The Wonderful World of Public Access
Television is bad. The programming is mindnumbingly terrible, correct? Yet, therein lies an even harsher beast, the land of Public Access. Nearly anyone who can manage to burn images onto magnetic tape and find transportation to the studio can have a program on television thanks to Public Access. It has always done for television what the internet now does for everything: allow any shmuck to parade his/her creations across the airwaves. This is both fabulous and frightening. Horrendous things even worse than Flash intro movies on geocities websites can be found in the world of public television. There is, of course, the occassional gem if one wishes to wade through the morass of sediment and feces. Well, The Marvelous World of Moodoo will soon shuffle into the excretory mix. Perhaps we will be the gold nugget, but we may be no more than fool’s gold. Time will tell.

Monday night, the Moodoo Crew made our way to Adelphia Public Access in Eagle Rock. We had two hours to setup, shoot, and get out (although we sort of squeezed in an extra half hour). Using their studio and equipment we attempted to shoot our 30-minute puppet show. Anyone with any knowledge of video/film production knows this is a hefty ordeal. In the end, despite a camera problem with a DV unit Mike rented, we did shoot the entire show. Much of it turned out quite well. There are a number of pickup shots we need to make to cover up some holes. Despite the best efforts of our camera crew, shooting a mass of puppets and humans flailing about in close quarters is a tough job. It is impossible to always have the correct camera shooting the ideal shot. They did a great job regardless and only a few segments need reworking. Hopefully, one more session in the studio will lead to a final product. Then, we shall appear on Public Access. Hopefully, the pitching for a full-fledged television series on network/cable will begin soon thereafter.