“… it fractures you as a human.” – New Quote I Love

Interview – #EmiliaClarke ‘The best place in the world is backstage at a theatre’
by #KathrynBromwich @kathryn42

Reading this #CoolInterview of #EmiliaClarke: ‘The best place in the world is backstage at a theatre’ by @kathryn42 //Ahead of her British stage debut in The Seagull, the Game of Thrones star talks about her self-doubt as the hit show took off, her decision to write about her brain aneurysms – and showing her love through baking//. And I’m adding a new addition to my collection of Quotes I Love.

“In stage work, it’s every cell of your body, it’s a 360 feeling. On screen, it’s so often your left eyeball, your right shoulder – it fractures you as a human.” – Emilia Clarke (1986- ) (interview)

Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall in Studio Q

What a fascinating interview with “Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall in Studio Q”

* Toronto.com, Review: Private Lives is sexy, stylish and smart

* New York Times, “An Enduring Marriage of Wit and Lust”

* CTV (with video), “Paul Gross, Kim Cattrall launch ‘Private Lives’ in Toronto“

KOMU Sarah Hill Google+ Hangouts – General insights

Background

It has been my pleasure to attend a number of KOMU anchor Sarah Hill‘s interesting Google+ newsroom Hangouts since July 19, 2011. In this detailed article, I will try to share some of my general experiences, observations, and insights. To help this article flow better and less bogged down by highly technical ideas/solutions, I am gathering my technical-orientated observations and suggestions in a separate article.

Since Google+ (and its Hangouts) is a new tool that is only one month old, these notes only reflect my initial thoughts/impressions. I expect my views will be changed later when I learn more. I’ve tried to reference ideas I read elsewhere as best as I can by providing crediting them and provide links to them.

Location, what Location? – Think Global, Act Local

I first heard of KOMU and Sarah likely from “5 Ways Journalists Are Using Google+” (July 17th, 2011 Mashable article). On the internet, the location really doesn’t matter. I live in Calgary, Canada and I participated in KOMU-TV newsroom Hangouts in Columbia, MO. And through Sarah, I’ve got to know and Hangout with Angie Bailey, KOMU Anchor, Stephen Clark (Detroit, WXYZ TV), Amy Wood, (South Carolina, WSPA TV), and KOMU Interactive Director Jen Reeves. Where they are “physically located” have no impact on our interactions at all.

By attending these newsrooms Hangouts, I have now hungout with people from around the world. People who joined from different parts of US, Canada, and Europe. So far, no Asian countries because of time zone differences, I suppose.

Will evening news stay as “appointment television”?

I heard the use of “appointment television” from one of the television executives attending Banff World TV Festival a few years ago. Here is an useful definition,

“appointment television: the decision of tv viewers to schedule their time so that they watch a specific program at a specific time“

With the advent of around the clock news websites (often with videos) updates from major national and international news outlets (BBC, CNN, Guardian, etc), plus the local newspapers getting into the same game (with video), the evening news, especially for the younger people, are no longer “appointment television“.

The viewers won’t want to be locked into watching news at a fixed time, from one news source when they can and are getting news from many different reliable sources online, whenever they want.

I believe the “commodification of news” is close to done. Many news programs are working hard to differentiate their news programs by supplementing “regular” news that they must report (even most people have heard/read elsewhere) by adding special unique segments, panel discussions, etc. For example, in Canada, CBC National “At Issue” panel (a political panel of 2-3) or “Rex Murphy” segment (like 60 Minutes’ Andy Rooney).

I should emphasize, I write this section with an optimistic mindset as I don’t believe not “appointment television” is entirely bad. I believe there are new ways to make money in this new time. Stories may need to be packaged differently. Ads need to be sold differently. In the next section, I will talk about two ways to make money.

How to make money? – Revenue Generation

One thing I enjoy a lot from Sarah‘s Hangouts is the brain storming sessions. When the environment is open and the participants are engaging, the sessions can be very illuminating and productive.

