TUTV is excited to kick off Bell Tower Record Rundown, a new series featuring music videos, live music performances, and other highlights from the local music community. Bell Tower Music is a non-profit record label run by Temple students through which artists are promoted and managed free of charge in exchange for their music being placed on iTunes U and the Bell Tower Music website.
The series premiere will air on Monday Dec. 3 at 12:30 p.m. It will be aired alongside The Essential Songs of Philadelphia, a show on songs recorded in Philadelphia or written and performed by Philadelphians, and High Kick and David Aime, a compilation of musical performances by Temple alumni, to round off the TUTV Music Hour on Monday afternoon. Watch on Comcast channel 50, Verizon 45 or online.
Film Versus Film is a lively, humorous and passionate discussion series centering on popular cinema. The show’s panel is made up of filmmakers, professors, film critics and film scholars. The panel’s discussions emerge from tongue-in-cheek, pop culture-oriented “categories” like Best Twist Ending Of All Time, Film Failure that Should Have Spawned a Great Franchise, Most Unpleasant Christmas Movie, and Hammiest Performance Ever by a Film Actor. The show has been airing on TUTV every Friday at 12:30 p.m. and you can watch ten episodes online on TempleTV.net.
The series has been shot in Philadelphia, and features professor Dustin Morrow, professor and film scholar Chris Cagle, media activist and documentarian David Cooper Moore, and journalist and film critic Matt Prigge.
This year, celebrate Thanksgiving by watching classic movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood on TUTV. Airing on Comcast channel 50, Verizon 45 and online, TUTV will be airing special programming starting at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 22.
In between waiting for the pumpkin pie to finish baking and putting in the turkey, catch The March of the Wooden Soldiers (also known as Babes in Toyland), a lavish Laurel and Hardy feature about an enchanted fantasy world inhabited by two hapless toy makers. Then, don’t miss Father’s Little Dividend, a 1951 comedy and sequel to Father of the Bride, starring Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, and a young Elizabeth Taylor. Rounding out our marathon is My Dear Secretary, a 1948 film starring Kirk Douglas as a bestselling novelist and playboy who tries to change his philandering ways after he woos and marries his latest of many secretaries.
We caught up with Temple University Media Studies & Production graduate student Gino Canella to learn more about the documentary he shot while studying abroad in England in the summer of 2012. The British Pub, Inc. is a beautifully shot film featuring several interviews with pub enthusiasts and workers who paint a picture of the past and present of the pub industry. At once informative and intimate, Canella’s film captures the undying enthusiasm of British pub-goers even as times change and the economy fluctuates. It was presented at this year’s Global Temple Conference on Nov. 14 and airs on TUTV on Friday, Nov. 16.
Why did you make this documentary? What drew you to this subject and what made you want to put it on film?
After working in television news for eight years, I always said I wanted to produce a documentary. I think it’s an incredibly powerful genre that allows you to tell personal stories that speak to larger social issues. I knew a little about the British pub, but my understanding was more superficial–fish and chips and a couple of pints. After shooting this documentary, I have a more well-rounded view of what the pub means as a cultural institution to the people in the UK. At first, I didn’t know exactly how I was going to focus this piece, but knew the pub would be the foundation for the story because it’s a fantastic way to get to know the people. It wasn’t until I started shooting and interviewing pub customers and consumer groups that I narrowed down the issue of pub ownership and management structures.
What do you personally think are the main differences between bar/pub culture in America and the UK?
Pub culture in the UK is a social experience that is centered on community. Yes, there is drinking, but the focus is on people, meeting your neighbors, relaxing and having a conversation. A traditional British pub won’t have music or TVs, so you’re forced to talk with the person next to you. I do think there are great neighborhood bars in America–and especially in Philadelphia–that offer the same kind of friendly environment. British pub customers and bartenders are probably more likely to chat up a stranger, while it may take time to get to know the local bartender in an American bar.
Did you learn anything or meet anyone especially fascinating along the way?
