MONDAY June 16th at 11pm marks the start of a very special cable TV program for anyone living in south Orange County.

If you happen to live in the COX cable TV area (south Orange County) that will be your first chance to tune to channel 31 and see the very first episode of a new TV program produced and edited by me (Liam Kennedy, OCA Webmaster).

above... some stills from the first episode.
Top right - Chris Butler, lower left Monsignor Royer (note use of
infrared mode to show speaker in almost total darkness)

Since the beginning of 2003 I have been looking at new ways the OCA can extend its reach into the community by getting our message onto public access cable. We can only fit so many people into the lecture hall at Chapman University and Cox's public access channel can reach up to 250,000 homes in south Orange County. So... Late in January I got certified to produce content for airing on COX Channel 31 (public access) and since that time I have been experimenting with a few different ideas I had for content for the program.

The first episode that I have created is basically an edit of the May meeting of the OCA. That meeting contains the What's Up presentation by Chris Butler along with the main talk by Monsignor Royer. With some editing, the entire meeting fits nicely into a 60 minute program.

What are the airing dates/times for episode 1?

You can see the program on COX Channel 31 at the following dates/times

Monday June 16th at 11pm
Tuesday June 24th at 10:30pm
Tuesday July 1st at 10:30pm
Tuesday July 8th at 10:30pm

Future Episodes

Hopefully I will be able to air further OCA meetings in future episodes of the program. However I do expect that most months I will only be able to fit the main speakers presentation onto a 60 minute tape. I may then also see if I can create two programs a month. One will contain the What's Up presentation and will be a separate 30 minute program.

I need YOUR help.

Although I produced this first episode pretty much independently I am looking for further member support to help me create future episodes.

In particular the filming of the OCA Meetings will now take on a more professional and higher profile role than it has in the past. Up until now I have been filming the event using just one camera. As you will see when you watch the first episode, I have used two cameras to create a more immersive experience for the TV audience of the meeting. My Wife, Anna Kennedy, has always been there to help with the filming and does a fantastic job. But going forward I am going to need another videographer (in fact a pool of videographers would be best.. so we can all take turns and not burn out just one or two members)

If we are to achieve the best result for the TV program the audio/visual support of the OCA meetings needs to be brought up to a professional level also. The standard practice for many years has been to rely upon the VP of the club to act as the A/V person at the meetings. I know that Joel Harris (current VP) will not mind at all if I take this role off his hands. He can then concentrate on taking care of the speaker and on other aspects of the meeting.

I also plan to expand the content of the program(s) to include specially created pieces filmed in a studio environment (Greg Pyros, OCA Member, has very generously donated the use of his studio to help in this project).

All of these developments are going to require considerable support. To this end I am planning on creating a new special interest group in the club specifically tasked with the development of future episodes of "Look Up Tonight". This new SIG of course has the support of the OCA Board (I discussed this at the past couple of board meetings).

The new SIG will not have an official name as of yet... as I would like those interested in joining it to come up with the official name. For now let's just call it the "Look Up Tonight SIG". I don't expect the SIG to be very large, or require anyone to have very extensive credentials in the video business, so I would welcome any OCA Member who finds this whole idea interesting and feels they can spare some time to help out.

If you are interested in this project... please email me.