Some people suggested the following ways to generate revenue (make money) online,

Kinky Clown – Siobhan McCarthy

Siobhan McCarthy is another content creator & producer that I met at 2007 Banff and we literally had only a few minutes to chat briefly. Underneath her cheerful exterior, I sensed also a determine and creative person that mean business and will get the job done.

So it is my pleasure to share with you a new YouTube clip that Siobhan has created. Here is a brief intro with the clip link.

In “Blyss Gets Her Pony” [K: Warning: Adult themed content. Don’t click on the link if you are easily offended.] Blyss, the kinky clown of www.blyssfulproductions.com finally finds the love of her life- Sweetness! The pony she was always promised! Yes we Are “The Freaks of The Industry” and you LOVE IT! There is a lot going on in Blyss land. Pride events, more webisodes are in the works, Blyss/ Siobhan is just back from Calgary and intends to be in Toronto the week of July 23 [2007]. See you on facebook and myspace! Please don’t forget to follow your Blyss…..

Crazy People – David Cormican

My friend David Cormican from Year of the Skunk productions (we first met at 2007 Banff) just emailed and told me some great news. He has been selected to be one of ten finalists to pitch his series Crazy People in the Just for Pitching Event as part of the 2007 Just for Laughs Festival (this is big league stuff in comedy) in Montreal at the Hyatt Regency on July 19th, 2007! If you are in Montreal and love comedy, check him out.

David, my best wishes to you. Remember to sign me lots of autographed photos so I can eBay them when you go big. (smile) Seriously, good luck and I am keeping my fingers crossed for you.

To Each His Own Cinema – Cannes 60th Birthday

I promised myself to go to Cannes one day to present a film of mine. OK, thats a tall order. May be just to be part of Cannes, as a filmmaker producer friend of mine highly recommended this experience.

Here is a Variety report of the 33 three-minute short films made by “leading international auteurs on the occasion of the Cannes Film Festival’s 60th birthday“. Following is an excerpt on the two Canadians on the list, Atom and David,

Also rating high marks are contributions from Atom Egoyan, in which two people in separate cinemas phone each other images of the films they’re watching …

Occupying a provocative, confrontational zone all its own is David Cronenberg‘s intense piece, in which the director himself appears as “the last Jew in the world in the last cinema in the world” preparing to commit suicide on television while commentators blather on dispassionately about Jews and cinema. [K: I love some of David’s out there cinema. Including his quite daring Crash (1996), eXistenZ (1999), and the new “normal” A History of Violence (2005).]

And I don’t think any filmmakers and the press at Cannes will forget the frustrated Roman Polanski walking out from press conference. I have excerpted a wonderful exchange between the new and the old titans here for the record [K: emphasis mine],

The Overcoat at Theatre Calgary

My better half and I were invited to a wonderful performace of The Overcoat at Theatre Calgary a few days ago. It was full of energy and the live performance is not to be missed.

You can check out their promo video here, but I can assure you that the live performance looks a lot better than the video as the energy and style of performance are tricky to capture on video.

Here is an excerpt from the Calgary Herald (emphasis mine),

You could say the show that opened on Friday at the Max Bell Theatre beggars description.

Or you could say that The Overcoat represents a stunning, dazzling and altogether unique theatrical achievement, the likes of which we have never witnessed on a Calgary stage.

Either way, The Overcoat — a work of insanely inspired genius, co-created and directed by Morris Panych and Wendy Gorling — constitutes a detailed exemplar of mind-blowing entertainment.

In other words, it’s a real knockout.

You still have till May 5th to check this out, highly recommended. For tickets and more info, check their site.

Mary Pickford is coming to Calgary

Tracey Power (Performer/Writer) and the creative company are bringing back the engaging and excellent play “Living Shadows — A Story of Mary Pickford” to Calgary (showing from 13th Sept to 23rd Sept, check here for tickets info) after a successful run at the 2006 Calgary Fringe Festival last month.

As I blogged previously in my August 20th entry, the play (and Tracey’s performance) was very engaging to me. Before I watched the show, I was feeling indifferent about Pickford, but by the end of the show, I actually care about Mary Pickford as a person. So go check out this wonderful piece of live theatre in Calgary. I think you will like it. (For me, I just love the show!)