I learned a lot of great things, not only about pub culture and British ales, but also about London that I don’t think I would have otherwise. I think the most interesting thing I learned was at the Great British Beer Festival when I heard the history of public houses in the UK. Geoff, the tour guide at Fuller’s, was a wealth of information and really added a unique voice to the documentary. I’m always so grateful to people who share their personal stories with me on camera, but Nick Roger was especially friendly and critical to the production of the documentary. A former colleague at ABC News introduced me to Nick. He was so nice, picked me up at the train station in Berkhamstead, and proceeded to drive me around town and take me to a small village pub. I’m forever grateful for his help.
There are many characters in this film; was there anyone in particular you liked the best?
Besides Nick and Geoff, Dave Clark has to be the most memorable character. He was extremely candid about sharing his business experience as a pub manager and I think his perspective was so valuable for the story I was trying to tell. The big chain pubs are making it so difficult for independent, village pubs like The Windmill to survive. Dave expressed the sentiment of probably a lot of pub managers perfectly.
What were your favorite beers that you tried in the UK?
British ales are definitely an acquired taste. They are not carbonated and served at room temperature. Drinking “flat”, warm beer is not like anything you would drink at an American bar. I tried to sample a lot of different beers so I don’t know if I have a favorite. British pub customers call unique beers and sampling a “tick”, because if you try something you’ve never seen, you “tick” it off your list. ESB from Fuller’s was pretty good if I had to pick one, though.
What connection would you say does this film to what you’re studying at Temple University?
I don’t know if there is a connection with Temple University, but I definitely see parallels between pub ownership/management and my graduate studies. I enjoy finding “theory in practice”–relevant issues in society that speak to what I’m learning in class. In my Media Institutions course for example, we talk a lot about media corporations, the consolidation of media firms and what implications these business structures have for consumers. This is clearly playing itself out in the UK’s pub industry. Financial tough times 3-4 years ago forced a lot of pubs to close or sell out to chains. This means less choice for the consumers and less quality and diversity in the pub market. I don’t want to give the impression that all pubs in the UK look like Starbucks because great pubs are everywhere in London, but the standardization of an industry should be something consumers are more aware of.
What do you prefer in a bar?
I say it’s not where you are but who you’re with that really matters. Whether it’s a dive bar, neighborhood pub with a great selection of craft beers, or a wine bar, I’m happy as long as I’m having drinks with good-time friends.
TUTV will now be airing “Miss Carmen San Diego,” a music video shot by Jake Rasmussen, writer and co-creator of The Grog Show, in one take, featuring Sebastian Ade, who wrote the song. Read the interview below to learn more about how it was made.
Which class was this for?
Jake: It was for Moving Camera, a film course where we learn different techniques of shooting, such as using Steadicam rigs, Dollies and other rigs. It was an assignment called “Long Take”, where we had to create a shot that had no cuts in it, and was continuous. This worked for the project, since it was a steady 20-minute shot from beginning to end.
Tell me about how you shot the video.
Jake: It took a lot preparation. I slowed down the song so instead of being 2 minutes, it was 20 minutes. I used the Pro Tools session that I recorded him in, stripped out the guitar so it was only his voice, and then added in cues for him to bounce off of while filming. Then, I gave him this 20-minute version one week before filming, so he could rehearse. I put the long version on two iPods for shooting day. I used my HDV camcorder and a Steadicam from class to film this. We took a taxi down to Boathouse Row on Kelly Drive. I gave him one of the iPods, and then behind the camera I have ear buds in my ears too. We listened to the same 20 min track, and in the beginning of the music video you hear me saying the tracks are in sync. Finally, I set up the frame, and just tracked backwards while he walked normally, yet sang very slowly with the slowed song.
How many takes did you have to do?
Jake: We only did one take. While filming, I was listening closely to my iPod to make sure he was staying in sync, and since I didn’t see any errors, I said, “Alright, it’s cold. That was perfect. Let’s go home!”
How did you get it to sync up correctly?
