A recent news story in the paper was headlined “World to see W-B via videos.” I am all for the world seeing us. If it brings dollars to NEPA whether from new business or a tourist bring ‘em on I say. But I am troubled by this deal. The idea is that there will be video feed on the city’s website highlighting aspects of the city to entice people to come see for themselves. My problem? The videos are being produced by a firm called CGI Communications. CGI is from Rochester N.Y. I checked out their web site. They look like the real deal and have done this sort of thing across the country. The product looks very professional. Everyone is happy. Except me.
Now an important point is that no taxpayer dollars will be used for this project. Local business leaders will make it happen with donations. So what is my beef? Here it is in a nutshell. Why do we farm out something like this to Rochester N.Y.? Is it because we don’t have the expertise here in the “Valley” to do it? Now I am not a video guy, audio is more my field. But I have to guess that with firms like Pepperjam and Solid Cactus here who employ hundreds doing web stuff that somebody in town could do this important job. I just finished working with producers of a documentary on the life of Francis Slocum. My part was to record narration and music. The quality of this video is terrific. And it was done right here in good old NEPA. Now I am not saying that they guys and gals at CGI wouldn’t do a great job. They probably will. And I am not carping that the money is going out of town, although that is a shame. The problem is that no one knows us like we do. I have lived here for 27 years and I barely understand this area. It is in a word, unique. To expect someone from out of town to show us to the world is a lot to ask. It will take a lot of local involvement. Someone who knows and loves the area will have to be involved. I have seen many locally written blogs and some of them contain video of the area. Some of them are quite good. If amateurs can do this, why can’t we find LOCAL professionals to do the job? Or maybe the amateur efforts really are better. In any case we need to show the world what we have known all along. That this is a pretty good place to live, work and play. And about that I am not wrong.
Monday, March 3, 2008
We can do it, Hayna? or no.
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1 comment:
i love the area that we live in, but i have to say that it does not have anywhere near the diversity of culture that wb has. i really can't think of much of anything that they would make a film about around here other than maybe the country music scene, which really is just corporate culture at this point in the sense that it is manufactured.
we've got the whole civil war thing going on here... one of the biggest battles happened right down the road from where i live.
with MTSU (our local university) being larger than UT now... and vanderbilt in Nashville... you would think that there would be more of a celebration of cultural diversity like you have out your way.
one of the things that i really miss about NEPA is the different cultural festivals. we don't have any of that down here. a lot of music festivals... folk, jazz, country... etc... but no italian fest. i miss the canolis.
i also miss Old Forge pizza. no-one down here knows how to make a sheet pizza. that and soft serve ice cream. it's like no-one from here has ever even heard of it! they call it 'frozen custard', but it's not the same as a vanilla / chocolate swirl soft serve on a sugar cone with jimmies.
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