Starstruck by Guy Kawasaki, Mary Pickford & P.S.69

I was totally starstruck today by three stars yesterday.

* Guy Kawasaki
First off, the great Guy Kawasaki (also known as Mr. Garage.com), left the symbolic first message on my blog yesterday. You can’t imagine how thrill I was. My WordPress blog was brand new and I got a comment from Guy already! Thats so cool. You see, Guy was extremely respected in the Mac/Apple community as he was the the Chief Evangelist and then Apple Fellow for Apple Computer. And Guy is also a founder and Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures (official name of Garage.com, a seed-stage and early-stage venture capital fund.).

So the fact that Guy (someone that I read and admire for 14 years) actually took time to read my blog entry and then send me a quick note really gave me a lot of encouragement. And I thanked Guy in a heart-felt reply that I wrote here.

* “Mary Pickford” & “P.S. 69”
I was then starstruck by “Mary Pickford” and “P.S. 69”. OK, more precisely, I was starstruck by the stars in two 2006 Calgary Fringe Festival shows last night (Sat 19 Aug) and I was wowed by the superb performances. These days, I don’t praise performances too easily (previewing over 130 films for the wonderful Calgary International Film Festival does that to me). So I think these two plays really earned my praise here.

* Living Shadows — A Story of Mary Pickford
First off, my two good friends Quynh-Mi & Allan and I went to see the play “Living Shadows — A Story of Mary Pickford” . As this show is performed by only one person (as it happens, so is our other play), therefore it has a chance to really really really suck or be really good.

Fortunately for us, Living Shadows was really good. Tracey Power (Performer/Writer) managed to engage me totally and make me care about Mary Pickford. I know of Pickford’s important role in United Artists but nothing much beyond that. So making me care, entertained and interested in the Mary Pickford’s story is no easy task. And Tracey plays so many characters at the same time which truly shows her acting abilities and understanding of the many roles in the play. Thanks to the wonderful performance of Tracey and the wonderfully creative company behind the show, last night I experienced “the charm and determination that is Mary Pickford”.

* P.S. 69
Then we went to the critically acclaimed show P.S. 69 (“a very funny examination of life as a substitute teacher in a Brooklyn school”). And we were not disappointed. Susan Jeremy (Performer/Writer) was so good and so funny that I was laughing out loud badly and at the same time was wowed by the 24 great characters that she magically sketched and created in front of our eyes.

As Susan is a real life teacher in NYC’s public school, I kept thinking about another NYC public school teacher last night — Frank McCourt. Although Susan and Frank came from totally different background and experience, but I can imagine the wonder that these public school kids must have experienced in their classes. I can imagine Frank and Susan’s ability to inspire their students to learn. By the way, if you haven’t read Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man (2005). I highly recommend you buy or borrow a copy of the Book CD from your local bookstore or library. Frank McCourt is a true master story teller and you can hear him tell his wonderful story in his Teacher Man. It was almost like sitting-in on one of his classes.

* The I-may-get-into-trouble note
Note: If your city, town or community hasn’t had the pleasure of seeing these two great shows yet, what are you waiting for? (big smile) Email Tracey or Susan, and they may be able to arrange something. By the way, I haven’t asked for Tracey’s or Susan’s permission to do this and I don’t know how fully booked they are. But I figure it is better to ask for forgiveness than not do anything. I truly hope you will enjoy these shows as much as I did.

Moving day

First of all, I managed to outgrow my first blog/website in only 21 days!

Here, after hours of transferring the old blog entries over (original post date listed), we are finally at the redesigned version 2.0 look of my blog/website. I think it looks better and cleaner. And most importantly, you can now easily leave your comments, feedback, and thoughts on a blog entry (good, bad, and ugly). And, I have also tried to put the entries under different categories so you can search for them easier. Plus you can my Flickr pictures on on the side, etc.

Please let me know what you think of this new site.