Jake: This was tricky. Though the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. Since I slowed the song down from 100% (normal speed) to 10% (slow speed), the ratio was 10:1. Therefore, if I wanted to flip it around and make what was filmed fast and what was slow to appear normal, the speed would need to be multiplied by 10. After importing the 20-minute footage, I sped up the speed at 100% (normal speed) to 1000% (fast speed), and it worked perfectly. I practiced before filming just to make sure all of this would work.
When did you write/record the track in the video?
Sebastian: I wrote the song spring semester of my freshman year, and we recorded it the same semester. A friend of mine, Michael Johnson, actually accompanied me in the recording. He is an awesome guitarist!
What is the significance behind the song?
Sebastian: My main inspiration for all the songs I write are my friends and the stories I hear. I don’t have that many stories about love, but there is a lot to be said about the picture I paint about heartbreak and being in love. My songs are about what goes on in my head when I do think about infatuation, loss, and falling in love. “Carmen San Diego” is about loving someone who doesn’t take you seriously. Someone who is leading you on and can move on just like that. So I call her Carmen San Diego because she is smooth and mysterious like the TV character Carmen Sandiego.
How does songwriting fit into your studies?
Sebastian: The art of storytelling is still something that I trying to get a good grip on. It’s hard! For a TV show, you have to tell a story in half an hour to an hour. In pop songwriting, you have less than 10 minutes. Commitment-wise, it’s hard to do both. Some weeks I’ll write one verse to a song. When I’m not busy doing homework and I’m inspired, I could write three songs in two hours. However, it’s hard to find the time to really work on music. I know it’s there though.
Why did you two decided to team up?
Sebastian: Jake lived in my hallway freshman year and always made videos. I would always help him with his projects. He is good at what he does, so when he reaches out to me for help I trust that he will make both of us look good.
Why a music video?
Sebastian: If you put a filmmaker in a room a musician, what would you expect? I feel like it combines both of our strengths equally.
Jake: I have had this idea for a while, so it fit perfectly for this project in a long take. I loved his song and thought it was perfect for this idea I had.
How did you decide the location?
Sebastian: I have never walked on Kelly Drive and Jake was explaining how the scenery is nice and how there are runners and cyclist there all the time. It seemed appropriate for the concept he envisioned.
Jake: I wanted to pick a location that I have never shot at before, and get off campus. I also needed an area that I could follow some sort of path on, so that way I could concentrate on the shot and follow a walkway. Plus, I thought Kelly Drive would be cool to see the heavy traffic speed by when sped up.
Tuesday, November 6th is a day of decision for this nation and TUTV News will bring you complete, LIVE coverage during America Votes. Temple Update Student Reporters will provide the latest information from polling places in our community and have the full election night story from campaign headquarters across our region. A unique collaboration between two courses in Temple’s Journalism Department, Crossroads and Experimental Journalism, will offer viewers street smart, long form stories and insightful, LIVE interviews from our News Studio.
Join TUTV News on cable–Comcast channel 50, Verizon channel 45– or online and on your mobile devices at 8:30 PM EST on Election Night to get the full story of of how and why America votes.
The Dalai Lama of Tibet will address more than 1500 invited guests on Tuesday, October 16, at the Kurukulla Center in Medford, MA, which will be live-streamed from Temple University’s channel, TempleTV, on Philly In Focus from 10 a.m. EST to 3:30 p.m. EST.
To watch the Dalai Lama’s address live, tune into to Philly In Focus.
Temple TV is excited to team up with Philly in Focus, a local content partner, to present this speech by the 14th Dalai Lama, who has spoken in the past on such topics as environment, economics, women rights, non-violence, and interfaith dialog. TUTV shows and videos have been featured on Philly in Focus since the latter’s inception.
NOTE: TUTV is presenting this special programming as part of our commitment to providing coverage of significant news events and as part of our mission to provide the online audience with educational content.
