what the YAC is doing, read about current projects and recent activities, and see what they're learning each week. Check back soon as we upload completed video projects.

Danielle

Published 2007-10-15T18:00:00.000-07:00 by Midpeninsula Community Media Center