The Wyoming Kentwood Area Chamber of Commerce’s Government Matters meeting brings together all levels of government for discussion of current issues. WKTV covers it and offers it on-demand. (WKTV)
WKTV Staff
ken@wktv.org
News that Kent County is planning to add about 32 more employees, many in the Sheriff’s Office’s juvenile detention area, was one discussion item of a wide-ranging inter-governmental leaders meeting Monday, Aug. 13, at the Wyoming-Kentwood Area Chamber of Commerce’s Government Matters Committee’s monthly forum at Wyoming City Hall.
The monthly forum is free and open to the public, and allows public questions. Another topic discussed was the State Secretary of State’s office report on the results of the Aug. 7 primary election — which saw a record percentage of primary voter turnout.
The meeting is rebroadcast on WKTV’s channels and on-demand website (wktvondemand.com). This month’s meeting is available here.
The Government Matters meeting brings together representatives from the cities of Wyoming and Kentwood, Kent County commissioners, local Michigan state senators and representatives, as well as often representatives of Michigan’s U.S. senators and U.S. congressman who represent the Wyoming and Kentwood area.
The next meeting will be Sept. 10 will be at the Wyoming City Hall, 1155 28th St. SW, from 8 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.
The intergovernmental discussion hosted by the chamber focuses on issues that effect residents and businesses in the two cities.
For more information about the chamber and Government Matters visit southkent.org .
The meetings are on the second Monday of each month, starting at 8 a.m. WKTV Journal will produce a highlight story after the meeting. But WKTV also offers replays of the Monday meetings on the following Wednesday at 7 p.m. on Comcast Cable Government Channel 26.
The City of Kentwood’s Celebrate Kentwood festival, held Saturday, Aug. 11, featured a return of the popular Kentwood’s Got Talent event — and WKTV’s cameras were there.
Kentwood’s Got Talent will air on WKTV 25 on Tuesday, Aug. 21 at 9 p.m. and Saturday, Aug. 25 at 7 p.m.
This year’s festival was a jam-packed day of events at City Hall and the Kent District Library’s Kentwood (Richard. L. Root) Branch featuring family-friendly activities, local food vendors, community booths, a beer garden and live music.
Also returning to the annual festival was a classic car show and Kentwood’s Got Talent. Modeled after the popular TV show, the talent competition will feature singers, dancers and other performers from the community.
Featured talent from around West Michigan took the stage at noon for Kentwood’s Got Talent, and the winner received a $500 cash prize. Contestants had up to five minutes to wow the judges with their talents.
WKTV is pleased to announce the newest program to the station’s line-up, “The Quilt Show” premieres tonight, January 20, at 6:30pm. Tutorials for the program were recorded in 2014 at the Quilts on the Grand Show. When last we left the intrepid WKTV crew on location at the DeltaPlex, they were videotaping demonstrations for “The Quilt Show.” Routines had settled down a bit, everyone was working together beautifully, inevitably this was the perfect time for the equipment to go haywire. So now the scene is set for the second day of taping on location, as told by producer Thomas Hegewald. Enjoy.
Making of “The Quilt Show,” Part 2
Quilts at the DeltaPlex Arena before the crowd shows up
The second day of recording we were more relaxed. Since the site was secured over night, we had left everything but the cameras in place. However, something unexpected happened that second day just as we powered up to get everything ready. Communication from the truck to the cameras didn’t work. In short, the camera operators couldn’t hear me direct them as to which shots to focus on or when their shots were were “on”, or being recorded.
Setting up for the next tutorial at the DeltaPlex
Added to that, the main, centrally located camera on the talent, or demonstrator, lost power shortly before we started recording. This was also the one back-up camera we were using to record the entire show in case something went wrong with the other cameras. This left us with only three cameras – one shooting an overview of the table and one camera on each side of the table for cross shooting projects and products on the table.
Tutorials were recorded in front of a live audienctable.
Because of the 40” monitors on the sides of the table, the camera operators could see which camera I was currently using for the program and knew when to hold their shot. In today’s tech savvy world, my audio operator sent texts to one of the camera operators, who happened to be her husband, relaying my directions to him for when and how to change shots. Midway through that first show, the fourth camera came back on-line, but we never did get the communications systems to work again.
We recorded six shows the first day and three the second. In between shows we transferred the footage to an external hard drive that the Guild had purchased. Once all of the shows were done, we spent over an hour packing everything up and loading it back into the truck.
The Super Suite editing station at WKTV
I began the process of editing the next day. While we had provided a Q&A portion at the end of each show, I decided to cut it out. We couldn’t get a microphone to participants quickly enough to hear the question and the audience wasn’t lit for recording, both of which created moments of silence for the demonstrator while listening. We could put two short shows together to broadcast in a half hour time slot for television broadcast. The shows would also be an easier to transfer to the internet if they were shorter.
I finished editing the shows mid-December and met with some of the West Michigan Quilters’ Guild members to review them. For the next two weeks I made a few changes based on the feedback and exported them in formats compatible for broadcast and internet posting.
We all learned a lot going through this process. It was bigger and broader than some expected and full of details and technical issues that weren’t always predictable.
Producer / Director Thomas Hegewald directing “The Quilt Show”
We’re already discussing how we would do it differently for the next show in 2016, including rehearsals for the demonstrators and crew. Using equipment from WKTV allowed us to try it out, make the mistakes and learn from them. In this way we produced something bigger than we could have done on our own, for very little cost, while at the same time we produced something worthwhile for the Guild and the community.
Editor’s note: If you would more information about training at WKTV so that you can produce your own shows, please call 616-261-5700. You also can produce a show for yourself and the community!