About Philly In Focus & Made in Medford
Philly in Focus is a multimedia platform dedicated to connecting the Philadelphia community through the video and interactive media of its groups, institutions and programs. Philly In Focus is part of Project Open Voice (POV), a pilot program from Comcast that brings organizations together across web, mobile, social media and cable television outlets. For more information, please visit www.phillyinfocus.com.
Made in Medford, a community driven online video network, is the media partner for the event. Made In Medford and Philly In Focus are local arms of Project Open Voice, a pilot program from Comcast dedicated to strengthening local communities through the video and interactive media of its groups, institutions and programs.
On September 22, Temple University student Lauren Hertzler and Journalism Professor Shenid Bhayroo won in the Long Form: Fiction/Non-Fiction category of the 2012 Mid-Atlantic Emmy’s for a documentary on Temple’s Study Away South Africa program. The program immerses Temple University students in South African culture while they conduct scholarly research papers and produce news stories on a range of cultural, social and political issues. The program is run by Bhayroo, who was the Executive Producer and Faculty Supervisor for the documentary.
The documentary has School of Media and Communication student Lauren Hertzler giving an overview of the experiences of the first students to be involved with the Study Away South Africa program. She gives a detailed look into the life of the students and their experiences from beginning to end, documenting the different activities that the program involves. Read more about Lauren and Shenid’s work and the program here.
Watch the award-winning film and more videos produced during the program here.
TUTV’s Web Manager invites Grog Show creators Jake Rasmussen and Karl Weimar to an urban picnic and asks them a few questions about themselves, their show, and their process.
For more information about Jake and Karl visit grogmovies.com.
The Grog Show Season 1 Review
The Grog Show, is a half hour comedy series centered on the misadventures of two college roommates. Created by and starring Temple students Jake Rasmussen and Karl Weimar, the series’ first season premiered last year on TUTV. Since then, we’ve watched as Jake and Karl are repeatedly clotheslined by freshman year’s typical hurdles. While these hurdles are familiar—a lack of employment, terrible parties, an inability to get along with a floor mate—Grog’s treatment of them is edgy and unexpected. In contrast to Temple Smash, a more straightforward sketch comedy show in the tradition of Saturday Night Live, The Grog Show’s absurdist sense of humor and self-referential structure makes it more reminiscent of Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric.
A typical Grog Show episode consists of one overarching plot punctuated by several unrelated segments. Most episodes have them at odds with their floor mate, played by Rakel Joyce, who is referred to simply as “The Neighbor.” As Jake and Karl move into their dorm in the first episode (“Neighbor”), they hear a loud noise in the next room. After meeting and unsuccessfully confronting Rakel, Jake and Karl take to sleeping outside on the sidewalk, which they agree is quieter than living next to her. They unanimously decide she is their nemesis, and spend most of the rest of the season deriding everything she says as ‘noisy’ and harassing her in various ways. The best parts of the season occur when Jake, Karl and Rakel are at odds, even as the dynamic shifts in “Relationship,” when Jake and Rakel date and Karl becomes jealous.
Other episodes/episode segments are both self-referential and surreal. In “Cereal,” Jake and Karl get their own brand of cereal, which, in the The Grog Show universe, is just what happens when you get 10 million views on Youtube.com. Episode 2, “Business,” features a short called “The Making of Viral Videos,” where a large film crew endeavors to create a clip for Youtube featuring a ‘fat kid’ tripping over a log. Episodes like these are peppered by a series of surreal pseudo-commercials, in which Karl (playing freelance spokesman “Johnny Popcorn”) endorses everything from a furniture warehouse to a presidential candidate. To anyone who’s ever enjoyed the low budget weirdness of those commercials that come on your local NBC affiliate at 2AM, Karl’s nonsensical catch phrases (“We’re really heeere!”) will sound hilariously familiar.
Later in the season The Grog Show featured shorts of a more serious nature. Often directed by Ryan Geffert, they are more experimental and emotionally charged than the silly interludes that prevailed previously. A film like “The Waitress,” which is fraught with a mysterious tension between an older man and a young waitress, doesn’t quite fit in with the zany humor that is The Grog Show’s specialty. However, for those interested in seeing more creative student films, Ryan’s work certainly fits the bill.
Overall, The Grog Show’s first season is a truly entertaining ride, especially considering it is produced, directed, written and acted by college undergraduates. While you can see Jake and Karl’s comic adventures on TUTV, every episode of The Grog Show is available on Templetv.net, so catch up on the first season and watch the first three episodes of season 2 right now.
Terri Martin, a Temple University employee, has been feeding stray and abandoned cats on Temple’s campus for the past five years. She has sent 300 cats to good homes and spayed and neutered many more.
TUTV will be following her through her daily routine feeding and rescuing cats to create a series on Temple Cats, the group that Terri created to help Temple’s homeless cat situation. Keep an eye on this space to see updates on Terri and the felines she helps protect.
Five Temple University students and one professor from Temple’s School of Media and Communications (SMC) will travel to England for the London Olympics Television Workshop. They will cover life in the city during the Olympic games and send their stories back to Philadelphia for broadcast on Temple Television (TUTV) each Tuesday and Thursday at 7 p.m. beginning July 26 and continuing for the duration of the Olympics, which ends Aug. 12.
You can learn more about this project from the students themselves by reading the T@TLO blog, which will document their impressions of working in a foreign country during a large scale international event.
Tune in to TUTV on Independence Day from 1-5 p.m. for a Grog Show marathon! Watch it on Comcast channel 50 or Verizon channel 45 or click here to watch it online.
New Episode “Travolta” will be aired on Saturday, May 19 at 04:30 P.M.
Jake and Karl have to deal with a new, more popular show, “Gaffer’s Tape” emerging and steeling their viewership. To remedy this drop in viewers, Jake and Karl target the new “chick” demographic. In order to do some market research, Jake dresses as John Travolta from Grease, and attempts to win the heart of his Olivia Newtown-John by recreating movie circumstances. A surprising turn of events leaves Jake torn between a woman who mildy resembles Olivia Newton-John, and the success of his own television program…
Please enjoy and share the music video of “Fukkatsu no Uta” – “The Song of Rising,” written by BTMM Associate Professor Jack Klotz. It offers a message of hope, as well as a way the world can continue to support those still suffering from the disaster. The song is sung in Japanese and the video provides an English translation of the lyrics. This animated video was created by Temple staff member Naoko Masuda and undergraduate Tyler School of Art student Natsumi Kitano.
Make a gift and download the music
If you like this song, you can make a gift of any amount in support of the Temple Japan Relief Fund (description of the fund below) and get a free download of the song. To make a gift, click the link below:
On March 11, 2011, the lives of countless people in Northeastern Japan changed forever when an earthquake and tsunami decimated the region and sparked a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
In the wake of the disaster, Temple University created the Temple Japan Relief Fund to help those most impacted by the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami, including Japanese students studying at Temple campuses, as well as students, staff, faculty and their families in Japan experiencing the hardships of being displaced from housing or experiencing food, health or financial challenges. It also serves to provide funding for financial aid for students studying in disaster areas in Japan who would like to continue pursuing a university degree at one of Temple University’s campuses.
Over the past year, four Japanese students affected by the disaster have benefitted from the generosity of those who have supported the fund. The students from Miyagi and Chiba prefectures who suffered economic hardship as a result of the March 11 disasters are currently attending classes at Temple’s Japan Campus in Tokyo.
While much progress has been made, there is still a long journey ahead for the people of Northeastern Japan and Temple will continue its efforts to assist in any way possible.
Wednesday, Feb 1st @ 12:30PM
Athletic dunks. Last second shots. And a major upset. Three things that make basketball absolutely irresistible. Each one is featured in this episode of Temple Basketball: Above the Rim. Follow the Temple Owls as they wrap up a difficult non-conference stretch with its biggest game of the year against #5 Duke at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia.
